The three men ordained May 24 as transitional deacons – the final step before ordination to the priesthood – took different paths to the altar, but Archbishop Gregory Aymond said they will spend the next 12 months of ordained ministry serving as examples of Christian charity for others.

In their zeal to come to the rescue of an unfortunately over-aged high school athlete from Africa, two men with the power and authority to create laws convinced the Louisiana Legislature to pass a bill that would endanger the safety of high school athletes of legal age.

Pope Francis called on the world’s Christians to pray with him for peace in the Middle East, help convince governments to come to the aid of refugees and pray for Christian unity. While peace is a gift from God, it is also built out of the day-to-day handiwork of individuals: true “artisans of peace,” who are capable of crafting fraternity and reconciliation with people of all cultures and religions, he said during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square May 28.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM TEL AVIV (CNS) – Pope Francis will meet with a group of sex abuse victims for the first time in June, he told reporters May 26. During a wide-ranging inflight news conference on his return to Rome from the Holy Land, the pope also confirmed reports the Vatican is investigating charges its former secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, misappropriated 15 million euro from the Vatican bank.

JERUSALEM (CNS) – Half a century after a historic encounter between their predecessors, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met in the same place to seek inspiration for Christian unity at the site of Christ’s death and resurrection.

A new “NOLA Catholic” website for the Archdiocese of New Orleans – a “one-stop shop” where readers can go for information, news and commentary on the local, national and universal church – is a priority for the first year of a strategic planning process conducted by the Clarion Herald and the archdiocesan Office of Communications.

Her name is Katrina Jackson, and even if you haven’t heard much about her until now, it’s a safe bet you will. CNN has. So has the New York Times. Katrina Jackson was born well before the worst natural disaster in U.S. history made her first name radioactive in Louisiana.

The archdiocese held its first consultative session for the Ninth General Synod on May 28, and you had to have been pleased with the results. Despite very bad weather, more than 200 people showed up at St. Margaret Mary in Slidell to offer their thoughts on the local church.

Nearly every day, Sarah Schaff’s dog, Nola, gives her a firm nose-bump on the leg. The 24-year-old, who has Type 1 diabetes, takes these canine nudges very seriously. Schaff has trained her 2-year-old golden retriever to alert her whenever subtle changes in the scent of her breath indicate the concentration of glucose in her blood is moving out of a healthy range.

It was a terrible night for cats and dogs, and one would have thought it would have been an even worse night for synods. But even though the rain came down in buckets May 28 prior to the first of 17 “consultative sessions” of the Ninth General Synod of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, people carrying umbrellas kept filing into the evangelization center at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Slidell.