Mary S Seminary

The Rev. John Anthony Delclos, a retired Roman Catholic priest known for his emotional preaching style, died of cancer Sunday at his Northwood home. He was 67. Born in Baltimore and raised on Bartlett Avenue, he attended St. Ann's parochial school. He was a 1957 graduate of Loyola High School and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Loyola College. He joined the old Maryland National Bank and became its commercial credit department manager, but after six years decided on a career change.

The Rev. Robert A. Reed, a retired priest who served inner-city parishes in Baltimore for more than 40 years, died Saturday of a heart attack at the parish house of St. Benedict Roman Catholic Church in West Baltimore. He was 83."Clear thought and strong commitment certainly were hallmarks of Bob Reed's ministry," said Monsignor W. Francis Malooly, communications director for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.Father Reed had been associate pastor of St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church in Hamilton for nine years at the time of his formal retirement in 1985 but pursued an active retirement.

Louise Ann Meister, a social worker who assisted prisoners, AIDS patients and the homeless, died of cancer Monday at her Columbia home. She was 59.The director of social services for N Street Village in Washington, a center where 600 homeless women annually seek help, she had a long career with institutions in Baltimore and Washington."

The friends and family of Monsignor Anthony L. Sauerwein will gather tomorrow morning at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in Clarksville to remember the devout, kind, warm and funny priest that he was.And the retired pastor of St. Louis wouldn't have liked it a bit.Monsignor Sauerwein, who died at age 74 early Sunday after collapsing outside his room at Long Crandon, a residence for elderly priests in Timonium, often said he did not want flowery eulogies."

St. Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park is embarking on a major expansion of its library that will include archival space for what will be the most comprehensive collection of documents related to the development of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.The library addition will bring together the archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore with the archives of the seminary and of the Sulpician Order of priests who founded it in 1791 and still teach there, said the Rev. Robert F. Leavitt, president and rector of the seminary.

In the world of biblical scholarship, the Rev. Raymond E. Brown was a pioneer in Roman Catholic scripture studies who was perhaps the world's foremost authority on the Gospel of St. John.But to those who knew him personally, he was a man of simple piety and a teacher who could translate profound biblical truths into language that anyone could understand.Father Brown, who taught from 1959 to 1971 at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park, died Saturday of a heart attack in Redwood City, Calif.

NEW YORK -- Two priests returning from Christmas dinner were robbed at gunpoint in the parish house of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Wednesday night, police said yesterday.The Rev. Brian Brennan of St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Rev. David D. Thayer, who was visiting from St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, were returning to the parish house, on 51st Street between Fifth and Madison avenues, shortly before midnight when two men followed them into the foyer, threatened them with a handgun and robbed them of $175, said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York.

E. John Schmitz III, 49, president of Schmitz PressE. John Schmitz III, president of Schmitz Press, a Hunt Valley commercial printer, died Sunday of cancer at his home in New Freedom, Pa. where he had lived since 1978. He was 49.Mr. Schmitz, who had studied for the priesthood, joined the family business in 1968 and succeeded his father as president in 1987.He was born and raised on Woodbourne Avenue in Baltimore and was a 1964 graduate of St. Mary's Seminary in Northeast, Pa. He earned degrees in philosophy and theology from St. Mary's Seminary in Suffield, Conn.

ST. MARY'S SEMINARY and University, the first Roman Catholic seminary in the nation and the only theological seminary in Baltimore, is broadening its mission to include the continuing education of priests and other religious leaders.Since its founding in 1791, when Baltimore was the nation's only diocese, the seminary has graduated thousands of priests for service in 30 dioceses throughout the eastern United States.Now it is building a $4.5 million Center for Continuing Studies designed to bring men and women of all faiths together on campus to explore contemporary religious, social, educational and business ethics issues.

POPE LEO XIII USED TO go through the streets of Rome in the 19th century in a gilded horse-drawn carriage. Pius XI tooled around the Eternal City in a 1930 Mercedes Nurberg. His namesake, Pius XII, toured in an open car with a papal throne in the back seat.But because the times have grown more lethal, John Paul II is confined to his popemobile.No pope in the 2,000-year history of the Roman Catholic Church has traveled so far and wide as John Paul II, nor behind so much bolted-down armor plate and bullet-proofed protection.

The Rev. Anthony Rivera "Tony" Perez, the vice rector of St. Mary's Seminary and University who taught liturgy and theology, died of a heart attack Sept. 12. He was 57. Colleagues said he collapsed and died after playing a game of racquetball with his students. He was transported to Union Memorial Hospital, where his death was confirmed. Father Perez moved to Baltimore in 1997 and served in numerous capacities at the Roland Park educational institution run by the Society of Saint Sulpice, of which he was a member.

