Father Christopher Whatley is convinced that believers around the world have a powerful new friend in heaven. Her name is Teresa Bartlinski.

Gaul, 72, died Oct. 18, after a nearly yearlong battle with cancer. He worked at the Catholic Review beginning as a writer in 1995 before becoming associate and then managing editor. He had also produced and hosted Catholic News Radio and Catholic Review TV.

Monsignor Damien Nalepa, pastor of St. Gregory the Great in West Baltimore for 30 years and a much-respected proponent of inner-city ministry, social justice and non-violence, died suddenly at St. Gregory Aug. 4 at age 70.

Redemptorist Father Edwin G. Foley, whose pastoral ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore included work at Our Lady of Fatima in Baltimore, St. Mary in Annapolis and Sacred Heart of Jesus in Highlandtown, was remembered as a gentle scholar who had an ability to relate to people.

A funeral Mass was offered Nov. 27 for Father Robert O’Connell, S.S.J., who at 101 was the longest-lived Josephite priest, one who had served God for 66 years.

Father John. J. Kelmartin, a former pastor of St. Bartholomew in Manchester and Our Lady of Victory in Arbutus who taught in several seminaries across the country, died March 7 at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 83.

Paulist Father James McCabe, former director of the Family Life Center in Baltimore and a longtime columnist for The Catholic Review, died Dec. 25, 2011 in Toronto. He was 81 and had been battling cancer.

Ever the poetic soul, Xaverian Brother James M. Kelly died as the sun was rising Dec. 3, the feast day of his congregation’s patron, St. Francis Xavier.

A known author, philosophy professor, missionary and pastor, Father Oppitz survived the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria ship, which sank July 26, 1956.

Retired Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New Orleans, a World War II paratroop chaplain, counselor to President John F. Kennedy, and staunch defender of civil rights and the unborn who began his ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died Sept. 29 at age 98.