In advance of the March 4 release of the Consolidation Plan and Report for archdiocesan schools, Archbishop Edwin F. O´Brien sat down with Catholic Review associate publisher/editor Christopher Gunty to discuss the process that led to the decisions, and the ramifications. Click here to read the Q & A

As the Cold War raged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, 1,000 nuns packed secret messages into tubes of toothpaste and bits of candy – smuggling the reports of human rights abuses and church persecution out of Communist-dominated Lithuania.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien is set to announce the consolidation of an unspecified number of schools March 4.

WASHINGTON – Registration is now open for a series of workshops to help prepare priests and diocesan leaders for implementation of the revised Roman Missal.

(This is the first article in a two-part series.) There is a banner at St. Pius dated July 12, 1931. The date represents the 78th anniversary when the congregation of St. Barnabas located at West Biddle Street and Argyle Avenue relocated and became the congregation of St. Pius V located four blocks away.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – During the past 40 years – from his first engagement as a Peace Corps volunteer to his three decades spanning the globe with Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services – Ken Hackett has witnessed and responded to human misery.

At mid-day Feb. 4, while most in the Mid-Atlantic concerned themselves with the arrival of a record-setting blizzard, Deacon Rodrigue Mortel sat in his office at the Catholic Center and considered a crisis that requires more than stocking up on bread and milk.

Lineetra Seward dreams of a day when she can walk around her Baltimore City neighborhood without fear.

City pastors who worked with Mayor Sheila Dixon on issues ranging from homelessness to immigration gave the outgoing mayor generally high marks for her performance in office. Yet, as the 56-year-old mayor prepares to step down Feb. 4 as part of a plea deal in a corruption case, priests throughout the city expressed disappointment in her behavior.

Bishop John H. Ricard, SSJ, bishop of Penacola-Tallahassee, Fla., and former auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, was admitted to the hospital recently with a stroke. The following information was provided by the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee: