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,...Read More

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.Read More

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.Read More

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.Read More

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.Read More

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.Read More

WASHINGTON – Upon hearing of the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, priests from the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis traveled to the scene, as well as to nearby hospitals and medical centers, to see how they could help victims of the tragedy and their families. Although Dennis McGrath, archdiocesan...Read More

WEST BABYLON, N.Y. – Seven Long Island parishes are giving themselves a spiritual checkup – conducting surveys to find out how actively engaged their parishioners are.Read More