Chapel

A downtown Providence chapel run by Franciscan friars has hosted its final Mass. The Rev. Steven Patti presided Monday afternoon at the last Mass at St. Francis Chapel. Patti says the lease is up Dec. 31 and there are not enough men entering the order to sustain the chapel. Patti says the Franciscans will continue to run the Church of St. Mary until next June, when it will be turned over to the Diocese of Providence. Patti says one Franciscan friar will remain in the city once the Diocese of Providence assumes control of the Church of St. Mary.

Dick Van Dyke has gotten married. The 86-year-old actor wed 40-year-old makeup artist Arlene Silver last week in a small ceremony at a chapel in Malibu, Calif., near Van Dyke's home, his publicist said. Michelle Triola Marvin, Van Dyke's partner of 30 years, died in 2009 at age 76. (AP)

VENCE, France - Regardless of our religious inclinations, when we travel, we wander through grand cathedrals and mosques, sometimes as though they were museums, awestruck by the light, the smell of incense, or the sounds of an ancient organ. But sometimes it's the simpler sacred spaces that draw us, intimate places built not over hundreds of years, but maybe a decade, that reflect the dedication - or downright obsession - of their creators. The traveler can find two such tiny chapels not far from the center of Nice in the south of France.

Jesus makes an appearance twice in "The Translation of the Bones," Francesca Kay's new novel, her first following the Orange Award-winning debut, "An Equal Stillness. " Or maybe he makes an appearance, depending on what you choose to believe. The first visitation is to Mary-Margaret O'Reilly, a "simpleminded" Londoner whose piety had hitherto expressed itself in volunteering to clean the church. While gently washing a statue of Jesus in the Chapel of the Holy Souls, she feels warmth emanating from it, and her hand, when she lifts it away from the statue, is covered in blood.

SEATTLE — State officials and others are searching for answers after a correctional officer was found strangled with a microphone cord in the prison chapel. Governor Chris Gregoire said yesterday that she has asked the Department of Corrections’ secretary, Eldon Vail, to review the death and look at safeguards in place. While the department routinely conducts internal reviews, Vail said he is considering asking an external agency to investigate. Union officials said the officer, Jayme Biendl, 34, had raised concerns about being the only guard in the chapel.

SUTTON, Quebec - The road runs parallel to the Vermont border, dipping and rising along the forested hills. At a scenic elevation, a cluster of haphazardly parked cars frames a pair of iron gates. Beyond is an unlikely sight: a cobblestone path leading to a medieval chapel, the sort you might find in Tuscany or Provence. New France's earliest explorers might have built 17th-century structures, but a 13th-century chapel? A guided tour supplies the answers. The stone-walled building is the creation of a Czech-born antiques dealer, Henrietta Antony.

Dick Van Dyke has gotten married. The 86-year-old actor wed 40-year-old makeup artist Arlene Silver last week in a small ceremony at a chapel in Malibu, Calif., near Van Dyke's home, his publicist said. Michelle Triola Marvin, Van Dyke's partner of 30 years, died in 2009 at age 76. (AP)

TUCSON - When artist Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia and his sculptor wife, Marion, moved out of Tucson and into the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains in the 1950s, only a small dirt road marked the way. Half a century later, his 10-acre retreat, home to a public gallery and chapel, sits just off busy Swan Road, a thoroughfare into the foothills and now a tony address. DeGrazia (1909-82) was a painter and graphic artist who specialized in Southwestern and Native American life. He was most known for his illustration "Los Niños" (The Children)

Jesus makes an appearance twice in "The Translation of the Bones," Francesca Kay's new novel, her first following the Orange Award-winning debut, "An Equal Stillness. " Or maybe he makes an appearance, depending on what you choose to believe. The first visitation is to Mary-Margaret O'Reilly, a "simpleminded" Londoner whose piety had hitherto expressed itself in volunteering to clean the church. While gently washing a statue of Jesus in the Chapel of the Holy Souls, she feels warmth emanating from it, and her hand, when she lifts it...

