Priest

A former employee of a Catholic girls school in Catonsville, who says she was fired after an affair with the school's former chaplain, is suing him, the school and the Archdiocese of Baltimore, alleging defamation and other transgressions, according to court documents. In the suit, filed last week in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Ellicott City resident Charyl Breidenstein alleges that the Rev. Timothy Fell, her former parish priest, had sexual contact with her over an approximately 18-month period, ending about June 2005.

The Rev. Edward T. Hill, a Roman Catholic priest and former Navy chaplain, died Feb. 9 of a heart attack at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 78. The son of a Coca-Cola public relations director and a seamstress, Edward Thomas Hill was born in Baltimore and raised on Patterson Park Avenue. After graduating in 1952 from Loyola High School, he graduated in 1956 from what is now Loyola University Maryland. He earned a degree in theology from St. Mary's Seminary & University in Roland Park and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1960.

Controversy over the new film ''Priest'' was predictable. But its content is much milder than the real-life horror stories about the clergy that appear in the media. The sensitive, fictional attempt to portray the human struggles of the priests has provoked outrage in some circles in the church. It would be comforting if the news stories of sexual abuse by priests provoked similar outrage.As a priest who resigned from the active ministry because of celibacy, I welcome the honest portrayal contained in the film.

The Rev. James R. LeVeque, a retired Episcopal priest and mathematics instructor, died of kidney failure Saturday at Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Charles Village resident was 81. Born in Cassopolis, Mich., he attended the Howe Military School in Howe, Ind., and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago. He then earned divinity and theology degrees at Nashotah House Seminary in Nashotah, Wis. He was ordained a priest in 1956. He later earned master's degrees in mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has removed a Laurel priest from the ministry while it investigates allegations against him of sexual misconduct during the 1980s, the archdiocese said on Sunday. The Rev. John Wielebski, 62, pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Church, has denied all of the allegations, the archdiocese said. The archdiocese revoked his authority to function as a priest in December. The misconduct is alleged to have occurred while Wielebski was at St. Dominic Church in Baltimore, where he was assigned from 1985 to 1988, and Monsignor Clare J. O'Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, where he was assigned from 1988 to 1991.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has launched its own investigation into a Towson priest arrested this month on charges of indecent exposure at an adult store. Mark Stewart Bullock, 47, is scheduled for a March 6 court appearance in District Court in Harford County on misdemeanor charges that carry a maximum fine of $1,000 and three years in prison. Church officials have removed "all his faculties to function as a priest," said Sean Caine, archdiocese spokesman. "The archdiocese is doing its own investigation and will be speaking to anyone who might help us understand what is happening in his life," Caine said.

A Gaithersburg priest who was put on administrative leave from his parish after a controversial funeral Mass at which he denied Communion to a lesbian said in a statement Wednesday that he "did the only thing a faithful Catholic priest could do" and suggested that archdiocesan leaders and the woman were lying. The Rev. Marcel Guarnizo had declined to comment publicly since the Feb. 25 Mass at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, where Barbara Johnson was mourning her mother. Having learned just before the Mass that Johnson, a 51-year-old D.C. artist, was a lesbian living with her partner, Guarnizo refused to let her receive Communion.

A few weeks ago, in response to a column about downtown Baltimore's Seton Hill, Jerilyn Manning gave me a call. She told me that I had missed a good story. She was so right. She is the event coordinator for the Charles R. Uncles Senior Plaza at 607 Pennsylvania Ave. I caught up with Manning and Uncles Plaza this week. It was a revelation — how an 1893 Roman Catholic seminary, St. Joseph's, had been transformed into a residence for senior citizens. The Rev. Charles R. Uncles was the first African-American to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

The Rev. Gerald "Gerry" Vincent Lardner, a Sulpician priest who taught preaching and later served as a missionary in Africa, died of cancer June 18 at Mercy Medical Center. He was 70 and lived in North Baltimore. Born in Baltimore and raised on Malbrook Road in the Westown section of Catonsville, he attended St. Agnes School. He followed an uncle, the leader of the Sulpician Fathers, in pursuing a religious life. He entered the old St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville as a 13-year-old high school student.

