Home Page

ROME – The sanctuary at Mariazell may lack the dazzle of more famous Marian shrines, but its simplicity has helped make it Austria’s most popular pilgrimage site.

Thanks to a positive response from parishioners and new and returning participants, the Church of the Resurrection, Ellicott City, ninth annual Health Information Fair has grown.

A funeral Mass was offered Sept. 1 at The Villa, the Religious Sisters of Mercy’s retirement home in Towson, for Sister Marian Millard, R.S.M., 86, who died of heart failure Aug. 29.

A funeral Mass was offered Aug. 30 at Villa Notre Dame in Wilton, Conn., for Sister Mary Louis Whalen, S.S.N.D., who was the oldest living alumna of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Baltimore.

AGRA, India – The Agra Archdiocese temporarily closed all its schools and colleges after violence erupted in the city that is home to the Taj Mahal.

MEXICO CITY – Civil authorities and church workers began distributing emergency supplies and surveying damage the day after Hurricane Dean crossed the Yucatan Peninsula. Meanwhile, communities on the Gulf of Mexico were bracing for the storm’s second landfall Aug. 22. Father Francisco Velazquez Trejo, a director for Caritas Mexico in the state of Campeche on the western side of the Yucatan Peninsula, said the hurricane had flooded the island city of Ciudad del Carmen. Dean also caused widespread damage to the region’s agricultural fields and communities of indigenous Maya, many of whom live in impoverished conditions. “The region’s poorest inhabitants were the worst hit,” Father Velazquez said.