Deacon John Joseph Rafter Jr., who had a passion for bringing people into the Catholic Church, died May 11 at University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie. He was 79.

A funeral Mass for Sister Joan Matthews of the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence will be offered May 24 in Indiana. Sister Joan, formerly known as Sister Ignatius, died April 25. She was 93 and had spent 75 years as a Sister of Providence.

A May 6 funeral Mass was offered for Redemptorist Brother De Sales Zimpfer at Sacred Heart of Jesus-Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in Highlandtown. Brother De Sales died May 1 at the St. John Neumann Residence of Stella Maris in Timonium, three days ahead of his 87th birthday.

A much-loved priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Monsignor Tewes served as an associate pastor and then pastor of what is now New All Saints in Liberty Heights from 1963 to 1974. He was then pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption in Govans from 1974 to 1984, St. Michael in Overlea from 1984 to 1992 and Our Lady of Hope from 1992 to 2000.

Madeleine Albright was eulogized April 27 at a funeral service at Washington’s National Cathedral by notable friends and family gathered to remember the happy but also turbulent times in the life of the former U.S. Secretary of State, the first woman to hold that position.

Longtime pro-life advocate Deirdre McQuade, who for more than a decade shared perspectives of U.S. bishops’ and the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life, died April 21 after a bout with metastatic breast cancer. She was 53.

Deacon Rodrigue Mortel, who as director of the Missions Office for the Archdiocese of Baltimore inspired dozens of parishes in the archdiocese to support sister churches in his homeland of Haiti and led hundreds of Catholic high-schoolers on summer missions there, died April 22 at his home in Hershey, Pa.

A funeral Mass for Franciscan Sister Kathleen Mary Winkelman will be offered April 25 at Assisi House in Aston, Pa.

Father Gerard James Steffener died April 13 at BridgingLife Dove House in Westminster. He was 91.

A funeral Mass for Josephite Father Lowell David Case, a Baltimore native who ministered at St. Peter Claver/St. Pius V in West Baltimore, will be offered April 12 at 11 a.m. at the Church of the Incarnation in Washington, D.C. Father Case died April 5. He was 80 and had been a Josephite priest for more than four decades.