Hundreds of Marylanders gazed at the colorful Tibetan prayer flags that bedecked Baltimore’s Renaissance Hotel for Catholic Charities annual dinner Jan. 19, celebrating the distinguished service of two of its employees, one of its volunteers and a school full of students who have provided the elderly with enthusiastic companionship. Catholic Charities executive director Harold A....Read More

ROME – Catholics need solid preaching about Jesus, the cross and the church, and not “feel-good” spiritual advice that demands no sacrifice, said U.S. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee. Preaching well means challenging people’s complacency and, like Christ, occasionally “shaking things up,” Archbishop Dolan said in Rome Jan. 14. That cannot happen if preachers...Read More

Most people instinctively shudder when they learn that human cloning is currently legal in Maryland. But the definition of cloning, and why the church teaches that it is immoral, may not be clear.Read More

Stopping short of a merger, St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore and St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson are joining forces in a new strategic alliance hospital leaders say will improve quality and increase access to medical care in the Baltimore area and beyond. The partnership, called “Mission Health Partners,” will initially be made up of...Read More

When it comes to the worth of St. Ursula School volunteers, Sister Joan Kelly, S.N.D. de N., says she could never “put a dollar figure on it.” “They help as classroom volunteers, they work in the library, and they work in the lunchroom and schoolyard,” the principal of the Parkville school said. “They assist in...Read More

VATICAN CITY – A recent sermon by the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, took aim at John Lennon’s famous line, “Imagine there’s no heaven,” saying it represented an empty, secularized vision of human destiny. But an Italian biblicist, Father Carlo Buzzetti, has approached the question from a different angle: The modern church, he said,...Read More

WASHINGTON – Among four U.S. senators in Washington, there was optimistic talk of a bipartisan commitment to expand health coverage for the nation’s 9 million uninsured children. But 40 miles away at a Catholic hospital in Baltimore, there was more nitty-gritty talk of getting children into state and federal health programs – and keeping them...Read More

When Chelsea Tolley first started visiting women with developmental disabilities a few years ago at a group home operated by Catholic Charities’ Gallagher Services, the outgoing teen had a hard time making a connection with Joan. An elderly woman with bad knees, Joan refused to get in on the games, discussions and other activities led...Read More