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For almost five years the parishioners of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Crofton, have been waiting for an expansion and renovation of their 26 year-old church. After a few setbacks, construction has begun on a two-story addition with the first floor dedicated for the youth of the parish and the second floor for the new parish offices. “We have never had a room primarily for the youth,” said Father Edward Connelly, pastor. With about 100 young parishioners joining in youth activities, he said, they need a place to call their own. “They don’t want to just sit about a table,” he said.

It’s what Father John Swope refers to as “college prep with a kick.” That is Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore, where approximately 120 ninth graders literally will earn their education starting in the fall of 2007. The school will add a new class each year until it reaches a maximum capacity of 500. To reach that vision, administrators are forging ahead with fundraising, development plans, and construction options to gather the many pieces needed to finish this educational puzzle in the Cristo Rey Network. Father Swope leads the efforts as school president, overseeing two fundraising committees who are busily soliciting large private donations and corporations in the community.

ANNAPOLIS – In an unusual move that highlights the priority Maryland’s bishops have placed on abolishing the death penalty, Bishop Denis J. Madden, urban vicar, testified in person during Feb. 21 committee hearings on a bill that would replace the death penalty with life sentences without parole. Representatives of the Maryland Catholic Conference usually testify on behalf of the Maryland bishops, but Bishop Madden personally urged members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings and House Judiciary committees to pass the controversial legislation.

LIMA, Peru – When church leaders from throughout Latin America gather in Brazil in May for the fifth general conference of the Latin American bishops’ council, they will be grappling with the contradictions of life on the world’s most Catholic continent. While more than 450 million of the region’s 551 million people are considered Catholic, “the practice of the Christian faith is in profound crisis, which is reflected in the type of societies we have,” Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri of San Marcos, Guatemala, president of the Guatemalan bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service. “They are societies in which there is a great deal of violence, societies that try to follow lifestyles in which consumerism and hedonism predominate, societies that lack social justice.”

WHEELING, W.Va. – To see firsthand the latest advances in coal mine safety and the daily operations of a mine, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston joined West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and others on a tour of the McElroy Mine, near Moundsville, the largest coal mine in West Virginia. In a news conference at Wheeling Jesuit University Feb. 19 following the tour, J. Davitt McAteer, vice president for sponsored programs at the university and special mine safety adviser to Manchin, said the purpose of the visit was to look at the emergency communication systems between its mines, the telephone communication systems being developed and tested there and at other facilities, and the steps being taken to introduce new technology into U.S. mines.

Father Joseph Breighner truly hit a nail on the head in his column ‘Truth behind abortion should be in the news as often as the war in Iraq,” (CR, Feb. 8). He so aptly compared and contrasted the loss of life in the Iraq war with the loss of lives resulting from abortion on demand.

After many years of work with Catholic Relief Services, Lent, and its seasonal period of reflection, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, grows more meaningful to me year after year. It’s not just because of the stories I hear about the help that CRS provides to those who are suffering. It is the fact that with each season of Lent we are coming closer and closer to the realization of a global community – of one human family.

Enacting a ban on human cloning in Maryland will be a central focus of the 28th annual Maryland Candlelight March for Life, March 12 in Annapolis. Prolife supporters from across the state will rally at the state capital, asking lawmakers to support the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2007 – a Senate bill that prohibits the manufacture of human embryos through the cloning process.

The president of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore, Father John Swope, S.J., announced the appointment of three key staff positions for the new school slated to open fall 2007.

LAHORE, Pakistan – Posters pasted on billboards and trees by the country’s main Muslim political alliance blare the “Quran-prescribed” punishments of 100 lashes or death by stoning for women who have sex outside of marriage. As a new bill liberalizing strict women’s laws makes its way through Parliament, hard-line groups have been fighting to keep a status quo they claim has divine sanction. The same day the new bill went before the National Assembly Feb. 13, the first national Catholic women’s organization was launched in Lahore, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency.