Page 1871 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

When Marie Beck first started volunteering at Our Lady of Fatima School in Baltimore 16 years ago, her grandson always called her “grandmom” when he saw her on campus. Before long, other students began addressing Ms. Beck as their “grandmom,” too. The name stuck and that’s how Ms. Beck is now known by everyone from the preschoolers to the principal. Wearing a blue sweatshirt proclaiming her the “#1 Grandmom at Our Lady of Fatima,” Ms. Beck said she considers the title a tremendous honor.

Cardinal: ‘Reasons for rejoicing’ exist

WASHINGTON – Despite the fact abortion has been legal throughout the United States for 34 years, there are “reasons for rejoicing,” primarily because of lower abortion rates and increased public opposition to abortion, said Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. Cardinal Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was principal celebrant and homilist at a Jan. 21 Mass on the eve of the annual March for Life. It was held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Catholic Charities honors employees and volunteers

Hundreds of Marylanders gazed at the colorful Tibetan prayer flags that bedecked Baltimore’s Renaissance Hotel for Catholic Charities annual dinner Jan. 19, celebrating the distinguished service of two of its employees, one of its volunteers and a school full of students who have provided the elderly with enthusiastic companionship. Catholic Charities executive director Harold A. Smith told the guests who packed the ballroom the white, red, green, yellow and blue Tibetan prayer flags were synonymous with the altruistic service all of the award recipients bestow upon the needy in Maryland. Just as the prayer flags “bless the air passing through them,” Mr. Smith said the honorees “share their wisdom, compassion… and hard work with the community.”

Catholics need solid preaching, not fluff

ROME – Catholics need solid preaching about Jesus, the cross and the church, and not “feel-good” spiritual advice that demands no sacrifice, said U.S. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee. Preaching well means challenging people’s complacency and, like Christ, occasionally “shaking things up,” Archbishop Dolan said in Rome Jan. 14. That cannot happen if preachers soft-pedal the cross, he said.

Pope asks for help in saving threatened cathedral

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI asked Romania’s new ambassador to the Vatican for his help in stopping construction of a skyscraper next to Bucharest’s St. Joseph Cathedral. Welcoming Marius Gabriel Lazurca to the Vatican Jan. 20, the pope said smooth relations between the government and church communities present in the country would contribute to “social peace.” “In this regard, I can only express my concern over the matter of the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Bucharest,” the pope told the ambassador.

Human cloning: Why is it immoral?

Most people instinctively shudder when they learn that human cloning is currently legal in Maryland. But the definition of cloning, and why the church teaches that it is immoral, may not be clear.

St. Agnes, St. Joseph hospitals announce alliance

Stopping short of a merger, St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore and St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson are joining forces in a new strategic alliance hospital leaders say will improve quality and increase access to medical care in the Baltimore area and beyond. The partnership, called “Mission Health Partners,” will initially be made up of St. Agnes and St. Joseph, but officials hope it will expand to include other faith-based and secular hospitals with similar missions.

Teens explore theology in Pinkard Scholars Program

Tristan Deppe acknowledges that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s “Introduction to Christianity” was not exactly at the top of his reading list. But the text by the future Pope Benedict XVI was just one of several weighty theological works the 16-year-old parishioner of Immaculate Heart of Mary, Baynesville, read for the first time last semester as one of 23 students enrolled in the Pinkard Scholars Program of Youth Theological Studies at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Roland Park.

Schools find priceless help in volunteers

When it comes to the worth of St. Ursula School volunteers, Sister Joan Kelly, S.N.D. de N., says she could never “put a dollar figure on it.” “They help as classroom volunteers, they work in the library, and they work in the lunchroom and schoolyard,” the principal of the Parkville school said. “They assist in the art room; they open car doors in the morning. They organize and run all fundraisers.” They also save the school money, the principal acknowledged. “Our whole building was wired for computers by a parent,” she noted.

Usual images of heaven don’t impress Christians

VATICAN CITY – A recent sermon by the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, took aim at John Lennon’s famous line, “Imagine there’s no heaven,” saying it represented an empty, secularized vision of human destiny. But an Italian biblicist, Father Carlo Buzzetti, has approached the question from a different angle: The modern church, he said, does a lousy job imagining what heaven is like and communicating it to the faithful. Most Catholics, Father Buzzetti said, understand heaven as a vague place of eternal survival, where happiness can become monotonous and where the absence of human passions creates an “anemic” atmosphere.

U.S. soldiers in Iraq need support and prayers

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Father Jerome Fehn, 54, a Minnesota National Guard chaplain currently based in Iraq, said U.S. soldiers urgently need support and prayers from people at home. “We get a lot of care packages and that’s very good,” he said. But when soldiers receive letters of support, it makes a big impact. “Having that support will really enable us to do our job that we need to do better.”

Children must get health care