“Our country is far from perfect, but to many it is a beacon of hope and freedom,” Archbishop Lori said.

Sister Michelle Carroll, founding principal of Mercy High School in Baltimore, died Aug. 23. She was 96, and had served as a Sister of Mercy for 73 years.

Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore welcomed approximately 220 freshmen this year, the largest incoming class to enter the university in its 124-year history.

Jesuit Father Francis Schemel, who taught German at Loyola Blakefield in Towson in the 1960s, died Aug. 4 after 60 years as a priest.

For the first time since 2012, the Mountaineers took the field in an NCAA game Aug. 24, when they played host to Bucknell at Waldron Family Stadium and lost, 2-0.

Xaverian Brother Robert Flaherty, a former teacher at Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore, has been removed from active ministry by his religious community following an allegation that he sexually abused a minor in the mid-1980s.

Bishop Denis J. Madden, urban vicar and auxiliary bishop emeritus of Baltimore, will lead a prayer walk for peace Aug. 22 in Park Heights.

Parish priests and deacons throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore used their Aug. 18-19 homilies, along with messages on social media, bulletins and letters, to address their flocks in response to the recent findings of the Pennsylvania grand jury report concerning clergy child sexual abuse and the way bishops handled abusers.

The festival, which draws those from the greater metropolitan area to the St. Leo community, offers an opportunity to normalize Catholicism in everyday life, as well as promote religious vocations.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore acknowledged the renewed pain and anger caused by clergy sexual abuse following the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that details some of the actions taken by Cardinal William H. Keeler when he was a bishop in Pennsylvania.