“Malik is the child of my heart,” Ms. Brogden, 44, said. “He may not be the child of my womb, but he’s the child of my heart. And he knows it.”

When 12-year-old Thomas Foley opened a shoebox in his Aunt Mame’s closet more than 65 years ago, he unwittingly uncovered the building blocks for a remarkable story of faith, courage and determination.

Father Robert “Rocky” Kearns, a pioneering Josephite priest, pastor and superior general who was active in the social justice movement, died in an Alabama hospital Dec. 6 from complications of cancer. He was 72.

It looks more than a little bit like a Picasso, the nun’s painting of St. Ambrose baptizing St. Augustine.

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.