Church

Alexander Godwin, 15, performed for a full crowd at Maryland Conservatory of Music Student Recital on Dec. 15 at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Bel Air.

I got lost on the way to the church. A few weeks ago, I was heading down Wolfe Street into the complex that is Johns Hopkins Hospital when I drove past Ashland Street. I had to stop at a Citgo station for directions to get back on track. There it was - the City of Hope Missionary Baptist Church - a two-story building that shared a block with some of the vast medical encampment that is both swallowing and saving East Baltimore. Just beyond the church were abandoned rowhomes, some of them roofless, all of them boarded up. This particular weekend marked City of Hope's fifth anniversary.

Elizabeth Ann Murphy's response to Vice Chancellor Sean Caine's letter justifying the Archdiocese of Baltimore's response to allegations of child sexual abuse by John Merzbacher was revealing in its account of her own experience as a victim of such abuse ("Merzbacher victim: Archdiocese has much to answer for," Dec. 6). We in the child advocacy community understand the long-term ramifications of this type of abuse. The hurt to the victim doesn't go away, and to justify any institution's reaction that does not fully embrace that concept is shameful.

The Rev. John Paul Buchheister Sr., a retired pastor who had been a United Methodist Church district superintendent, died of cardiac failure Saturday at Oak Crest Village. He was 87 and had lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Harry Buchheister, a chocolate candy and taffy confectioner. He grew up on Wilkens Avenue in Violetville in Southwest Baltimore and was a 1943 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he was quarterback of the school's football team. He joined the Navy and was sent to the University of North Carolina, where he took courses at its preflight school.

I write in response to last Sunday's article, "Catholic officials knew of teacher's abuse, court files indicate" (Nov. 24) and the subsequent editorial regarding the horrific abuse committed by John Merzbacher in the 1970s. Contrary to the article's implication that the former archbishop or others in the central offices of the Archdiocese of Baltimore delayed the reporting of the abuse, the archdiocese first learned of the abuse when a victim - by then an adult - reported it to us in 1988.

My wife grew up in a large Catholic family in Locust Point, and she and her siblings attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School. They have wonderful stories of friends, relatives, co-workers and neighborhood characters, second and third generation descendants of immigrants from Germany, Poland and Ireland, who are the embodiment of American working class families who sacrificed so much to give their children a better life. In this close community, the stories about John Merzbacher and the atrocities he committed on innocent children began surfacing early on ("Calls for reform in cases of abuse," Nov. 27)

Regarding your report that Catholic school officials knew about child abuse allegations against teacher John Merzbacher, the public needs to be aware of how the archdiocese affects public policy to the detriment of child victims ("Catholic officials knew of teacher's abuse, court files indicate," Nov. 25). I am a long-standing child advocate who has testified since 1985 on many child protection bills, including Maryland's child abuse reporting and civil statute of limitations laws concerning child sexual abuse.

More than a few East Coast buildings contain a Tiffany stained-glass window or two. But one structure in Baltimore can boast much more - a complete interior created by the famed designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany. St. Mark's Lutheran Church on St. Paul Street is considered such an exceptional example of Tiffany's work that it has been recommended for designation as a Baltimore landmark. Only one other city building - the Senator Theatre - has an interior that was singled out for landmark status.

The Rev. Ricky Spain, pastor of East Baltimore's Waters African Methodist Episcopal Church who had also been a community activist in his years as an Annapolis-area pastor, died of cancer Nov. 16 at the Tate Chesapeake Hospice House in Linthicum. The Severn resident was 63. Born in Virginia Beach, Va., he was the son of Luther and Florence Spain. A 1967 graduate of First Colonial High School, he won state honors for wrestling. After studying at Norfolk State University, he earned a bachelor's degree in political science at North Carolina Wesleyan College.

Meeting for the first time since voters in Maryland and two other states legalized same-sex marriage, members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Tuesday that they have no plans to soften their position that genuine marriage can occur only between one man and one woman. "Are [the results] concerning? Sure they are," William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, said between sessions at the organization's fall general assembly in Baltimore, which has drawn about 300 bishops and archbishops to the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East this week.