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SAN DIEGO – Uganda seems to emit a siren call to visitors, prompting them to stay or to return home and become activists for the people of that war-torn nation. Katie Bradel heard the call on a visit to Uganda in March 2005, during a planned three-month trip. Today, almost two years later, she remains in Uganda, helping train volunteers with an organization called Invisible Children. “People there have so little, but they have so much joy,” she told The Southern Cross, newspaper of the San Diego Diocese. “They are the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. They live each day relying on God to provide.”

St. Francis of Assisi, Baltimore, parishioner and Baltimore City Council Vice President Bob Curran extinguished his last cigarette in 1998, and by the end of this year he would like to see all bars and restaurants in Baltimore become smoke-free zones. The 56-year-old Northwood resident is lobbying to get the eight votes he needs for passage of his city smoking-ban legislation when the bill comes up for a final vote at the Feb. 26 City Council meeting.

Excellent job emphasizing the well attended 34th Annual March for Life in Washington, DC, which was all but ignored by much of the media (CR, Feb. 8). However, the front page featured a photo of Gov. Martin J. O’Malley and three Catholic sisters in honor of Catholic Schools Week. In the accompanying article, the governor, sisters, school administrators, and the Maryland Catholic Conference exchange praises to one another.

An Irish Catholic governor (CR, Feb. 8), a Polish Catholic U.S. senator, an Italian Catholic Speaker of the U.S. House . . . all Catholic educated, and all pro-abortion. To be sure, Catholic education emphasizes social conscientiousness. Even in the 1950s at Ss. Philip and James, we knew what it meant to be socially responsible. It was from the pulpit, and Monsignor John J. Duggan that I received the “life” message. On an annual basis, long before “Roe v. Wade,” Monsignor Duggan told the following story:

How does faith call us to bring hope and healing to the world? Discuss this topic March 12-16 at Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, when they host the third annual Callings Conference: Bearers of Hope and Healing. Callings is a program for the theological exploration of Christian vocation.

Mary Ellen Russell, deputy directory for education and family life with the Maryland Catholic Conference, called on state lawmakers to pass a bill that would require nonpublic school administrators to be informed when one of their students has been arrested for a violent or sexual crime and when such a student from another school transfers to their school.

At the turn of the New Year, there was much excitement around my home. It seems that TIME magazine had declared me their Person of the Year. And, God bless them, TIME did the same for you. And you. And you as well.

In a wooden frame on a curved brick wall in the lobby of Our Lady of Victory School, Arbutus, a large mural of the community painted by method of pointillism is now visible when entering the building. Pointillism is the art of applying small strokes or dots of color to a surface so that images blend from a distance. The images in this particular mural include those significant to Our Lady of Victory, including a prominent illustration of their building and other local Catholic schools such as The Cardinal Gibbons School, Baltimore, and Mount St. Joe, Irvington.

VATICAN CITY – Two months after taking over as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes has issued a strong and lengthy defense of priestly celibacy. “Priestly celibacy is a precious gift of Christ to his church, a gift that must continually be meditated upon and strengthened, especially in the deeply secularized modern world,” Cardinal Hummes said. The cardinal made the comments in a full-page article he wrote for the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. It was published Feb. 14 under the headline “The importance of priestly celibacy.”