For those with football fever, your wait is just about over. A t the end of next week, your New Orleans Saints will open camp in Metairie for the first time since 2013. On occasion, fans will ask about what it was like at the Greenbrier in West Virginia.

Creating a vocation-minded parish was the aim of a recent “World Day of Prayer for Vocations” at St. Dominic Parish, said Sister of Christian Charity Mary Kim Tran, the parish’s vocations coordinator.

When former City Councilman Joseph DiRosa ran for mayor of New Orleans in 1977-78, he offered Jesuit Athletic Director Frank Misuraca the position of Director of the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD).

Pope Francis has approved a fourth pathway to possible sainthood – giving one’s life in a heroic act of loving service to others. In a new apostolic letter, the pope approved new norms allowing for candidates to be considered for sainthood because of the heroic way they freely risked their lives and died prematurely because of “an extreme act of charity.” The document, given “motu proprio” (on his own initiative) went into effect the same day of its publication July 11, with the title “Maiorem hac dilectionem,” which comes from the Gospel according to St. John (15:13): “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes, said the addition is meant “to promote heroic Christian testimony, (that has been) up to now without a specific process, precisely because it did not completely fit within the case of martyrdom or heroic virtues.” For centuries, consideration for the sainthood process required that a Servant of God heroically lived a life of Christian virtues or had been martyred for the faith.

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) –Bishops should look at ways to help verify and guarantee the validity and worthiness of the bread and wine used for the celebration of the Eucharist, the Vatican said in a recent document.

By Beth Donze At a recent rehearsal of the St. Pius X Players, a family-fueled theater ministry based at the eponymous Lake Vista church, members of the cast and crew chipped away at the monumental to-do list behind their latest production: a modern Broadway adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” In one corner of the gym, a boy handed his father tools as the two assembled the wheeled framework that would become the “pumpkin carriage” pulled by actors dressed as palomino horses.

On July 11 – the Feast of St. Benedict – Archbishop Gregory Aymond, far left, joined Benedictine Abbot Justin Brown, center, for a blessing of the reopened St. Joseph Abbey monastery following last year’s devastating floods.

By Christine Bordelon With the opening of new restaurants a constant in New Orleans, the Academy of Our Lady (AOL) is staying ahead of the curve to prepare students for careers in the culinary arts through its ProStart certification.

By Peter Finney Jr. S chool Sister of Notre Dame Elizabeth Newman was just a few years older than Glenn Gennaro when they met for the first time in 1971 as teachers at Redemptorist High School in the Irish Channel.

By Christine Bordelon “What name do you give your child?” asked Father Luis Rodriguez June 17 to new parents Jenna Bullard Bird and Geoffrey Bird. “Kathleen Olivia,” they said. “What sacrament do you want for your child?” Father Rodriguez asked.

By Jean Gonzalez Catholic News Service ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) – United by the words of the prophet of social justice, Catholic Church leaders urged black Catholics to become active, just disciples of Christ.

By Christine Bordelon The celebration of Mass June 17 at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Marrero was also the setting for the commissioning of parishioner Dr. RaeNell Houston as the new superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

If someone’s house was on fire would you pour gasoline on it? Well the answer is obvious: Of course you wouldn’t. Yet that is very similar to what the United States and many other more economically developed nations are doing.

In spite of their stage-closing role as part of the St. Mary’s Dominican Sisters’ 157-year history in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, there were more smiles and memories than tears in front of stately Founders Hall at 580 Broadway St. June 28.

For the past few summers, I’ve been most grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to travel and complete research in the archives. When I first started my archival research, I imagined old, dusty corners of the library filled with fragile paper, enhanced by the smell of old books.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond blessed and dedicated the beautiful chapel at St. Anthony’s Gardens in Covington on June 29, the feast day of Sts. Peter and Paul. Concelebrating with him were Father Rodney Bourg, pastor of Most Holy Trinity in Covington; Deacon Charles Swift, chaplain of the new chapel; and seminarian Will MacMaster.

The daily lives of women religious from seven congregations have been highlighted in a seven-part series called “Sisterhood” that debuted June 4 and continues on Sundays through July 16. The project, a collaboration between Loyola Institute for Ministry (LIM) and Salt+Light Television, creates an awareness of the wonderful works of women religious in the United States, Asia and Africa.

The 20-year-old Sisters of Mercy ministry devoted to keeping Lower Garden District and Irish Channel seniors active, healthy and in contact with their peers has a modern new hub located a block from the Tchoupitoulas Street corridor.

Gary Hymel, a newspaperman at heart, has a keen sense of the importance of using the right word instead of its second cousin. Hymel attended Loyola University New Orleans in the early 1950s, and the Wolfpack’s fight song, played by the band at basketball games in the old Fieldhouse on Freret Street, began with the exhortation: “Fight, fight, fight, you men of the South!” Anyone who knows Hymel, 84, and his wife Winky, who reared eight children in what recently has been characterized as “the swamp” of Washington, D.C., would find those words ironic.

Sometimes, the uniquely human ability to create art announces itself in the most unexpected places. At the Rebuild Center, a Catholic collaborative nestled next to St. Joseph Church in New Orleans, courtyard walls are decked with drawings and paintings made by the homeless and hungry who come seeking the center’s vital daytime services.