Baltimore-area Catholics reacted with a mix of disappointment, relief and resignation after the archdiocese announced the final plan for the Seek the City to Come initiative May 22.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore revealed the final plan May 22 for parish planning in Baltimore City, with 23 parishes at 30 worship sites, about half the current number of churches available for Sunday Mass.

The Seek the City to Come plan announced May 22 realigns Catholic parishes throughout Baltimore City and some nearby communities in Baltimore County. Pastoral leadership for each location will be determined in the future. For now, the new parishes will take on the name of the church where it is sited, but the parishioners of the newly formed entity can eventually petition to change that name.

An archdiocesan leadership committee is in the process of interviewing companies to catalog and photograph items and property in the 61 parishes involved in the Seek the City initiative. Those items include everything from chalices to altars, pews, statues, paintings and Stations of the Cross images.

As new parishes emerge from the recently unveiled Seek the City to Come plan for revitalizing the Catholic Church in the Baltimore metropolitan area, archdiocesan leaders are encouraging the newly forming faith communities to embrace an approach to evangelization that emulates the spirit of the apostolic age.

Jesuit Father Charles Delano Sullivan, a Baltimore native who taught and coached for nearly 50 years in Bronx, N.Y., died May 13 of Parkinson’s disease. A funeral Mass will be offered May 22, 11 a.m., at Fordham University Church in the Bronx. He was 84.

Eight survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and religious in the Archdiocese of Baltimore spoke during a court hearing May 20 as part of the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, providing a sometimes-gruesome look into the decades of impact on their lives.

The culmination of a long wait for a new worship space finally happened for patient parishioners May 17 in Ellicott City, where 700 filled the fully renovated and reconstructed Church of the Resurrection to celebrate a new beginning.

The annual “Mass for the Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Mariners and People of the Sea” celebrated at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington honored the memory of six Hispanic workers who lost their lives in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

Catholic Review Editor Christopher Gunty talked with Bishop Adam Parker about the experience of getting onto the Dali and the importance of praying for the crew, their families and those who died in the accident.