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WASHINGTON – When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hosted a national summit on child welfare, she shined a light on a problem that is all too familiar to officials of Catholic Charities USA. “The numbers are moving in the wrong direction,” said Desmond Brown, director of health and welfare policy at Catholic Charities USA, about a new report released by the National Center for Children in Poverty to coincide with the summit. The report said 42 percent of U.S. children under the age of 6 – roughly 10 million – are vulnerable to poor health and substandard education, largely as a result of poverty and economic hardships. “We have gathered today to begin what will be a long-term conversation, and to signal our deep commitment to caring for our children and creating a prosperous future for them and for our entire nation,” Pelosi said at the May 22 summit in Washington, attended by academic and policy leaders who spoke about the state of early childhood development in the U.S.

NEW YORK – Catholics now have the opportunity to participate in the missionary work of the church each time they use a new affinity credit card. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith in New York recently announced the creation of the World Missions Visa credit card. The card will generate funds for the society and will be used to support the work of the church’s missions in more than 120 countries, according to a release. “With this credit card, Catholics here in our country can be part of our work – in effect missionaries here at home through their prayers and this financial assistance,” Monsignor John E. Kozar, national director of the pontifical missionary societies in the United States, said in a statement. One percent of purchases made with the card will go toward pastoral and evangelizing work in Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands and Latin America. With $10 generated from the Visa cards, the society can buy clothing for 10 Sudanese children, and with $4 from the cards the society can provide food for a kindergarten program run by local sisters.

SEATTLE – A court of appeals in Seattle has rejected a request to dismiss two lawsuits against a former Sulpician seminary that trained a priest who sexually abused minors. The U.S. Sulpicians argued that the seminary cannot be held responsible for the abuse committed by former priest Patrick O’Donnell following his ordination. If successful, the lawsuits could be the first in which a seminary is found legally liable for having recommended the ordination of someone who subsequently molested children. O’Donnell studied at Sulpician-run St. Thomas Seminary in Kenmore, a Seattle suburb, and was ordained a priest of the Spokane Diocese in 1971. He has been accused of molesting at least 65 minors between 1970 and his permanent removal from ministry in 1985. The lawsuits contend that seminary officials knew O’Donnell had molested boys but recommended him for ordination anyway. They allege that the seminary sent him to sexual deviancy counseling while he was still in the seminary.

Five years ago on graduation day, dumpsters at Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore, were filled with lamps, Swiffer mops, unopened food, and kitchen supplies. But thanks to the Good Stuff Campaign developed by Loyola’s Center for Community Service and Justice, the college’s dumpsters remained nearly empty and the donation collection bins were full as undergraduates and graduates moved out of campus dorms. “There was a concern about the number of good, usable, sometimes like-new items which were being thrown out in dumpsters in the rush to move out,” said Dennis McCunney, assistant director of the center and a 1998 Loyola alumnus. “These were things students didn’t want to lug home.”

The Institute of Notre Dame, Baltimore, inducted five graduates into its Athletic Hall of Fame, May 16. The inductees were Eileen Doyle Wintz ’44 (basketball); C. Karen Dabrowski Gephardt ’67 (basketball, badminton, softball); Mary Ellen Bowers Glorioso ’69 (basketball, badminton, softball); Donna Wiedorfer ’80 (coach – basketball, badminton, lacrosse; and athlete – basketball, badminton, softball); and Robin Johnson ’96 (basketball, softball, volleyball, cross country). John Carroll School, Bel Air, recently named John Cooney as the varsity women’s basketball head coach. Mr. Cooney coached the varsity women’s basketball team at The Seton High School from 1983-1988 as well as several teams in the Baltimore Neighborhood Basketball League. Mr. Cooney has been the chairperson of the Bel Air Recreation Girls Basketball program for the past six years and coaches three A.A.U. teams.

What Oriole Park at Camden Yards has lost to greed and lackluster performance, Ripken Stadium, Aberdeen, has made up for in supporting youth baseball in a fan-oriented setting. Ripken Stadium was, again, home to the MIAA A and B Conference Baseball Championships and fans were not disappointed. Under clear, blue skies, the American flag stood tall from center field, with a west wind blowing out toward left. It was baseball at its best, with down to the wire action, team hustle and the obvious sense that the 2,000 fans present loved their teams. The afternoon opened with B Conference action as 18-5 St. Mary’s, Annapolis, faced the Boys’ Latin, Baltimore, Lakers in the first of the day’s double-header.

VATICAN CITY – Expanding its mission from saving souls to saving the planet, the Vatican is going green. A giant rooftop garden of solar panels will be built next year on top of the Paul VI audience hall, creating enough electricity to heat, cool and light the entire building year-round. “Solar energy will provide all the energy (the building) needs,” said the mastermind behind the environmentally friendly project, Pier Carlo Cuscianna, head of the Vatican’s department of technical services. And that is only the beginning. Cuscianna told Catholic News Service May 24 that he had in mind other sites throughout Vatican City where solar panels could be installed, but that it was too early in the game to name names. Even though Vatican City State is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, a binding international environmental pact to cut greenhouse gases, its inaugural solar project marks a major move in trying to reduce its own so-called carbon footprint, that is, the amount of carbon dioxide released through burning fossil fuels.

John Hesterly, a parishioner of St. Patrick in Havre De Grace, has received many honors and awards in his lifetime, but on May 11 he was truly humbled and privileged to accept a Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater, Henderson State University in Arkansas. “I was thrilled beyond words,” said Mr. Hesterly. “I’m still floating a foot off the ground. There are many distinguished people who have won this award.” The award, created in 1972, is a way to recognize those who have attained outstanding and valuable achievements throughout their life and Mr. Hesterly has a laundry list full of them.