PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Can a lesbian couple married under Massachusetts law allowing gay unions obtain a divorce in Rhode Island? That’s the issue before the state Supreme Court, and the decision will be significant enough that the court, in a rare act, invited arguments on specific questions.Read More

VATICAN CITY – For Pope Benedict XVI, the 2011 calendar already holds a full slate of meetings, liturgies and foreign trips.Read More

Tom Gibbons, a 35-year-old former parish council member of St. Matthew, Northwood, made first promises with the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, the Paulists, during an Aug. 4 Mass at St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C.Read More

NEW YORK – A Vatican court has found a suspended New York archdiocesan priest, Charles M. Kavanagh, guilty of sexually abusing a minor in the late 1970s and has dismissed him from the clerical state.Read More

Enabling the laity to take a more active role in ministry has been one of the highlights of the priesthood for Monsignor James O. McGovern, pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City.Read More

VATICAN CITY – In response to the “unimaginable” scandal of clerical sex abuse against minors, the church must reflect, repent, and do everything possible to rectify the injustices suffered by victims as it works to prevent such abuse from ever happening again, said Pope Benedict XVI.Read More

A funeral Mass for Sister Melvina L. Bennett, S.S.N.D., who served as an assistant director of Marian House, a residence and training program for women in transition, was held July 28 at Villa Assumpta in Baltimore. Sister Melvina died suddenly of complications from cancer at Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, July 23. She was 64.Read More

Shari Lynn Preston nodded out a window in the dining room at Our Daily Bread Employment Center in Baltimore.Read More