ACT OF FAITH: It’s Holy Saturday, the...

ACT OF FAITH: It’s Holy Saturday, the one day a year that adult Roman Catholic converts are welcomed into the church. The relatively new conversion ceremony is actually a return to a custom of the early days of Catholicism, said Msgr. Paul Dotson of St. Bernadine of Siena in Woodland Hills.

WHAT IT TAKES: A year’s worth of preparation is required to become a Catholic, said Deacon John Copeland of St. Francis De Sales in Sherman Oaks. . . . At the Mass tonight, several church rituals take place. First, there’s baptism for those adults who missed it as babies. Then everyone is confirmed and receives Holy Communion, Copeland said.

IN THE AIR: Auxiliary Bishop Armando X. Ochoa (above) is familiar with the view in his new diocese in El Paso. . . . The smog-shrouded foothills there remind him of Mission Hills, where he’s served for nine years. Ochoa reflects on his upcoming move to Texas, where he’ll be bishop to a flock of 517,000 Roman Catholics (B9).

LANKERSHIM DOWN: One of the latest sites on the World Wide Web will give Net surfers a sinking feeling. . . . It’s a page of photos and text about buildings on Lankershim and Hollywood boulevards that have cracked in the wake of Metro Rail subway tunneling. The site--www.instanet.com/pfc/--was designed by mining safety consultant Pat Chiodo, so it naturally also provides links to related Web sites by the likes of Cal-OSHA. For the latest developments on the tunneling, see story on A1.

SPRING FORWARD: There’s a price to pay for the longer days that start after you remember to turn the clocks forward an hour early tomorrow. And it’s more than sleepiness. . . . A study by British Columbia professor Stanley Coren reported in the latest New England Journal of Medicine suggests the rate of traffic accidents rises on the Monday after daylight saving time begins.