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In their quest to meet recertification criteria mandated by the Maryland State Department of Education, teachers have an alternative to spending $1,500 per graduate level course at a state or private college. Labeled “the best kept secret” by adjunct professor Teri Wilkins, the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Educational Technology Leadership Program is delivering convenience and quality via online courses at affordable costs directly to teachers’ computers.

Though the April 2 tsunami that devastated several Solomon Islands villages occurred halfway across the globe from St. Dominic, Hamilton, parishioners were urged to help in the relief effort. St. Dominic pastor Father James P. Kiesel added a special collection to his Easter Sunday Masses and said it was even more important to reach out to the people affected by the tsunami that killed at least 28 people and flattened villages, because it was smaller in scale than the 2004 tidal wave and will receive less media coverage.

What should be the role of the laity in the Catholic Church in 2007? Catholic Review columnist George Weigel recently discussed “Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church” at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Homeland, March 14, and gave an excellent presentation.

Members of the St. Vincent de Paul committee at St. Francis de Sales, Abingdon, signed their parish up for a $1 million challenge sponsored by the Feinstein Foundation to help fight hunger in their community. “Through the St. Vincent de Paul Society we set aside time for people in the community to come in and ask for help,” said Patti Kazlo, vice president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. “Any given week we get about 30 people coming in for help with money or food. Toward the end of the month we start to run low on food.”

MILWAUKEE – Dismas Ministry, a Milwaukee-based national outreach program for Catholic inmates, has begun distributing a Spanish-language Bible-study correspondence course for prisoners. The course is called “Dios con Nosotros” and is the Spanish version of “God With Us,” a Bible study course especially designed for prisoners.

LAGOS, Nigeria – Lagos Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie called the smuggling of arms into Nigeria a few weeks before the general elections a “danger signal.” “These arms are not in the military barracks; neither are they in the hands of law enforcement agents who are authorized to carry arms,” he said. Speaking with media executives during a March 29 seminar organized by Caritas Nigeria, the archbishop said the weapons were in the hands of politicians and their agents who were prepared to use them in urban warfare if the elections did not go their way.

VATICAN CITY – The Catholic Church must take sin seriously, but it must do so like Jesus did, by emphasizing God’s mercy and trust in the sinner’s ability to change, said the preacher of the papal household. In criticizing the Pharisees, “Jesus does not deny that sin and sinners exist,” said Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, offering a Lenten reflection March 30 to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials. But Jesus “was more severe” toward those who “condemned the sinners than toward the sinners themselves,” the preacher said.

The Maryland State Court Scholarship Tea sponsored by the Catholic Daughters of the Americas will take place April 22 from 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at Musket Ridge Golf Club, Myersville.

Click here for Holy Week schedules for the bishops of Baltimore.