The future fire chief said he fell in love with the Catholic Church, attracted by the richness of the liturgy and the solid structure of the church. There was a sense of authenticity he longed for, he said.

Without uttering a word, nine teens from Central Maryland conveyed their love for their church using signs and gestures during a first-ever archdiocesan confirmation liturgy for the deaf community May 13.

“Holy Communion makes you feel better that you have received Jesus,” he explained. “I’m so glad I’m able to receive it. It gives me strength.”

The new houses are part of a 122-home development resulting from a partnership between TRF Development Partners and Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD). Seventy-five of the homes will be built from scratch, with the remaining 47 to be rehabbed.

Paul McMullen, a Baltimore native with four decades of experience in the newspaper business, has been appointed managing editor of The Catholic Review.

She has been the president and principal of Baltimore’s Mercy High School for 31 years, and may have held such a position longer than anyone else in Catholic secondary education. But, Sister Carol Wheeler, R.S.M., somehow retains the creative energy, freshness and vision she had when she came to the newly opened Mercy as a teacher in 1961 and when she became principal in 1977.

One day after attending an April 24 White House summit on preventing faith-based schools from closing in the inner-city, Dr. Ronald J. Valenti, Baltimore superintendent of Catholic schools, welcomed a renewed proposal from President George W. Bush to establish a “Pell Grant for Kids.”

As part of an ongoing celebration of the 200th anniversary of the elevation of Baltimore to archdiocesan status, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien introduced the John Carroll Lecture series April 22 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore. The series focuses on the history and heritage of Catholicism in America.

Father Wayne G. Funk, the longtime pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Frederick who was known for his encouraging, pastoral presence, died Feb. 16 at Frederick Memorial Hospital. The 70-year-old priest had battled cancer for nearly five years.

After a recently completed $700,000 restoration, the small chapel has been stabilized, a new roof added, the exterior made over and the interior returned to the elegant simplicity that characterized the structure at the time it was erected in 1855.