QUINCY -- Jim Wahlberg, filmmaker and brother of Mark and Donnie, once considered robbing Mother Teresa. Wahlberg was incarcerated at MCI Concord in 1988 after robbing the home of a Boston police officer, his second prison sentence. He said he didn't want to leave after his first sentence because he had no plan for life as a free man.
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Three Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Boston capped off their winter sports seasons this year with state championships in basketball and hockey. Catholic Memorial's hockey team clinched the Division 1 state title with a 4-3 victory over St. John, Shrewsbury, on March 16 at TD Banknorth Garden. Coach Larry Rooney's Knights finished the season with a 20-5-1 record.
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This is the first article in a series profiling the six men who will be ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on May 17, 2025. BRIGHTON -- Deacon Brian R. Daley says being Catholic is much like being on a high school football team.
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BRAINTREE -- The Archdiocese of Boston kicked off its annual Catholic Appeal on the weekend of March 15 and 16, with all of the Archdiocese of Boston's parishes encouraging parishioners to donate in support of the archdiocese's ministries.
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EAST BOSTON -- "This is my second home," says Paul Racki as he climbs to the choir loft of St. Joseph-St. Lazarus Parish in East Boston. In a career as an organist spanning over half a century, Racki, 76, has been in many choir lofts.
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WALTHAM -- Like a ghostly voice from a bygone era, swing music echoed gently from the basement of St. Jude Parish in Waltham on the moonlit night of March 14. The music blared from two small speakers with a microphone in front of them, bouncing off white walls lined with crooked old portraits of saints, priests, and sisters. The parish hall had become a dance floor, with beaming young couples twirling their skirts, dipping their partners, and twisting themselves into pretzels. It was another meeting of the King David Dance Club.
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BOSTON -- The Catholic Schools Foundation will hold its 35th Annual Building Minds Scholarship Fund Gala on Thursday, April 3, at Boston Marriott Copley Place. The event is expected to draw nearly 1,000 members of the Greater Boston business community to support providing low-income students with access to a Catholic education.
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BOSTON -- Archbishop Richard G. Henning celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day Mass as archbishop of Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on March 17, the feast day of the Archdiocese of Boston's patron saint.
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BRAINTREE -- The Archdiocese of Boston will join dioceses throughout the world in observing 24 Hours for the Lord, an annual period of continuous eucharistic adoration lasting from March 28 to 29. "It's an opportunity for us as Catholics to adore the Lord in person, to encounter him," Archdiocese of Boston Evangelization Consultant Melissa Kalpakgian told The Pilot on March 12.
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MILTON -- Birds circled around the empty tarmac behind St. Mary of the Hills School in Milton on the sunny morning of March 11. Three stories above them, a small classroom of students thumbed through well-worn books with the imposing title "First Form Latin." Their teacher, Ryan Farrell, wrote long lists of Latin verbs on the board. That day's lesson was all about declensions -- the different forms of Latin nouns. Latin does not use articles such as the English words "and" or "the." Nouns instead have different forms, which signal how they are supposed to be used. At the start of the school year, Farrell's Latin students were discouraged. They thought they'd never be able to figure it out. Now, those same students are excelling.
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WESTWOOD -- John Hurley, coach of St. Agatha Parish in Milton's CYO sixth-grade boys basketball team, doesn't play favorites on his team -- though he easily could. "I mean, I love all these kids," Hurley told The Pilot. "I have my own son on the team, but I love all these kids like they're my own children."
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BRAINTREE -- "I've always tried to do my little thing by recycling and being aware," says Phil Walsh, co-chair of Catholic Relief Services for the Archdiocese of Boston. Walsh has cared about environmental issues since childhood. Now in his 70s, he sees the problems of climate change and pollution only getting worse.
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BRAINTREE -- The Archdiocese of Boston will join dioceses throughout the world in observing 24 Hours for the Lord, an annual period of continuous eucharistic adoration lasting from March 28 to 29. "It's an opportunity for us as Catholics to adore the Lord in person, to encounter him," Archdiocese of Boston Evangelization Consultant Melissa Kalapkgian told The Pilot on March 12.
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BOSTON -- More than 450 catechumens took their next step into entering the Catholic Church at the Rite of Election, presided over by Vicar General Bishop Mark O'Connell at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on March 9, the first Sunday of Lent.
