Pope Francis blessed a special Easter basket during a private audience with Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly and his family at the Vatican April 11.

Leaders of the Knights of Columbus see the Catholic men’s fraternal organization as a powerful engine for evangelization, and to start that engine they are developing a program to train members on how to evangelize.

Russian forces in Ukraine attacked a Caritas office in Mariupol and a Catholic seminary in a small village north of Kyiv, prompting renewed calls for an end to the war and to the targeting of innocent civilians.

The Maryland Catholic Conference, Annapolis-based public-policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, worked diligently throughout Maryland’s recently completed 444th legislative session to push its support for a variety of bills and also try to help defeat a bill that will expand abortion in the state.

Although St. Brigid’s church in Canton has been demolished to make way for a new townhouse development in the Canton neighborhood, the rectory remains, ready for repurpose, and religious items – from the altar to the statues – have been transferred to other churches around the archdiocese and beyond.