That would be the Chesapeake Bay, in my beautiful home state of Maryland. And that happens to be the name of a wonderful little blog by a Redemptorist by the name of Fr. Andy Costello. A reader — another Redemptorist — dropped me a line not long ago and suggested I check it out. I…

When John Paul made his first visit to these shores, in 1979, I was a “marshall” on the Washington mall — an usher, really, bused in with my parish — and vendors were selling tee shirts with that cute saying printed on the front. I imagine we’ll be seeing more like that when his successor…

As one of our correspondents at CBS likes to put it: “Everybody has a story.” And the story of this Protestant minister’s conversion to Catholicism, printed recently in the Catholic Explorer in Illinois, is well worth hearing: At the same time he was performing duties as a Protestant minister, John Johnson told the Catholic Explorer…

For as long as I can remember — and I’m sure, well before that — little girls were receiving their first communion in white dresses. I thought that was a fairly standard tradition, with a distinct connection to both the white baptismal garment and the white bridal gown. A beautiful symbol of innocence and purity.…

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