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BRAINTREE -- Father Steve Josoma never asks refugees for their stories, but they have a way of coming up on their own. Father Josoma is the pastor of St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, part of Parishes Organized to Welcome Immigrants and Refugees (POWIR), an initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Since 2018, Father Josoma has helped resettle nine refugee families in Boston, most recently from Guatemala and Myanmar (Burma). The patriarch of the Guatemalan family needed special walking shoes due to an unspecified injury, so Father Josoma made sure he had some. While packing donated winter clothes with Father Josoma, the Guatemalan man pulled up his pant leg to reveal his injury: a hole in his leg bigger than a golf ball. When he was nine years old, the man was shot in the leg by soldiers. He watched his father and mother be murdered before his eyes.
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At the request of Archbishop Richard G. Henning, parishes across the archdiocese will announce the 2025 Catholic Appeal during all Masses on the weekend of March 15-16. Commitment Weekend, during which thousands of Catholics from across the region are asked to provide their philanthropic support, takes place the following weekend, March 22-23. Each gift to the appeal provides essential funding to the many ministries, schools, and parishes that grow vibrant communities of faith and fulfill Christ's mission to help the most isolated and vulnerable.
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BRAINTREE -- "We just happened to be a bunch of guys that wanted to help and did something about it." That's how Scot Landry describes the founding of the Boston Catholic Men's Conference. Landry was part of a group of Catholic men who met at St. Paul Parish in Cambridge in the early 2000s. They were looking for a way to strengthen the faith of their fellow men, especially as the clergy sexual abuse scandal and its aftermath plagued the Archdiocese of Boston. Several of the men in Landry's group mentioned how much they loved the Worcester Catholic Men's Conference. They decided to establish something like it in Boston and presented their idea to Cardinal Seán P. O'Malley, who loved it. The first Boston Catholic Men's Conference took place in 2005. The guest of honor was "Passion of the Christ" star Jim Caviezel.
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BOSTON -- "This is a little bit like conducting a 747," Richard Clark says as he looks out over the 250 fourth through 12th-grade singers filling the pews of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on March 8.
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BRAINTREE -- "We just happened to be a bunch of guys that wanted to help and did something about it." That's how Scot Landry describes the founding of the Boston Catholic Men's Conference. Landry was part of a group of Catholic men who met at St. Paul Parish in Cambridge in the early 2000s. They were looking for a way to strengthen the faith of their fellow men, especially as the clergy sexual abuse scandal and its aftermath plagued the Archdiocese of Boston. Several of the men in Landry's group mentioned how much they loved the Worcester Catholic Men's Conference. They decided to establish something like it in Boston and presented their idea to Cardinal Seán P. O'Malley, who loved it. The first Boston Catholic Men's Conference took place in 2005. The guest of honor was "Passion of the Christ" star Jim Caviezel.
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DORCHESTER -- Beginning the solemn season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 5, Archbishop Richard G. Henning celebrated the first of his three public Masses of the day for the 1,500 students of Boston College High School in Dorchester.
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FRANKLIN -- Time has made it easier for Father Bob Poitras to forgive. In October 2024, his parish, St. Mary in Franklin, was severely damaged by an arson attack. The perpetrator remains at large. Four days after the fire, Father Poitras celebrated an outdoor Mass steps away from the imposing century-old church building. His homily at the time described two forces at war within his heart. The Bob Poitras, who grew up in Lowell's hardscrabble Acre neighborhood, was filled with anger and wanted revenge. The Holy Spirit, however, spoke louder: "Have mercy, have forgiveness."
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SOUTH BOSTON -- The lives of Matthew and Martin Mullen depended on a flipped coin in Florian Hall. The twin brothers were South Boston natives, baptized in Gate of Heaven Parish. They always wanted to be firefighters like their grandfather and great-grandfather before them. Many of their male relatives were firefighters or police officers. When they grew up, they moved across the country to California, where they played hockey and worked in the film and television industry.
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BOSTON -- When Mary Sullivan found out that she had won the Cheverus Award, she was embarrassed. "I was uncomfortable and embarrassed about it," she told The Pilot on Feb. 27. "That's really the truth."
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BOSTON -- Seniors graduating from Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Boston got the chance to meet the people who supported their education at the annual CSF Celebration of Excellence, held at the PwC building in Boston's Seaport District on Feb. 28.
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