MILWAUKEE – Marquette University is receiving $51 million from an alumni couple to help build a new law school facility. A university news release described it as “the largest gift ever made by individuals to a Wisconsin college or university” as well as one of the largest gifts ever given to any U.S. law school....Read More

NEW YORK – Playwrights Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter needn’t worry about their names being usurped in posterity’s annals by Karol Wojtyla, the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, who became Pope John Paul II. But there is much to admire in the late pope’s drama, “The Jeweler’s Shop,” currently on view in New York, courtesy of...Read More

After reading Tony Hall’s letter about “chatter” at Mass (CR, May 3), I must say that I agree with his call to make sure that electronic parishioners are silenced during Mass, but I can’t say the same for his condemnation of “socializing” before Mass.Read More

After a slow start to the lacrosse season, the Loyola Blakefield Dons bounced back by smoking out-of-conference Dulaney High School, Timonium, 10-1, April 9. From there, the team kept rolling, right into the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association’s A Conference championship match-up May 14 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where they demolished Boys’ Latin,...Read More

Father Matthew Buening, associate pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, just happened to be wearing his Cal Ripken Jr. jersey on the day it was announced the baseball star would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Father Buening felt it was a sign. Father Buening and Wendt Touring have created a Catholic...Read More

PASADENA, Calif. – Southern California’s largest rosary recitation in more than 50 years offered a broad cross-section of ages and ethnicities in the local Catholic Church, and a link to a storied tradition. Some 50,000 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena May 19 prayed the rosary during the Rosary Bowl, an event sponsored by...Read More

LONDON – A surgeon who testified about the miraculous healing of a baby at a British hospital said he remains mystified by the child’s recovery, the miracle that cleared the way for the canonization of Malta’s first saint. Dr. Anil Dhawan, professor of pediatric hepatology at King’s College Hospital, London, told Catholic News Service May...Read More

WASHINGTON – Rep. Chris Smith has called Amnesty International’s new position on abortion “outrageous” and said it creates a “major credibility gap” for the widely respected human rights organization. In a telephone interview with Catholic News Service May 18, the New Jersey Republican said Amnesty’s new position makes it “just another pro-abortion organization.” Amnesty’s claim...Read More