As civic leaders hope to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks and months, Archbishop William E. Lori is renewing his call for everyone throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore to get vaccinated as “an act of charity and love.”

Hundreds of elementary and secondary educators in the Archdiocese of Baltimore began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine the week of Jan. 18, when Maryland entered the rollout’s Phase 1B.

With the murder of Safe Streets organizer Dante Barksdale fresh in their minds, advocates for reducing violence in Baltimore City said during a Jan. 26 video conference that respect and dignity help them reach out to a suffering community.

Father Rochus Hoat Dinh Vu, a priest who served in his native Vietnam before coming to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Jan. 21 in Carthage, Mo. He was 86.

Sister Patricia McAlpin, who was attracted to the Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore by their ministry with African American orphans and served in several ministries in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Jan. 14.

Sister Hildegarde Grogan, a professed member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia for 64 years, whose ministry in health care and education brought her to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Jan. 20 in Assisi House in Aston, Pa.

Sister Lois Marie Blessing, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur for 63 years who spent much of her teaching ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Jan. 1 at the Hospice of Cincinnati.

Kendi sees the effect of the pandemic on Black people as but just one example of how systemic racism is a threat to a whole people. It’s another reason the nation must dismantle racist policies.

Sister Marie Dolores Beck, a Sister of the Good Shepherd who ministered for decades at the Good Shepherd Center in Halethorpe, died Jan. 5. She was 85.

“We gather to celebrate and to give thanks for the gift of human life and to proclaim and give thanks for its beauty,” Archbishop Lori said, “and to honor those who are apostles and missionaries of the message that life is beautiful.”