ROME – Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics to rediscover the traditional “penitential weapons” of prayer, fasting and works of charity in order to make Lent a time of inner renewal. He made the comments during an Ash Wednesday Mass Feb. 21 at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in central Rome. The liturgy began with a...Read More

We just celebrated the feast of the Holy Family, and to some extent, this is a story of adoption. Our first adoption occurred Nov. 22, 2000. She arrived at the tender age of 4 months old because her mom, my niece, could no longer provide a caring and nurturing home for her children.Read More

LIMA, Peru – As Latin American Catholics celebrated the start of the new year with World Peace Day, their countries’ leaders seemed to be preparing for war.Read More

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed last month that this would be a Congress that remembers the children, I couldn’t help but think that this smart, savvy grandmother of 6, who now wields the most powerful gavel in the world, was forgetting someone – millions of unborn children.Read More

With a consistent congregation of more than 100 each week, a two-month pilot program offering a weekly Spanish Mass at St. Michael the Archangel, Overlea has become a permanent fixture on the parish’s schedule.Read More

Seconds after Seton Keough won the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference basketball championship last February, Amber Singletary looked at her coach, Jackie Boswell.Read More

The epiphany came around Thanksgiving. Colleen McDowell had reason to take stock. Her 2009 had been buffeted by a bout with cancer that had tested more than her physical health, shaking her independence, her routine and her self-admitted vanity.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI urged young people to express love in unselfish ways, looking past social goals of competition and productivity in order to become “witnesses of charity” in the world. He held out Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as an example of a Christian who translated love into concrete action to help the...Read More