Page 1783 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

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.

A funeral Mass for Sister Melvina L. Bennett, S.S.N.D., who served as an assistant director of Marian House, a residence and training program for women in transition, was held July 28 at Villa Assumpta in Baltimore. Sister Melvina died suddenly of complications from cancer at Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, July 23. She was 64.

Baltimore conference focuses on evangelization

The Archdiocese of Baltimore will sponsor a conference on Catholic evangelization Aug. 25 at Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cost is $25 per person.

Bishops concerned by government proposal for med students

VILNIUS, Lithuania – Lithuania’s bishops said they are “gravely concerned” over a Ministry of Health draft document that would oblige would-be obstetricians and gynecologists to learn how to perform abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, sterilization and in vitro fertilization procedures.

Catholic leaders cheer U.N. decision on peacekeeping force

WASHINGTON – The United Nations’ decision July 31 to send a peacekeeping force to the Darfur region of Sudan drew cheers from Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based confederation of Catholic relief, development and social service organizations.

Huge crowds not expected for celebrations

The mid-August heat traditionally drives Marylanders to the beach and other vacation destinations, and the pews at Catholic churches throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore are not expected to be filled during the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Baltimore native celebrates diamond jubilee

Baltimore native Sister Mary Zephyrine Ustaszewski, C.S.S.F., 93, was among five Felician Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Lodi, N.J., to recently celebrate her diamond jubilee of religious life.

As economy grows, income disparity widens

LIMA, Peru – A team of U.S. and Peruvian researchers was investigating glaciers in the remote Andes Mountains of central Peru when a two-day general strike in the region was called to protest government economic policies.

Excess TV bad for Americans individually and collectively

WASHINGTON – Every so often, you may have an opinion about some issue. You know in your heart that it’s so, but you rarely have the material to back up your belief – or suspicion, as the case may be.

St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholics responds to bridge collapse