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The Deacon's Bench

“Maybe the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: ‘They forgot the mission.’ So many great American institutions–institutions that every day help hold us together–acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do. You,…

After weeks of anxiety about the swine flu, at least one U.S. diocese will be bringing back the communion chalice. From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: Last fall, it was a sign of the season – the flu season, that is. Area Roman Catholic churches stopped offering communion wine from the common cup during Mass…

…Don’t let it get away.” Happy New Year! The heart is a bloom Shoots up through the stony groundThere’s no roomNo space to rent in this town You’re out of luck And the reason that you had to care The traffic is stuckAnd you’re not moving anywhere You thought you’d found a friendTo take you out of…

A California priest is expressing his faith in a surprising and creative way: There’s no steeple out front, no rows of pews inside, not even so much as a crucifix on display. Still, this cramped little art studio in the middle of what, until not very long ago, was a street with as many broken…

On the last day of the year, what have you left unspoken, unwritten, unshared? From the NY Times: Last month, Illegal Art, the New York-based public-art collective, placed installations around the city and invited passers-by to offer a few last words. Here is a sampling of what people left behind. The words remind us of…

Last Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran a series of articles on notable people who had died during 2009 – most well known, a few not. It was the story of one of those lesser-known people that caught my eye, and that gives particular meaning, I think, to this day. Her name was Martha…

That would be the pictures contained in this poignant and wonderfully inspiring slideshow, put together by the Downtown Chapel Catholic Parish of Portland, Oregon. The Catholic Sentinel has details: Though it wasn’t an intended part of the original vision of the photography project, the images taken of members of the Old Town community each year…

…and he must have meant this place. But, if it’s not a mistake, and I read this right, I’m in some pretty swanky company here. Thanks, Marcel!   You’ve just made The Bench blush.

The New York Times has a blog called Motherlode, about various parenting issues, and earlier this year the blog’s author Lisa Belkin posted about a couple of unexpected pregnancies. One young woman, after some consideration, opted for abortion; the other opted to keep her child. Several months after those decisions, Belkin today posted some afterthoughts,…

Pretty favorably, according to the usually-reliable John Allen. In his year-end wrap-up (converted to a decade-end wrap-up this year, of course), he looks at some of the biggest Catholic stories of the decade, and takes an especially close look at perceptions of media bias: Among some Catholics, it’s an article of faith that the secular…
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