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UPDATED VATICAN CITY – Meeting for the first time, Pope Benedict XVI and U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about the precarious situation of Christians in Iraq and a wide range of other foreign policy and moral issues. The pope and president looked relaxed as they greeted each other and spoke briefly before reporters before their 35-minute private encounter June 9. Bush later held a separate 40-minute meeting with the Vatican’s top foreign policy officials.

When Dr. Maria Brown takes her 2-year-old daughter to the playground, she makes sure she’s right behind her when the toddler climbs onto the slide or tests out the swings. “Things happen really quickly,” warned Dr. Brown, a pediatrician at St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore, and a parishioner of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore. “A lot of moms will stand 30 or 40 feet away, she said. “There’s nothing you can do at that distance if there’s an accident or something goes wrong.”

As William Bryant made his way to the Homeland campus of Loyola College in Maryland June 5, he had more to be proud of than the honor St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore was about to bestow on him. The formerly drug-addicted homeless man moved into his own apartment earlier in the day, marking the first time the 52-year-old Frederick Ozanam House graduate has had a residence he could call his own in 25 years. After receiving his New Life Award from the organization that oversaw his rehabilitation program at the Frederick Ozanam House in Fells Point, Mr. Bryant knew he would have to arrive at his new West Baltimore apartment early, in order to get enough rest to make it to his new job as the front-desk receptionist at the Beans & Bread homeless resource center.

In 1865, a 13-year-old black Catholic schoolgirl stitched her way into Maryland history. The embroidered sampler of Adele Latimore, daughter of a free black who was educated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence at St. Benedict School in Baltimore, is currently on display at the Maryland Historical Society’s Baltimore museum.

WASHINGTON – The “old-fashioned” virtues of prudence, the pursuit of the common good, and the duty to stand with the poor and vulnerable are needed to address the issue of climate change, U.S. bishops’ official John Carr said in testimony June 7 before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Carr, secretary for social development and world peace for the U.S. bishops’ conference, said ingenuity, creativity, entrepreneurship and economic markets can help develop the knowledge, technology and measures to make progress against climate change and limit its damage. “This is a crucial time to build up the common ground for common action to pursue the common good for all of God’s children and creation,” Carr said.