Faith

LANCASTER - Three elderly Mennonites were tied up and assaulted with a stun gun by a home invader who raged against their faith and vandalized their Bible, authorities said. The victims, all women over 84, remained hospitalized in central Pennsylvania on Saturday, according to the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era. The ordeal began Friday morning while two of the women were at a house in Clay Township, Lancaster County, part of an area that is a traditional Mennonite stronghold.

THE HEAD of Catholic education for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Richard McCarron, will retire Feb. 1, the Archdiocese has announced. McCarron, who was with the Archdiocese in educational capacities for 25 years, will remain as a consultant to the education office. "It is time for me to step down so that new leadership can guide and direct the mission of Catholic education," McCarron said. He added that he has "the utmost confidence" that the Office of Catholic Education and the Faith in the Future foundation, which manages 17 Catholic schools and four special-education schools in the Archdiocese, could set a vision "that will enable our schools to grow and flourish in the years ahead.

"Don't come in here with no soup, 'cause that's not Thanksgiving. " That's the edict 73-year-old Gertrude Johnson, the queen of the kitchen, issues to her fellow Faith Chapel volunteers, who prepare and serve meals for over 100 Germantown residents on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. They must take it to heart, because I didn't even see a ladle. What I saw was a feast - turkey, ham, stuffing, string beans, salads, candied yams, macaroni and cheese, rice and gravy, and apple, pumpkin, and lemon cream pies.

Life of Pi , Yann Martel's best-selling novel about a 16-year-old boy who survives for 227 days in a lifeboat in the Pacific, will make the most cynical skeptic believe in God, boasts one of its more colorful characters. It's a doozy of a claim, and it gave some pause to filmmaker Ang Lee, whose dazzling, breathtaking $100 million 3-D film version opens on Wednesday. "I'm not sure it will make you believe in God," the Taiwanese-born American director said in a phone interview.

A LTHOUGH I'VE YET to have the pleasure of shaking his hand, I "met" Capt. David Henderson this summer when I was researching a column about how our government had not kept its promises to rescue the brave Iraqis who assisted Americans as translators. A native Philadelphian, Henderson is a graduate of Roxborough High (2003) and West Point (2007), meaning that he is one of America's best. Originally in field artillery, he is serving his third tour in the Mideast, now embedded with Afghanistan's security forces.

NEW YORK - Evangelical leaders worried that Mitt Romney's Mormonism could suppress conservative turnout on Election Day are intensifying appeals for Christians to vote. In poll after poll, evangelicals have overwhelmingly said that they would back the Republican presidential nominee despite theological differences with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to which he belongs. But what had been thought of as a hypothetical question for American evangelicals for years, Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler said recently, is now a reality with this election and is being tested in a contest that will likely be decided by slim margins.

IF YOU HAPPENED by 57th and Master streets or the nearby Carroll Park in the 1970s, you might have come upon Edith Janet Bains and her brother saving souls. Edith, an ordained evangelist, and her brother, Herbert Lemmon, a deacon, took their faith into the streets to try to convince passersby that salvation awaited them. And they won many to their cause. Edith J. Wagner, which she became after marrying Carl V. Wagner in 1973, a 35-year secretary for Vine Memorial Baptist Church, a former daycare operator and a devoted family matriarch, died Sunday of complications of Alzheimer's Disease.

RIGHT AFTER Albert Pujols struck out to end the Los Angeles Angels' final home game of the regular season, Angel Stadium shot off a big blast of the postgame fireworks usually reserved for wins. After 156 games, the Angels still don't know whether they'll be back home for the playoffs - and this disheartening loss suggested those fireworks might not be worth saving for October. John Jaso hit a two-run homer and an RBI double for Seattle, and the Angels wasted a golden chance to get within one game of an AL wild-card spot with a 9-4 loss to the visiting Mariners on Thursday.

Hello there Arthur was rambunctious and Faith on the shy side when they met as 3-year-olds in the Margate Jewish Community Center preschool. When Faith's dad, Donald, a dentist, came to demonstrate proper oral hygiene, Faith held the model teeth. Donald chose Arthur to hold the flashlight, but Faith tried to take it away from him, because Arthur kept shining it in everyone's eyes. Classmates all the way through third grade at the Hebrew Academy, Faith and Arthur never really became friends - even when Donald and Arthur's dad, Arnold, later became tennis buddies in a local league.

He was banished from St. Joseph's College and forced into the Army 58 years ago, after he'd been jailed for a drunken brawl and then tried to falsify his failing grades. The change turned out to be "one of the best things anyone ever did for me," says James J. Maguire. Later, the Jesuits let him back in. His philosophy professor, the Rev. Hunter Guthrie, realized that Maguire was dyslexic, and taught him to parse theology with an index card and ruler. Accounting was easier, the silver-haired, straight-backed Maguire, 79, recounted last week: "I was always very good at numbers.