Page 1782 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

The Baltimore-based Xaverian Brothers have elected Brother Lawrence Harvey, C.F.X., to serve as the new general superior of the worldwide religious community, known formally as the Congregation of the Brothers of St. Francis Xavier.

Archbishop O’Brien considered popular as a seminarian

As a seminarian in the 1960s, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien was considered serious, yet jocular, and fellow classmates wouldn’t have necessarily picked him out as the cleric in their class to become one of the most respected U.S. Catholic leaders.

Iraqi Christians were safer under Saddam

VATICAN CITY – Although Iraq has a democratic government, Iraqi Christians were safer and had more protection under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, said the future head of the Vatican’s interreligious dialogue council.

French Cardinal Lustiger dies

VATICAN CITY – Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Jewish-born former archbishop of Paris who defended the right of believers to have a say in public debates, died at the age of 80.

Collection exceeds $7 million in 2006

WASHINGTON – The national collection to aid the church in Latin America received more than $7 million in contributions for the first time last year and used the funds to assist 476 projects in nearly two dozen countries.

Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop O’Brien meet seminarians

They included a former teacher, a lawyer and an editor. They ranged in age from 19-43 and they were natives of familiar places like Lansdowne and Libertytown and not-so-familiar hometowns in Africa and Latin America. But what united these diverse men was a desire to become priests for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. All but one of the 28 seminarians preparing for the priesthood in the Baltimore archdiocese gathered for a week of prayer and reflection July 30-Aug. 3 during the annual seminarian convocation retreat, held at the Monsignor O’Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks. (One seminarian was ill and could not attend).

Airport chaplains minister to a flock on the move

WASHINGTON – Can you find holiness at an airport? Father Michael Zaniolo thinks so.

Vatican publishing house: New page, new director, new ideas

VATICAN CITY – With a new director at the helm, the Vatican publishing house is turning a new page.

Candidates to the priesthood reaches 19-year high

Thirteen is no unlucky number for Father Gerard Francik, vocations director for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

MCC, superintendents urge Congress not to cut benefits

Three superintendents serving Catholic school systems in Maryland are calling on U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski to keep nonpublic school teachers in proposed legislation benefiting educators.

El Salvador trip changes teens’ perspectives

The change in fortune for one family in the small village of Agua Caliente, El Salvador, is as concrete as the freshly poured cement floor and new roof of their home. For the Baltimore teens who worked on the decaying house, the personal transformations, though perhaps less tangible, were just as profound. Six Baltimore teens, ages 16-18, took part in a summer service trip July 21-28 to a rural town in El Salvador, where they worked alongside Salvadorian teens in restoring the home to a more livable condition. Organized by Deacon Rodrigue Mortel, M.D., director of the Office of the Propagation of the Faith and the Baltimore-Haiti Solidarity Project, the trip was designed to immerse participants in the culture of a developing country.

Sister Melvina L. Bennett, S.S.N.D.