K.C. Bersch first visited Haiti in 1997, when she was a student at the Institute of Notre Dame in Baltimore. She accompanied her mother on a mission of mercy rooted in their family’s long-distance support of a child there.

Although his 40-year career spanned the globe and taught this priest four languages, Monsignor John L. FitzGerald is back in his native town of Baltimore doing what he knows best: ministering to seafarers. As a child, he attended St. Mark, Catonsville. Once ordained, he was assigned first to St. Matthew, Northwood, then St. Peter the Apostle, Baltimore.

WASHINGTON – As Democratic and Republican senators pressed their divergent views on the New START agreement with Russia outlining the next phase of nuclear disarmament during final debate in December, a wide array of Catholics played a major role in getting the pact ratified.

As Baltimore’s Franciscan Center celebrated its 40th anniversary with a block party, Sept. 10, volunteer Ellen Daniels stood in the hubbub and spoke about how the nonprofit organization was able to help her.

After three years at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle River, Father T. Austin Murphy will be leaving July 1 to become the new chaplain of the Newman Center at Towson University. “As a priest you don’t forget your first parish,” said Father Murphy, 34, who is a graduate of University of Maryland Baltimore County. “I know I will leave with their prayers.” Father Murphy said he has truly enjoyed working with the elementary and high school students and helping with the sacraments.

WASHINGTON – Passionist Father Rick Frechette, the Haiti-based director of medical services for Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos International who served at St. Joseph Passionist Monastery Parish in Irvington in the 1970s, was at home in New Jersey with his dying mother when the magnitude 7 earthquake hit Port-au-Prince Jan. 12.

For the past 51 years as a priest, Father John Bauer, C.Ss.R., has looked forward to celebrating Midnight Mass on Christmas, and the most peaceful one for this Highlandtown native was in the middle of a war zone.

Aimee Murray can deal with carrying her 31-pound, 4-year-old son. She can handle putting a 1.5-inch feeding tube into a hole in his belly and inflating a small balloon inside his abdomen to keep it in place. She can even endure exhausting hours of constantly checking on her boy to monitor his breathing and comfort him when he has muscle spasms.

When Bishop Denis J. Madden consecrated the white marble altar in the main church of Sacred Heart of Jesus July 21, the urban vicar became the second bishop to bless the ornate marble slab within the past 51 years.

Saying the U.S. immigration system is broken, Baltimore City pastors called for its reform during a news conference Jan. 12 at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Baltimore.