VATICAN CITY – Two months after Pope Benedict XVI’s first choice as archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, resigned amid accusations of collaborating with communists, the pope named a 57-year-old bishop to take the post. Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, who had been bishop of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg, was named archbishop of Warsaw March 3. Newspapers have published quotations from the...Read More

More than 600 Scouts, parents, troop leaders and family members attended the 61st annual Archdiocesan Scout Mass March 4 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore. This was the third time Michael Shindledecker, 13, from Pack 801, St. Mark, Fallston, has participated in the Scout Mass....Read More

Testifying in favor of a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, Richard J. Dowling told members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee it is proper to codify a historical definition of marriage that has withstood the test of time.Read More

WASHINGTON – A Jesuit priest is to be reinstated as a chaplain at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center after a federal board ruled that he was fired because of religious discrimination. Father Henry Heffernan, 76, was ordered to be reinstated at the NIH clinic in Bethesda, Md., by the Merit Systems Protection Board,...Read More

CHICAGO – Church teaching on end-of-life issues is much more than “dilemmas and controversies,” a priest-physician told a gathering of Catholic health care ethicists in Chicago March 1. “Don’t let people hijack our church anymore,” said Jesuit Father Myles N. Sheehan, a geriatric oncologist who is senior associate dean for educational programs at the Stritch...Read More

BUCHAREST, Romania – Historians and communist-era diplomats have cast doubts on a former Romanian general’s claim that he helped with a KGB plot to portray Pope Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer in order to weaken the Catholic Church. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a Romanian intelligence chief under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, said that between 1960...Read More

Brandon MacPherson teases his younger sister, Erin, that she won the title of Miss Maryland Teen America in January because he was her onstage escort as she competed in the evening wear segment in a lavender and cream colored gown. Joking aside, one meeting with the Maryvale Preparatory School, Brooklandville, junior explains how she won...Read More

In a press conference at Towson High School Feb. 26, St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, The Maryland State Department of Education and Congressman Elijah Cummings announced an anabolic steroids and supplements awareness campaign. This new campaign will address the issue of anabolic steroid abuse and educate Maryland middle and high school students, parents, coaches and...Read More