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It’s a new year and a new team for the Mercy Magic this season. Returning eight varsity players from 2005-2006, head coach Mary Ella Marion, in her 23rd season, has expanded her roster to 14, bringing up new energy and young talent from the junior varsity this year. The Magic compete in the IAAM A Conference, along with top ranked St. Frances Academy, Baltimore, Towson Catholic, Archbishop Spalding, Severn and The Seton Keough High School, Baltimore. Indeed, it’s a tough league and Mercy, Baltimore, is hanging tough, posting a 3-3 conference record, 8-6 overall.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – It’s apt that the start of the new congressional term coincides with the time of year when people are optimistically making New Year’s resolutions. Lose weight, get to the gym more often, pass comprehensive immigration reform, raise the minimum wage, make sure the farm bill reauthorization helps protect family farmers … you know, the usual. With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years, the dynamics behind what legislation advances will differ from what they have been under the Republican majority, which could be good news for some long-standing wish lists.

BOSTON (CNS) – In a column marking the fifth anniversary of the crisis over clergy sexual abuse of children, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said that scandal was a “dark and unremitting truth” that had to be confronted. Cardinal O’Malley’s comments appeared Jan. 7 as an opinion piece in the Boston Globe, the daily newspaper whose unrelenting expose of child sex abuse by priests in the Boston Archdiocese turned the secret of such abuse into a national crisis five years ago.

When W. Gregory Halpin retired as the administrator of the Maryland Port Administration in 1985, he had amassed quite a collection of adventures. During his time leading the agency, he oversaw the construction of the World Trade Center in Baltimore. His work took him to far-flung corners of the world like Brussels, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Poland, Malaysia and Russia. He even entertained the brother of the last Chinese emperor. Although he did some consulting work in other ports after retiring, the parishioner of Immaculate Conception in Towson wasn’t satisfied with his much-slowed-down schedule. That’s when he turned to the Renaissance Institute at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore.

The large gymnasium stage at Sacred Heart, Glyndon, was draped with red, green, blue, black and yellow streamers Jan. 5, while Olympic rings hung on the wall and some 120 balloons scattered the floor. The planning group for the Olympic themed lock-in, Katie Beinstein, Mary Bosley, Haley and Allison Boyd and Joe Miller, had worked on the event for high school-age youth for months and were anxious to see how everything played out on the rainy Friday evening. “They really put their all into it,” said Mae Richardson, the boisterous youth minister for the parish. “It’s an opportunity to experience the church outside the building.”

Henry Fortier calls it one of the “most painful” days in his life. After several years as principal of New All Saints School in West Baltimore – a time marked by increasing test scores and steady improvement in student performance – Mr. Fortier had to tell his students their school was closing. “It was devastating,” said Mr. Fortier, now one of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s associate superintendents. “It hurt to see them hurt. I had kids offering their allowances to keep the school open.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The recent announcement by scientists at Wake Forest and Harvard universities that the amniotic fluid surrounding a child in the womb can be the source of medically useful stem cells is just the latest in a series of studies showing the research value of the byproducts of live birth, according to the deputy director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. Richard M. Doerflinger told Catholic News Service Jan. 8 that various studies have shown that the placenta, cord blood, the umbilical cord itself and other byproducts of birth “may all contain very versatile stem cells, with many of the advantages of embryonic stem cells without the practical disadvantages or moral problems.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The fallout from the resignation of Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus continued, with revelations about his role as an informant for former secret police, warnings about new disclosures to come and the resignation of a leading churchman in Krakow, Poland. Pope Benedict XVI accepted Archbishop Wielgus’ resignation Jan. 7, just two days after he became archbishop of Warsaw. The following day, Father Janusz Bielanski resigned as rector of Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral, the burial place of Poland’s kings and queens and a landmark of church history. Father Bielanski also had been accused of cooperation with communist-era secret police.