As a new year dawns, Rita Buettner sits down with award-winning Catholic author and columnist Laura Kelly Fanucci for a thoughtful conversation about faith, reflection, grief and hope in times of transition

Heavy rains May 13 caused Georges Creek to overflow its banks, while the Potomac River was too full to accept the creek’s flow. Within minutes, water rushed down Church Street, flooding everything in its path. 

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Participants gathered on a cold, windy night at St. Joseph’s Monastery Church and processed to My Brother’s Keeper, a Catholic Charities program on Frederick Avenue that provides support services for men and women. Along the route, the names – or, when identities were unknown, the sex – of Baltimore’s homicide victims were read aloud.

During a pair of Christmas-season homilies, Archbishop William E. Lori preached a message of hope during these often-tumultuous times at Baltimore’s Cathedral of Mary our Queen in Homeland.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame announced Dec. 23 in a news release that it completed the sale of its property at 901 Aisquith St., which once housed the now-closed Institute of Notre Dame.

Catholic Review Editor Christopher Gunty sat down for an extensive conversation with Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori about the papal transition and issues of concern to the local church. The archbishop talked about good news on the vocations front, the impact of Seek the City changes on parishes and the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Institute for Evangelism in the archdiocese.

Well before he was a University of Maryland transfer who used his final year of college football eligibility to become a major success story as a running back at Indiana University, Roman Hemby said he owed much credit to The John Carroll School for instilling vital Catholic values that guide him today. 

A coalition of public, private and faith-based partners will gather Dec. 29, 6 p.m., in Southwest Baltimore for a one-hour evening prayer vigil sponsored by the Archdiocese of Baltimore to remember the lives lost to homicide this year and plead for an end to violence.