Page 1855 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

HYATTSVILLE, Md. – Instead of facing a pitcher throwing a 95 mph fastball, baseball ironman Cal Ripken Jr. faced 800 people Feb. 12 at DeMatha Catholic High School in the Washington suburb of Hyattsville. The crowd of students and alumni, teachers and coaches cheered loudly as the Baltimore Orioles’ former shortstop – who is to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this summer – appeared in the Morgan Wootten Gymnasium, named for the legendary DeMatha basketball coach who is himself a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. “The last time somebody clapped that loud, I had to take a lap around the stadium,” Ripken said, remembering the night in 1995 when he played his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s record. That night, Ripken ran around the inside of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, high-fiving the fans who cheered him.

Bishop tours West Virginia’s largest coal mine

WHEELING, W.Va. – To see firsthand the latest advances in coal mine safety and the daily operations of a mine, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston joined West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and others on a tour of the McElroy Mine, near Moundsville, the largest coal mine in West Virginia. In a news conference at Wheeling Jesuit University Feb. 19 following the tour, J. Davitt McAteer, vice president for sponsored programs at the university and special mine safety adviser to Manchin, said the purpose of the visit was to look at the emergency communication systems between its mines, the telephone communication systems being developed and tested there and at other facilities, and the steps being taken to introduce new technology into U.S. mines.

Abortion should get same focus as war

Father Joseph Breighner truly hit a nail on the head in his column ‘Truth behind abortion should be in the news as often as the war in Iraq,” (CR, Feb. 8). He so aptly compared and contrasted the loss of life in the Iraq war with the loss of lives resulting from abortion on demand.

Lent: A Time for Prayer, Reflection and Giving

After many years of work with Catholic Relief Services, Lent, and its seasonal period of reflection, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, grows more meaningful to me year after year. It’s not just because of the stories I hear about the help that CRS provides to those who are suffering. It is the fact that with each season of Lent we are coming closer and closer to the realization of a global community – of one human family.

Cloning is focus of Maryland March for Life

Enacting a ban on human cloning in Maryland will be a central focus of the 28th annual Maryland Candlelight March for Life, March 12 in Annapolis. Prolife supporters from across the state will rally at the state capital, asking lawmakers to support the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2007 – a Senate bill that prohibits the manufacture of human embryos through the cloning process.

Lost Calvert Hall ring returned after 40 years

When Calvert Hall 1966 graduate John “Jay” H. Comi served in the Merchant Marine 1967-69 aboard a cruise ship, his heart sank along with his class ring when he realized he lost the gold piece in the surf of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. As a junior, Mr. Comi had received the ring from Calvert Hall College High School, Towson. Now 40 years later, it’s back on his finger.

Cristo Rey School appoints three positions

The president of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore, Father John Swope, S.J., announced the appointment of three key staff positions for the new school slated to open fall 2007.

Catholic women’s group forms in Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan – Posters pasted on billboards and trees by the country’s main Muslim political alliance blare the “Quran-prescribed” punishments of 100 lashes or death by stoning for women who have sex outside of marriage. As a new bill liberalizing strict women’s laws makes its way through Parliament, hard-line groups have been fighting to keep a status quo they claim has divine sanction. The same day the new bill went before the National Assembly Feb. 13, the first national Catholic women’s organization was launched in Lahore, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency.

Migrants lose camp, chapel

SAN DIEGO – Migrant camps have existed in the Carmel Valley area of north San Diego County longer than most of the area’s housing, certainly longer than the million-dollar homes that now carpet the valley east of Del Mar. Home to the men and women who work in the vegetable and flower fields, the makeshift camps are out of sight and, typically, out of mind for the majority of residents in the area. But some residents, worrying about the potential for crime, are wary of having the camps so close to their homes.

Christian leaders call President Bush ‘morally bankrupt’

Baltimore Christian leaders used the backdrop of Ash Wednesday and props of dead soldier’s combat boots as they called President Bush’s Iraq War policies immoral and urged Maryland’s faithful to take part in an organized anti-war rally in Washington. The 13 religious leaders from varying Christian faiths – which included Auxiliary Bishop Denis J. Madden of the Archdiocese of Baltimore – chose the first day of lent to launch their collective anti-war platform, because it’s a penitential season.

Parish opens teleconferencing center

When pastoral leaders from the westernmost corner of Maryland participate in archdiocesan meetings, it often means a 165-mile trek to Baltimore. Monsignor Thomas Bevan, pastor of St. Patrick in Cumberland, hopes the travel burden will be lightened now that his parish has opened a new media/teleconference center that will soon make it possible to see and hear what is happening in Baltimore and elsewhere without leaving “Mountain Maryland.”

St. Agnes presents Caritas Award