When police arrested the serial rapist who brutally assaulted and murdered Shannon Schieber in 1998, the Schieber family faced unrelenting pressure to seek the death penalty.

Cardinal J. Francis Stafford made a stop in Emmitsburg before he attended Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien’s Oct. 1 installation ceremony at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland. There, he prayed for the new Baltimore archbishop at the tombs of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and Archbishop James R. Bayley – two New York natives who served in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Calling the death penalty nothing more than “legalized vengeance,” Sister Helen said the gift of being a Catholic is embracing the “seamless garment of life” – respecting the dignity of life from conception until natural death.

In an assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud, dozens of volunteers from St. Peter in Hancock transformed their parish hall into an apple dumpling factory Sept. 12-14 – filling the air with the delightfully dense aroma of sweet cinnamon and fresh-baked apples that attracted visitors from near and far.

In a sign of deep affection for the man who has served as the fatherly face of the Archdiocese of Baltimore for 18 years, nearly 2,000 people gathered in the Baltimore Convention Center Sept. 6 to honor the long ministry of Cardinal William H. Keeler.

Wearing hooded grey robes cinched at the waist with ropes, nearly a dozen Franciscan Friars of the Renewal marched through the streets of downtown Baltimore Aug. 9 carrying a large crucifix, an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a papal flag.

Father Adam J. Parker, pastor of Church of the Ascension, Halethorpe, has been named vice chancellor for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and will serve as secretary to Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, effective Sept. 17.

As Rosalie Dohm of Woodbridge, Va. climbed the stairs to the nation’s first cathedral Aug. 2, she thought it was unusual that Cardinal William H. Keeler was personally greeting each of the visitors from her parish tour group. The 66-year-old parishioner of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Lakeridge, Va., then found herself in the spotlight when Cardinal Keeler handed her a package and balloons and congratulated her for being the 100,000th visitor to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary since it reopened last November. “I’m dumbfounded,” said Ms. Dohm, who attended the tour with her parish’s Silver Foxes senior citizen group. “I was excited about seeing this place, but wow. What a shock to be told you are the 100,000th visitor since it opened back up to the public.”

During the many months Monsignor Arthur Valenzano battled leukemia, there was one day the longtime pastor of St. John in Westminster remembers as his absolute worst.

Father Godwin Sochukwuma Ani, S.S.J., was ordained on May 19 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Washington D.C.