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Marge Steele’s two high-schoolers think they have too much homework – most students do. Mrs. Steele agrees with her sophomore and senior sons who attend Calvert Hall College High School, Baltimore. “Our biggest issue is that they play sports and the days they have games they get home very late,” said the mother of Ryan and Brendan Steele. “So usually they are rushing through their homework, going in early to complete it the next morning, and if they have free periods … they do it then.”

WASHINGTON – Precious Blood Father Clarence Williams has been chosen as Catholic Charities USA’s new director of racial equality and diversity initiatives. Father Williams, director of black Catholic ministries in the Archdiocese of Detroit for the last 12 years, starts the new job Sept. 1. A consultant to Catholic Charities for about nine years, Father Williams told Catholic News Service July 25 he would “hit the ground running,” visiting local Catholic Charities agencies around the country to share his approach on race relations, which he calls “racial sobriety.”

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI left the Italian Alps July 27, flying to Rome and then driving to the papal summer villa at Castel Gandolfo. On the eve of his departure from Lorenzago di Cadore, the pope met with the mayors of the 22 small towns in the region and with the police and forest rangers, who assured his safety and privacy since he arrived July 9. “I can only say, with all my heart, thanks to each and every one of you for your service and commitment,” the pope told the group gathered on the lawn in front of the house where he had been staying.

NEW ORLEANS – Manifesting joy and living a life of holiness are fundamental ways to attract young African-American men to consider a vocation to the priesthood, Redemptorist Father Maurice Nutt of Memphis, Tenn., told the joint convention of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus and the National Black Sisters’ Conference July 25. The conference, attended by more than 200 black priests, deacons, sisters and seminarians, focused on vocations and enriching the spiritual, theological, educational and ministerial lives of the participants.

As a young girl in the late 1960s, Nancy Perlman boarded a school bus near her Rodgers Forge home five mornings a week that delivered her safely to nearby St. Pius X School. It was a luxury for which her parents happily paid, in addition to the annual tuition for the Catholic education the now 44-year-old Columbia mother and psychiatric nurse received. Today most Catholic schools within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, including St. Pius X, do not offer bus service, requiring parents to find their own way of transporting their children to and from school.

When Bishop Denis J. Madden was ordained a priest in 1967, the April Fools Day date assured the anniversary of the event would be forever etched in his memory. “It really is a memorable date,” said the 67-year-old urban vicar of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, with his trademark jocular chuckle. “For better or worse, people have interpreted the significance of my ordination date for 40 years.”

HONG KONG – Catholics in mainland China say they welcome the recent letter from Pope Benedict XVI, but some say they worry it will not produce the desired effects.

QUEZON CITY, Philippines – The agenda President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced for the second half of her term includes issues that some Philippine bishops have targeted as concerns.

NEW YORK – “Christopher Closeup,” the television show sponsored by the organization that says it’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness, will no longer be broadcast after the end of the summer.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI believes ecology could hold the key to teaching young people about Christian morality.