The path to sainthood has something in common with a trial: There is testimony, evidence, historical investigation and a formal tribunal. But in the Church’s process of canonization, the goal is not to find someone guilty or innocent. It is to uncover evidence of holiness.

A sense of joy filled the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sept. 12. As family and friends applauded and cheered, Archbishop William E. Lori, himself smiling brightly, bestowed honors from Pope Leo XIV to 21 members of the laity, clergy and religious of the Archdiocese of Baltimore during solemn lauds (morning prayer).

Stephen Peroutka knows that Catholics who are business executives are busy, and likely already involved in a few – or more than a few – business and civic organizations. But he still wants them to consider joining Legatus, an international organization of leaders who want to be ambassadors for Christ.

Archbishop William E. Lori urged Catholics to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with hearts marked not by vengeance, but by compassion and sacrifice, during a midday Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.

Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore will receive their second opportunity in less than five years to encounter, venerate and pray with the relics of a saint who has led countless Catholics to Christ through the Blessed Mother. A reliquary of St. Bernadette will make visits to three sites within the archdiocese in September, some of the earliest parts of a national journey the relics will take in the next 12 months.

The second annual Saints on Their Way gathering and festival hosted by the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton will take place Sept. 12-13.

When a hijacked airliner carrying 64 people struck the Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001, then-Father F. Richard Spencer’s first instinct was to reach Walter Reed Army Medical Center, expecting the injured to be taken there. He stayed until 10 p.m., but only four injured people arrived.

An entire generation has grown up without firsthand memories of Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked passenger jets struck the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa. Investigators later determined that the fourth plane’s intended target was the U.S. Capitol.

George Matysek goes behind the scenes of Notre Dame football with Holy Cross Father Nate Wills, the team’s chaplain and author of “Pray Like a Champion Today: Sacred Stories from the Sidelines of Notre Dame Football.” Ordained in 2006, Father Wills is also an education professor at Notre Dame and a national speaker on artificial intelligence in Catholic education.

Betty Contino, a diminutive-yet-larger-than-life presence in Baltimore education and longtime chairwoman and chief executive officer of the Women’s Education Alliance (WEA), died Aug. 31 at 81. Through WEA, she helped thousands of students attend Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, while also supporting teachers, school leaders and the broader needs of the schools she served.