Massachusetts General Hospital in the next few weeks will launch a large, long-awaited test of whether a controversial cutting-edge proton beam therapy is more effective than standard radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Proton beam therapy, a targeted and controlled way to administer radiation to a tumor, has become a flashpoint in the debate over health care reform. The expensive therapy is being used across the country and in some cases advertised directly to the general public before it has been deemed superior to standard radiation treatment, which costs about...

Pope Benedict XVI is baptizing 16 babies in the splendor of the Sistine Chapel. Some of the infants looked at him wide-eyed after he poured water from a golden shell-shaped dish over their forehead, as Benedict administered the sacrament Sunday, welcoming them formally by name into the Catholic church. A few babies flailed their arms when brought up to the pontiff, but none cried in front of him. Benedict told their parents and godparents in his homily that educating children is "very challenging," and urged them to pray.

Horror movie fans are trying to save a southwestern Pennsylvania cemetery chapel featured in several scenes of the cult classic "Night of the Living Dead. " A sound engineer who worked on the 1968 George Romero film is trying to raise $50,000 to repair the chapel at Evans City Cemetery. The cemetery association had planned to tear down boarded-up building but delayed those plans to see if Gary Streiner can come up with the money. Cemetery association President Ron Volz tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the building will have to come down if the fundraising effort falls short.

VENCE, France - Regardless of our religious inclinations, when we travel, we wander through grand cathedrals and mosques, sometimes as though they were museums, awestruck by the light, the smell of incense, or the sounds of an ancient organ. But sometimes it's the simpler sacred spaces that draw us, intimate places built not over hundreds of years, but maybe a decade, that reflect the dedication - or downright obsession - of their creators. The traveler can find two such tiny chapels not far from the center of Nice in the south of France.

A downtown Providence chapel run by Franciscan friars has hosted its final Mass. The Rev. Steven Patti presided Monday afternoon at the last Mass at St. Francis Chapel. Patti says the lease is up Dec. 31 and there are not enough men entering the order to sustain the chapel. Patti says the Franciscans will continue to run the Church of St. Mary until next June, when it will be turned over to the Diocese of Providence. Patti says one Franciscan friar will remain in the city once the Diocese of Providence assumes control of the Church of St. Mary.

Stacey Laliberte and Stephen Suthowski, hobbyist fire-eaters from Rhode Island, held hands and gazed at each other with bated breath as justice of the peace Michelle Lydon recited their vows - through their car window. They haven't been the first, nor will they be the last, to be married in the parking lot outside of Lydon Chapel, a large, 18th-century, white wooden building that has been a birthing house, a funeral parlor, and now is a chapel for both funerals and weddings. The drive-through ceremony was something Lydon thought up herself when she purchased the home from her father five years ago. It was...

A long-running dispute over the gravesite of Boston's first cardinal has been resolved through negotiations, and Cardinal William H. O'Connell is finally at rest. Nearly 70 years after O'Connell's death, his remains were quietly moved a short distance last week from a crypt beneath a small chapel in Brighton to a courtyard at St. John's Seminary, ending an unusual court fight over what to do with the bones of one of the most influential Roman Catholic leaders in the city's history.

A chapter of the South's desegregation struggle was resurrected Thursday as members of the 1970s group known as the Wilmington 10 requested pardons from North Carolina's governor, nearly 40 years after their trials. The nine young black men and one white woman were convicted and given long prison sentences in 1972. A Wilmington grocery store was firebombed during days of racial anger the previous year and firefighters and police officers responding to the blaze were fired on. Supporters said the Wilmington 10 youths were railroaded by the prosecutor and trial judge.

SEATTLE — State officials and others are searching for answers after a correctional officer was found strangled with a microphone cord in the prison chapel. Governor Chris Gregoire said yesterday that she has asked the Department of Corrections’ secretary, Eldon Vail, to review the death and look at safeguards in place. While the department routinely conducts internal reviews, Vail said he is considering asking an external agency to investigate. Union officials said the officer, Jayme Biendl, 34, had raised concerns about being the only guard in the chapel.