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The campus of Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore, a member of MedStar Health, Inc., is tobacco-free effective Nov. 20. In an effort to be a model of healthy behavior, and for the safety and well-being of patients, employees and visitors, tobacco products have been banned from all MedStar locations on a date coinciding with the national Great American Smokeout sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

Calling it a “historic day” for the parish, Archdiocese of Baltimore auxiliary bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski helped Holy Family parish in Davidsonville break ground on a new religious education center, adoration chapel and social hall Dec. 13.

ROME – An Italian government official intervened to stop a hospital from withholding nutrition and hydration from a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 16 years.

The homicide rate in Baltimore City is down from a year ago. That’s good news, indeed for people who live and work in our city. But, try convincing Baltimore resident Patricia Grant to find joy in this statistic. Ms. Grant is the mother of 14-year-old Ronald “Ronnie” Jackson, who was shot and killed Sunday, December 7 as he crossed the street in front of his West Baltimore home while delivering two grapefruits to an elderly neighbor. According to reports, Ronnie’s murderer apparently mistook him for someone else.

Before tackling “Dignitas Personae” (The Dignity of a Person), the recent instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on contemporary bioethical questions, I’d suggest re-reading the first chapter of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Huxley was no great shakes as a stylist, but his depiction of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is a strikingly prescient, blood-chilling glance into a future in which manufacture and manipulation have replaced begetting and nurture at the beginnings of human life. It’s remarkable enough that Huxley imagined all this a generation before the unraveling of the DNA double-helix launched the genetic revolution; what’s even more striking is that Huxley’s dystopia is, in fact, upon us.

On the first Sunday of Advent, I visited the Festival of Trees at the Timonium Fairgrounds. Among the many vendors, I discovered Gizmo’s Art, and I found a framed early representation of Santa Claus, and a poem I had never seen before. It was dated 1899, but no author was credited and no newspaper cited. I felt like I had discovered something from a time capsule, so I’d like to share sections of the poem with you as an early Christmas present. It’s simply entitled “Santa Claus.”

The name and owner may have changed, but the mission of the St. Agnes Hospice Center for Bereavement Care remains strong 25 years into its journey of helping those mourning the loss of loved ones.

Little girls resplendent in the garb of Latin America walked up the aisle to bring red, white and yellow roses to their beloved Our Lady of Guadalupe. Boys wearing vests emblazoned with the Virgin Mary shook maracas as they performed an Aztec dance. Mariachis in black sombreros played in the sanctuary near the framed replica of the image of the Blessed Mother that appeared nearly 500 years ago to the peasant San Juan Diego.