EDGEMERE – Standing at the back of St. Luke Church following a Dec. 11 Mass marking his retirement, Monsignor Joseph S. Lizor Jr. extended both arms to shake hands with the many parishioners who wanted to greet him. Several children gave the 79-year-old pastor homemade cards, while hugs seemed to engulf the vested clergyman faster than he expected.

St. John’s Catholic Prep in Frederick has announced it will be moving to the campus of St. Thomas More Academy in Buckeystown. St. Thomas More will move to a yet to be determined site in Frederick County.

Ever the poetic soul, Xaverian Brother James M. Kelly died as the sun was rising Dec. 3, the feast day of his congregation’s patron, St. Francis Xavier.

A Raphael masterpiece that hangs in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is getting national attention this holiday season as the U.S. Postal Service features the “Madonna of the Candelabra” as one of its 2011 Christmas stamps.

Leaders of a newly-formed pro-marriage coalition came out swinging against efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland – pledging in a Nov. 30 press conference to rally citizens across the state to defeat legislation that would alter the traditional definition of marriage.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –On a sweltering October day, a team of leaders from Catholic Relief Services stopped at St. Francois de Sales Hospital here to receive an update on plans to rebuild and transform it into a teaching hospital.

Vatican experts have declined to consider the case of the apparent healing of an Annapolis woman as the miracle needed for the canonization of Blessed Francis X. Seelos, a 19th century Redemptorist priest who was pastor of St. Alphonsus in Baltimore, St. Mary in Annapolis and Ss. Peter and Paul in Cumberland.

Monsignor Damien Nalepa and Father Peter Lyons are never giving up on Baltimore City and they want everyone else to have that faith as well.

Father Matthew T. Buening looked out on his congregation Nov. 27 as he was concluding Mass at St. Paul in Ellicott City and spoke words he has offered throughout his priesthood.

EPHRATA, Pa. – When Redemptorist Father John Murray bashed his head against a railing after tripping along a New Jersey boardwalk 15 months ago, the consequences were devastating.