As Rosalie Dohm of Woodbridge, Va. climbed the stairs to the nation’s first cathedral Aug. 2, she thought it was unusual that Cardinal William H. Keeler was personally greeting each of the visitors from her parish tour group. The 66-year-old parishioner of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Lakeridge, Va., then found herself in the spotlight when Cardinal Keeler handed her a package and balloons and congratulated her for being the 100,000th visitor to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary since it reopened last November. “I’m dumbfounded,” said Ms. Dohm, who attended the tour with her parish’s Silver Foxes senior citizen group. “I was excited about seeing this place, but wow. What a shock to be told you are the 100,000th visitor since it opened back up to the public.”

During the many months Monsignor Arthur Valenzano battled leukemia, there was one day the longtime pastor of St. John in Westminster remembers as his absolute worst.

Father Godwin Sochukwuma Ani, S.S.J., was ordained on May 19 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Washington D.C.

Father Bernard S. Bak, one of the first permanent deacons ordained in the United States who later became a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, died in his Dundalk home June 8. He was 85. A funeral Mass was offered June 11 at St. Casimir in Canton, the parish in which Father Bak grew up and where he served as a deacon after his 1971 ordination. Father Bak also served as a deacon at Christ the King in Dundalk. After his wife of 35 years, Antoinette Stefanowicz, died in 1984, Father Bak petitioned the archdiocese to become a priest. He studied at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park and was ordained a priest in 1988.

“Down through the centuries the Catholic Church has always been a great patron both of the visual and musical arts,” said Monsignor Luca. “It’s in that spirit we would like to offer these concerts to all the people of our community.”