Page 1768 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

WASHINGTON – “You leave your family, you leave your friends, and you know that you’re going to be gone for two years,” said Patrick Furlong. “A lot changes. When I get back, I don’t know what it’s going to be like.”

Pope praises late Vietnamese cardinal

VATICAN CITY – As church officials prepared to open the sainthood cause for Cardinal Francois Nguyen Van Thuan, Pope Benedict XVI praised the late Vietnamese cardinal as a “singular prophet of Christian hope.”

DI coaches look at Patriot prospects

According to Anthony Macri, The John Carroll School, Bel Air, boys’ assistant basketball coach, the Patriots recently played host to 25 collegiate basketball coaches and staff during the first week of what is known as the “Open Period.” Sept. 9 marked the first date in the NCAA’s recruitment calendar that Division I schools have an opportunity to get off campus to make evaluations of potential prospects.

Fitness fuels the Lions’ success

Maryvale Preparatory School, Brooklandville’s head soccer coach, Billy Reinhardt, focuses on one thing to fuel the Lions’ success and that’s fitness. “When you’re physically fit, you think clearly and play clearly, especially under pressure,” said Reinhardt, who is entering his sixth season with the outdoor soccer team. The Lions compete in the IAAM B Conference and Reinhardt contends that this year’s team can confidently go toe-to-toe with teams from the A Conference.

Baltimore priest celebrates Mass for Jets players

Before the Baltimore Ravens faced the New York Jets Sept. 16, a Baltimore City priest celebrated Mass for the visiting team.

Second year of Why Catholic? begins

As the Archdiocese of Baltimore prepares to kick off its second year of Why Catholic? Sept. 30, coordinators for the evangelization and adult faith formation program held five regional training sessions last week and the nearly 50 participating parishes will hold Prayer Commitment Sunday Masses Sept. 23.

‘White Mass’ to be celebrated Oct. 21

The Baltimore Guild-Catholic Medical Association (BG-CMA) will celebrate its annual White Mass honoring St. Luke, patron of physicians, at 1 p.m. on Oct. 21 at the at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Congress keeps teachers in loan program

Catholic school teachers will be able to take advantage of a college loan forgiveness program after the U.S. Congress passed HR 2669 Sept. 7 – including nonpublic schoolteachers in the program. An earlier Senate version of the bill alarmed many Catholic educators by limiting the benefit to public school teachers.

Food, water must be provided to vegetative patients

VATICAN CITY – In a brief document approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican said it was generally a moral obligation to provide food and water to patients in a vegetative state. Nutrition and hydration, even by artificial means, cannot simply be terminated because doctors have determined that a person will never recover consciousness, the Vatican said Sept. 14. Exceptions may occur when patients are unable to assimilate food and water or in the “rare” cases when nutrition and hydration become excessively burdensome for the patient, it said.

Pope prepares for busy fall and winter

VATICAN CITY – After a three-day trip to Austria in early September, Pope Benedict XVI is putting away his traveling shoes and settling in for a long fall and winter at the Vatican. The next foreign trip fixed firmly on the pope’s calendar is mid-July of 2008, when he plans to fly to Australia for World Youth Day celebrations.

USCCB urges greater U.S. resettlement assistance

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government should provide resettlement aid for 25,000 Iraqi refugees in the next fiscal year, 10 times the number expected to arrive by the end of the year, said one recommendation of a new report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Iraqi refugee crisis in the Middle East.

Vatican excommunicates some of Canadian sect