ST. LOUIS – Fifth-grade students at St. Paul School in Fenton experienced history coming to life in more ways than one this school year.

ST. LOUIS – Fifth-grade students at St. Paul School in Fenton experienced history coming to life in more ways than one this school year.

ANNAPOLIS – Father John Lavin, C.Ss.R., still chuckles when he remembers the day Jesus got held up by U.S. Customs.

It’s been nearly 100 days since Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien assumed leadership of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and in that time he has begun to examine one of the key issues he addressed in his Oct. 1 installation homily – how the church can help Baltimore leaders deal with the problems of the city.
A funeral Mass was offered for Father Gerald F. LaPorta on Dec. 31 at Our Lady Star of the Sea in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.

VATICAN CITY – As Pope Benedict XVI looks at his 2008 calendar, he’s no doubt recognizing that life doesn’t slow down after 80.

HUNTINGTON, N.Y. – While multitudes of people see the art of muralist Hildreth Meiere at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, a limited audience also gets to see her work up close at St. Mary’s High School in Manhasset and at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – It just might be the sweetest, cuddliest volunteer opportunity in the whole state of Alaska. For 67 volunteers at Providence Hospital in Anchorage, that opportunity is called the “Kuddle Korps.” Little training is required. You just have to love very small babies, and have the patience to sit for a couple of hours in a rocking chair holding them quietly.
Receiving chemotherapy by intravenous infusion can take between four and eight hours. That’s a long time to be sitting in a chair, not to mention the psychological aspect, so Dr. Mark Krasna, medical director of the Cancer Institute at St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, set out to find a chair that was both comfortable and comforting.
Dooriya Kane, Elizabeth Lelonek and Grace Kane collected and delivered more than 1,000 books for Sarah’s Hope Shelter and Resource Center. The Girl Scouts are candidates for the Girl Scouts of the United States of America’s “I Live My Faith” religious award, and collecting books was part of their project. Troops from the Perry Hall and Kingsville areas as well as St. Joseph, Fullerton, parish and school organizations added to the collection.

WASHINGTON – Those who put stock in the expression “an idle brain is the devil’s workshop” can take heart that American Catholics won’t give the devil much to work with in a very busy 2008.
VATICAN CITY – The relics venerated as the crib the baby Jesus used in a Bethlehem grotto are in an alarming state of degradation, some church officials said.

PEOSTA, Iowa – For the craftsmen and artisans at New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, a relatively new ministry has expanded into a new state-of-the-art, 40,000-square-foot factory, almost five times larger than their previous facility.
