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WASHINGTON – J. Michael Kelly, chief financial officer of the Archdiocese of Washington, is among eight former America Online executives who have been named in civil lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an alleged accounting scheme that inflated the company’s reported advertising revenues.

Last week’s Catholic Review related the return to the Church after many years of the best-selling novelist Anne Rice – make that Anne O’Brien Rice (no relation)! Married to an atheist in her late teens and now 66, she described most of her adult life in terms of “despair, guilt and search for meaning and faith.” Best known for her New Orleans-based vampire novels, many of Rice’s dark characters reflected her own sad years away from the faith and the light of Christ.

Despite a written plea from Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien for Gov. Martin J. O’Malley to veto two domestic partnership bills, the governor was expected to sign the controversial measures into law as The Catholic Review went to press May 20.

WASHINGTON – A prosecutor in an upcoming civil trial is seeking a minimum of $250,000 in punitive damages from Catholic Online, a California media organization, and its president, who are accused of diverting funds intended for charitable causes.

VATICAN CITY – In a clarification approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican said its 2005 document prohibiting the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood applies to all types of seminaries.

The actual origin of Memorial Day, once called Decoration Day, is unclear, except that at first it was most certainly a response to the terrible tragedy of the Civil War in which so many Americans on both sides died on and off the battlefields.

On June 21, 2008 my son, Deacon John Rapisarda, will be ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. For our family, this is a time of thanksgiving and overwhelming joy and inspiration.