As Melissa Brent crept closer to the 7-foot, 850-pound bronze statue, not even a steady late-November rain could dampen her joy.

From a parish school in South Philadelphia to the Catoctin Mountains, Phelan spent 65 years on campuses affiliated with the church.

“It looks like bread, but it really is Jesus,” explained Father Erik Arnold, pastor of the Ellicott City parish, reminding the young onlookers that Christ is truly present in body, blood, soul and divinity through the Blessed Sacrament.

Father Patrick Peach is turning in his black clerics and white collar for a brown tunic.

John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens says his Catholic faith is central to who he is.

Seeing himself cast in bronze alongside Pope John Paul II in a new downtown statue brought back a flood of memories for Justin Farinelli.

Sister Maria del Fiat Miola was studying abroad in Italy during her junior year at Columbia University when she encountered a group of women at St. Peter’s Square who would change her life.

A passionate death penalty abolitionist who corresponds with a former death row inmate and who regularly carries signs protesting the death penalty in front of Baltimore’s Supermax prison, Brother Frank believes attitudes can only be changed if people recognize the dignity of every human life.

When Monsignor Robert L. Hartnett arrived at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Essex 12 years ago, the neighborhood parish was trying to hold together a surrounding community undergoing great change.

The Sept. 19-21 reunion, sponsored by Mega Millions winner Bernadette Gietka, was the first time many of the graduates had seen each other in decades, and brought back memories of their long-closed school.