The crape myrtle was at its summertime height the other day when I wandered into the Seton Hill neighborhood to see the area's newest arrival. Without fanfare, a new Mother Seton House visitors center has risen in one of Baltimore's most venerable locations. It's tucked between Mother Seton House and the old St. Mary's Seminary Chapel. This location, only a few blocks west of the Washington Monument and Mount Vernon Place, is not as well known as it should be. St. Mary's Park and the adjoining collection of National Register of Historic Place landmarks provide a delightfully atmospheric glimpse into early Baltimore.

The first Anne Arundel officer on the scene just after 3 a.m. thought what was burning was a mannequin. Then two other cops arrived, and the three of them realized that this was no imitation. A human body was in flames. They extinguished the fire and huddled over the smoking remains of an adult male. His arms and legs were pulled into his torso, as if in terror or pain. He lay partially wrapped in a blue blanket on Old Mill Road just south of Baltimore. He wore jeans, socks and a shirt stained with what appeared to be blood.

If he were honest with himself, Detective Richard Gibson had to admit that he was eager to meet Miss Cindy McKay. It wasn't always that way with crooks. Most struck Gibson, a blunt Baltimore cop and former Navy petty officer, as barely sentient and uninteresting in the extreme. Experience had shown that most were far from criminal masterminds. And it was true, McKay was no genius. But, man, she had brass. She was fearless. He had to give her that. St. Mary's Seminary & University in Roland Park was already far along in its investigation of a suspected embezzlement when it brought its findings to Gibson.

CHARLES THOMAS PERTSCH died suddenly at his home in Roland Park on December 29, 2007 of cardiac arrest at the age of 84. A faithful employee of St. Charles College (where he was a 1945 alumnus) and St. Mary's Seminary and University for 57 years, he was truly an institution at Roland Park since 1972. After retiring in 1990, he returned to the Seminary four years later to work part-time in the school's bookstore and then, until his death, in the Center for Continuing Formation. Charlie always greeted the Seminary's alumni by name whenever they returned to visit.

Sister Joan Gormley, a Mount St. Mary's Seminary Scriptures professor, died of cancer Friday at Gettysburg Hospital in Pennsylvania. She was 70. Born in Philadelphia, she earned a bachelor's degree at Trinity College in Washington and a master's degree in classics from Harvard University. She later completed a doctorate in New Testament studies at Fordham University. Her postgraduate work included study at the Ecole Biblique de Jerusalem and the Theresian Documentation Center in Lisieux, France.

The men studying at St. Mary's Seminary in Roland Park today really impress me by their strength and spirituality. After 27 years as president-rector of the seminary, it's the one legacy I wanted to leave. They have received a religious calling that some scorn, many overlook, and not a few members of their own church struggle to appreciate. Members of the Seminary Class of 2007, recently ordained as priests, entered St. Mary's just as the clergy sex-abuse scandals hit the papers, first in Boston and then in other cities.

Months before the Vatican issued a formal policy barring gay men from the seminary, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien made his own feelings clear. "I think anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or who has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary," O'Brien, then the leader of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, told the National Catholic Register in 2005. His position became the Roman Catholic Church's. It was not the first time O'Brien played a central role in the church's relationship with its gay and lesbian members.

The Rev. Bernard Stanley Bak, who served several Roman Catholic parishes in the Baltimore area after the widower was ordained late in life, died of heart failure Friday at his home in Dundalk. He was 85. After graduating in 1988 from St. Mary's Seminary University in Roland Park, he served at the St. Philip Neri parish in Linthicum until 1994 and at St. Joseph parish in Cockeysville from 1994 until he retired in 1999. He then continued part-time service at St. Clare parish in Essex and St. Athanasius in Curtis Bay until the week before his death.

The Rev. Thomas R. Hurst will become president-rector of St. Mary's Seminary & University in Roland Park on July 1, replacing the retiring Rev. Robert F. Leavitt. Hurst - a member of the Society of St. Sulpice - had been rector of Theological College, the national seminary of the Catholic University of America in Washington, since 2001. He was ordained a priest in Albany, N.Y., in 1973, and was a member of the St. Mary's faculty from 1980 to 1992. The appointment to head the nation's oldest Catholic seminary was made by the Provincial Council of the U.S. Province of the Society of St. Sulpice, and approved by Cardinal William H. Keeler, Baltimore's archbishop who also serves as chancellor of St. Mary's.