The Very Rev. Matthew J. O'Rourke, a Josephite priest and former superior general of his Roman Catholic religious order, died of congestive heart failure March 9 at St. Joseph Manor in North Baltimore. He was 93. Born in the Bronx, N.Y., he earned a bachelor's degree at Manhattan College and a master's degree from Loyola University in New Orleans. He was ordained a priest in 1947. In 1951, he helped found New Orleans' St. Augustine High School, a predominantly African-American institution.

The National Rifle Association's response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School - that is, placing blame for it on everyone and everything except the NRA and its all-guns-all-the-time credo - was utterly predictable. But this time it won't matter. With that speech on Friday, the NRA's outspoken vice president, Wayne LaPierre, officially declared the organization's new status: irrelevant. There isn't much an organization like this, hunkered down in the failed policies of the past, can do to stop what's coming - a sustained, populist, bipartisan demand that Congress start taking action to stop mass killings.

Several religious leaders joined Baltimore's mayor and state lawmakers Wednesday in urging new state gun control laws, calling for a wide-ranging package of bills designed to prevent tragedies like the shooting in Connecticut. "The violence is simply too much, the grief is simply too profound," said Rabbi Ron Shulman of Chizuk Amuno Congregation, president of the Baltimore Jewish Council. State Sen. Brian Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said that in the coming General Assembly session, he will push for a ban on assault weapons like the Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle used in last week's massacre.

Last Sunday in Baltimore's St. Vincent de Paul Church, its longtime pastor, the Rev. Richard T. Lawrence, delivered a thoughtful and nuanced argument for support of the Question 6 ballot referendum. This, of course, was news in Roman Catholic circles — an opinion from the pulpit fully at odds with the hierarchy of a church that has devoted much time and money to voter rejection of a Maryland law that allows couples of the same sex to wed. Lawrence is the most eloquent homilist I've ever heard.

The Rev. Edward F. McNally, a Roman Catholic priest who later became executive director of the Franciscan Center, died Saturday of lymphoma at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Mount Washington resident was 46. "Ed had volunteered here when he was a seminarian at St. Mary's. Afterward, he saw an ad in the paper for executive director of the Franciscan Center and applied," said Sister Ellen Carr, former interim director of the center and now a member of its board. "I hired him and felt totally comfortable turning over the reins to him," said Sister Ellen.

Priest Holmes gained 8,172 yards in his 10-year career with the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs. That is even more impressive when you consider that he was occasionally hit so hard that his very perception of the world changed . Holmes, who won a Super Bowl during his four-year stint with the Ravens, told Fox Sports' Chris Corbellini that after helmet-to-helmet collisions, the sky would sometimes appear to change colors. “This color obviously isn't going to be blue.

The Rev. Gerald "Gerry" Vincent Lardner, a Sulpician priest who taught preaching and later served as a missionary in Africa, died of cancer June 18 at Mercy Medical Center. He was 70 and lived in North Baltimore. Born in Baltimore and raised on Malbrook Road in the Westown section of Catonsville, he attended St. Agnes School. He followed an uncle, the leader of the Sulpician Fathers, in pursuing a religious life. He entered the old St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville as a 13-year-old high school student.

I have to vehemently differ with letter writer Theresa M. Becker who was greatly offended that the Roman Catholic Church ordained three former Episcopalian priests ("Ordaining married Episcopal priests as Catholics is a sacrilege," June 15). Closed-minded opinions like that keep the Roman Catholic church firmly ensconced in the Dark Ages. The Roman Catholic church is in desperate need of priests; this move is not unprecedented. If Ms. Becker did her homework, she would find that married ministers and priests from other denominations have been ordained and are recognized by the Vatican as being legitimate priests.

As a baptized Roman Catholic who attended a Catholic school for eight years, I was absolutely appalled to read that three Episcopal priests, two of whom are married with children, were being ordained as Catholic priests ("Three Episcopal priests to be ordained Catholic," June 8). Any young Catholic man in the seminary studying to be ordained is expected to remain celibate; why in heaven's name is the Church allowing these ordinations to take place? Allowing these ordinations to occur is a direct contradiction to the Church teaching that Catholic priests must not marry.