Leonard “Buddy” Bastida, 70, grew up in St. Alphonsus Parish in the Irish Channel and spent more than half his life in prison. His house sat directly across the street from the Father Francis Xavier Seelos Center, where the century-old, 10-foot brick walls muffled the sounds of the world and created an interior spiritual oasis.

You made a national stir recently with your initiative to “reclaim” Sunday as a day for worship and family time together by asking schools and other Catholic entities to avoid holding athletic practices and other events on Sunday.

The St. Paul Wolves varsity team won the Bayou Boogie in Baton Rouge in the first week of competition and continued their winning  ways by bringing home the first-place trophy from the Gulf Coast Stampede in Pensacola, Fla.,  Sept. 14.

“A priest for Christ, a priest for love, a priest for all. That’s who I am,” wrote Father Roel Lungay, pastor of St. Genevieve Church in Slidell, in the liner notes of a self-recorded music CD. His parishioners consider him a devoted, compassionate priest and a strong witness to faith amid suffering.

COCHITI PUEBLO, N.M. – Inside the mocha adobe walls of St. Bonaventure Church in northern New Mexico, Christine Suina recalled how her 7-year-old daughter, Mikayla, coaxed her into becoming a teacher of religious education three years ago.

When it comes to building skills such as listening, following directions and manual dexterity, there is no better teacher than learning a craft. Two unique crafts – origami and knitting – are being taught to students at the Academy of the Sacred Heart through the ministry of retired Religious of the Sacred Heart Carol Burk.

Bradley Hughes didn’t realize how silly her character sounded until she performed a skit based on “The Parable of the Great Feast” in her fourth grade religion class at St. Dominic. Bradley, playing the role of a farmer, turns down an invitation to the great feast – a symbol of God’s heavenly banquet – because she had to try out her newly purchased oxen.

Recently, my sister Rosie, her husband Roger and their two beautiful daughters came to visit us in New Orleans. They drove all the way from southeast Florida, which is no small feat under normal circumstances; but considering that my brother-in-law has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), it makes this long trek seem almost heroic.

Dr. Jennifer Lapeyrolerie and her husband René Metoyer were married in a civil ceremony in 1997, but as members of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church and the parents of three children, they desired to have their marriage convalidated by the church.

Lc.17:7-10, 27 Domingo tiempo ordinario “Somos Siervos Inutiles” Para nosotros, cristianos ordinarios, Jesus nos da esta parábola acerca de nuestra salvación eterna. Este siervo ha estado trabajando todo el día afuera en los campos.

El Papa Francisco continuó haciendo noticia internacional la semana pasada con sus 12.000 palabras de entrevista concedida a la publicación jesuita de habla italiano, La Civiltà Cattolica, en la que se habla de muchos temas, incluyendo la enseñanza Católica, sobre ética médica y sexual y su estilo de gobierno.

Deadline: Submissions due Thursday (10 days before each issue) calendar@clarionherald.org (504) area code unless noted Oct. 5-13 EVENTS DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY NEIGHBORHOOD HEALTH PARTNERSHIP (NHP), medical mobile unit free health education, screenings Oct. 5, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and Oct. 6, noon-4 p.m., Gentilly Fest at Pontchartrain Park, 6514 Congress Drive, New Orleans; Oct. 19, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Sankofa Marketplace, 3819 St. Claude Ave., New Orleans.

Recently, while dropping off a friend at home, our conversation turned from a broad school-related conversation to a more personal conversation about personal insecurities. As he got out of the car, he noticed the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that I keep on my dashboard and jokingly apologized for unburdening himself.

Having competition is beneficial to everyone, except for those who do not want to compete or for the complacent. That is the very fabric of athletics and business. And in a city that loves and craves reading the sports sections, especially at this time of year, the competition between the Nola Media group, which offers home delivery of The Times-Picayune on a three-times-per-week basis to bolster its nola.com website, and the new New Orleans Advocate can only make prep sports coverage better.

Even though LSU lost at Georgia, the timing could not be better for a Tiger offensive explosion. Three elite talents play in the metro area. They all play offense. All three couldn’t go wrong if they went to LSU.

Backstabbing and gossip hurt people and harm God’s desire for a united human family, Pope Francis said. Unity is a gift from God, “but often we struggle to live it out,” he said. “We are the ones who create lacerations.” The pope also asked people to pray for persecuted Christians in the world and to be genuinely concerned about their plight, just as one would be for a family member in distress.

It’s been quite a few weeks for Cooper Manning. The 39-year-old son of Olivia and Archie Manning and the older brother of Peyton and Eli has a rakish sense of humor, but nothing this side of the blogosphere prepared him for the provocative story on a satirical sports website.

Now that Bishop Shelton Fabre has been named the fourth bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, what will the next few weeks look like as he prepares to leave the archdiocese? We will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving on Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. at St. Louis Cathedral, which will allow priests, deacons, religious and lay people of the archdiocese to gather in prayer to thank God for Bishop Fabre’s fruitful ministry in the archdiocese for the last six years.

Kevin and Jessica McDermott always knew their 4-year-old son Hunter had the sweet swing of a pro whenever he took out his plastic “toddler” golf clubs. What the couple wasn’t prepared for was their child’s response when they asked him if he wanted to take swimming lessons with his friends over the summer.

Father Thomas Kilasara will never forget the last time he spoke to his best friend, Father Evaristus Mushi, a fellow Catholic priest who lived 8,700 miles away in Zanzibar, islands off the coast of Tanzania, in East Africa.