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When the new school year begins in late August, school officials at St. Frances Academy, Baltimore, expect to see a more racially diverse enrollment with the addition of several Hispanic students, ending a two-year interlude with an all-black student body. It’s the first time in its 179-year history that St. Frances Academy officials have actively recruited students, which they did with a concerted effort to enlist Hispanic teens.

A deacon’s son and a graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School, Baltimore, will move closer to their goal of priesthood on May 12 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore, when they are ordained transitional deacons. John Rapisarda, 29, and Ernest Cibelli, 25, will be ordained by Cardinal William H. Keeler, marking the last step before completing their journey to the priesthood next year.

Memorial Day may be the kick off of the summer season, but for many aging veterans it will be a time to journey to the Maryland World War II Memorial to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice many in the state gave during that conflict. As spectators attend the Memorial Day ceremony at the Ritchie Highway memorial, they will see the names of 6,454 Marylanders who lost their lives in World War II engraved in the monument’s granite, said Cathy Watts, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs. “It’s a moving place,” Ms. Watts said. “It also provides a historical portrait of the role Maryland played in World War II.”

WASHINGTON – At Cabrini Clinic in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, “every week is Cover the Uninsured Week,” says Mercy Sister Mary Ellen Howard, who has directed the free clinic for more than a dozen years. In a city with some 200,000 uninsured adults, the clinic – formally known as the St. Frances Cabrini Clinic of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church – provides medical care, prescription drug assistance and mental health services to about 150 people a week, completely free of charge.

BEIJING – The Chinese bishop who served in Beijing for more than 25 years was given a funeral for a state leader. A three-part funeral was held April 27 at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery for Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan, 76, who died of lung cancer April 20. The cemetery is the main burial ground for revolutionary heroes and high government officials.

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, told a symposium on Catholic higher education that he objected to the “bleaching” of Catholic identity and said some Catholic institutions have “ignored, hidden or lost their ecclesial identity.” To change this course, he said schools should adopt ways to measure their Catholicity that include making sure a majority of faculty members are Catholic and that scholarship and research are in accord with Catholic teaching.

KIEV, Ukraine – The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has defended his decision to support President Viktor Yushchenko’s recent dismissal of parliament, which some argue has deepened a constitutional crisis. “Our declaration didn’t back any party – it merely recalled that the church has not forgotten people, nor has God,” said Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Kiev-Halych, in an April 24 interview with Ukraine’s Fokus weekly.

VATICAN CITY – Despite being held in a cool, climate-controlled conference room, some early discussions at a Vatican-sponsored seminar on global warming and climate change got pretty heated. The rifts and tensions still dividing the global debate on the causes of and remedies for drastic climatic shifts were gently simmering in the small microcosm of the two-day Vatican meeting. The seminar, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, gathered some 80 experts representing the scientific, political, economic and spiritual sides of the climate-change debate at the Vatican April 26-27 to discuss “Climate Change and Development.”

ST. LOUIS – Saying that it sent a “contradictory message” for a Catholic institution to raise funds by featuring a musician who supports abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis announced April 25 that he had withdrawn his support for an upcoming benefit for SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center.

VATICAN CITY – The Bible is a source of Christian unity and is evidence of Christianity’s special bond with the Jewish people, said the outline for the next world Synod of Bishops. The theme of the synod, scheduled Oct. 5-26, 2008, will be: “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.” While focusing specifically on the Bible, the synod’s outline emphasized Christian belief that Jesus Christ is the fullest expression of the word of God and that the entire Bible can be understood only in reference to Jesus.