RELIGION | FORT LAUDERDALE PAGEANT

Fort Lauderdale church pageant brings Christmas story to life

A Broadway-style biblical production on the life of Jesus starts Friday and celebrates its 25th edition with old traditions and new surprises

RELIGION

If this is the steeple, where are all the people?

A survey found most young people consider themselves spiritual, but a third don't trust organized religion.

50 years of giving at Catholic Charities

When the Diocese of Miami was created in October 1958, it included 16 southern Florida counties, 51 parishes, 65 diocesan priests and 21 religious order clergy ministering to 185,000 Catholics. Today, with the state's population explosion and the influx of immigrants, the Archdiocese has about 800,000 registered members in 111 parishes, seven missions and one national shrine in just three counties: Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe. More than 360 priests celebrate Mass in 17 languages.

ALICE ST. JEAN

Helping the Haitian community

When Alice St. Jean arrived from Haiti 30 years ago, she felt like a lost soul. Unable to speak English, with few resources and almost no family to help, she turned to her faith and her church. But one Sunday, after attending a Creole-language Mass at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Miami, she knew she was home.

MONSIGNOR NOEL T. FOGARTY

Ministering to change

Monsignor Noel T. Fogarty ministered to the Catholics of South Florida before there was even an Archdiocese of Miami. Back in 1957, the young seminarian from Ireland was recruited to serve the families of a small parish in the resort town of Miami Beach. The archdiocese was created a year later.

LUISA FERRANDIZ

Phoning in prayers for seminarians

Once a week, Luisa Ferrandiz gets on the phone to pray for seminarians who are studying to become priests. She has been doing this for 20 years. She and the hundreds of other elderly Catholics who participate in La Liga Orante Vocacional, the Vocational Prayer League, believe the small but steady increase in seminary students over the past years may be a result of their many prayers.

SISTER LUCIA CECCOTTI

At 88, still caring for the disabled

Sister Lucia Ceccotti never expected to stay in Miami. She and the Mother General of the Sisters of St. Joseph Benedict Cottelongo had come here at the invitation of Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll to discuss the possibility of opening a school for people with developmental disabilities in the then-new Archdiocese of Miami.

TOM COMERFORD

Aiding less-fortunate parishes

Soon after completing a weekend spiritual retreat, Tom Comerford decided he needed to change his life. He asked the then-pastor of St. John Neumann Catholic Church, David Russell, what he could do to help. Russell suggested he head up a new ministry that paired affluent parishes with less-fortunate ones.

For 71 years, Sister Kathleen has been sharing faith and wisdom in the classroom

Sister Kathleen Donnelly, the longest serving school principal in the Archdiocese of Miami, started teaching in the middle of the Great Depression -- before television, before cellphones, before computers. She was 17 years old.

RELIGION

Hindus celebrate the past, pray for the future

Tuesday marks Diwali, one of the most important Hindu holidays. Nobody keeps track of the number of Hindus in South Florida, but community leaders estimate the group to be more than 50,000.

RELIGION

Evangelicals gathering to combat poverty

The Christian Community Development Association chose Miami because of the city's diversity.

RELIGION

Notre Dame d'Haiti church rejoices over new sanctuary

Congregation celebrates sanctuary after three-year fundraising effort

COMING OUT DAY

Averting crisis: Mitchell Gold on growing up gay in America

Decades before Mitchell Gold became a famous furniture mogul, he considered ways to kill himself. ''I debated how to do it. An overdose of sleeping pills seemed somewhat painless,'' Gold writes in his new book, Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. ``I considered other tactics -- driving a car off a cliff, running in front of a train, jumping off a building -- but I knew I didn't have the guts.''

BOOKS

Can a Beach rabbi's advice book heal your cheating heart?

Worried your man might cheat? A Miami Beach rabbi who is a regular on the talk-show circuit (he's been on Oprah nine times, twice this month), says you need to greet him at the door dolled up and ready with a kiss and a smile and some genuine interest in how his day went.

BEHIND THE SCENES | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT IN SOUTH FLORIDA

Catholic museum opening at St. Thomas

Catholic history takes center stage at the Thursday opening of the Archbishop John C. Favalora Archive & Museum at St. Thomas University in northwest Miami-Dade.

Caterer Toby Stolar celebrates Rosh Hashana like a pro

Toby Stolar once catered for Sinatra and Sting and now feeds 1,500 clients at a dozen Broward social service agencies. So doing Rosh Hashana dinner at home for 22 is no sweat.

A new voice aims to evangelize, inform

A fledgling Creole-language Catholic newspaper aims to evangelize and inform the growing Haitian- American community.

Holiday tales: Readers share stories of love, mayhem and more

South Floridians share stories of love, mayhem, sand angels and the Hanukkah Santa.