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The Deacon's Bench

“It’s holy orders.  It’s something that’s imprinted on your soul; you die with it. It’s throwing your hat in to a basket when it comes around, or the collection plate, and there it goes. That’s your soul. It just left. When you give yourself up to ordination, you are a cleric and you’re part of…

Tuesday’s election, by at least one tally, appears to continue an interesting  trend: The past 12 months have been noteworthy for the number of Roman Catholics elected or appointed to top political posts, and yesterday’s election results kept the streak going. The winners of the two biggest races, gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey,…

How do you run a diocese with just a few priests and hundreds of miles of territory to cover? The St. Anthony Messenger finds some fascinating answers in Alaska: Despite the shortage of priests, the Anchorage Archdiocese has 32 vibrant parishes and missions. Parishes in urban Anchorage are much like city parishes anywhere, and the…

After voters in Maine shot down a law allowing same-sex marriage yesterday, the USCCB has now offered a warm round of applause.   The bishops’ statement reads, in part: Yesterday on November 3rd, the people of Maine voted to uphold the true nature of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The voice…

My friend Tony Rossi of the Christophers just alerted me to this story, and an interview their program recently did with Capt. Scott Smiley, the Army’s first-ever active duty blind officer: Given short notice that he could go on leave from his tour in Iraq on April 2, 2005, Captain Scott Smiley decided to delay…

The AP has this item about Virginia’s new governor-elect — only the second Catholic one in the commonwealth’s history: The new Republican governor-elect of Virginia brings to the office firmly conservative views that took root in the suburban, middle-class Irish Catholic home of his youth. Robert Francis McDonnell, 55, was one of five children of…

Or, at least, that seems to be the general feeling at one influential paper: The Vatican newspaper has criticized the Swiss-born Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung after he accused Pope Benedict XVI of an “unecumenical luring away” of discontented Anglicans. A column signed by the editor of L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, in Thursday’s (Oct.…

Just in time for Halloween — and All Saints, of course — Portland ordained new deacons: In the Year of the Priest, last weekend was a time for deacons. Archbishop John Vlazny ordained three permanent deacons, Martin Larner, Jr., John Rilatt, and Richard Williams, during a Mass Oct. 31 at St. Mary Cathedral of Immaculate…

Over at NPR, their series of essays “This I Believe” can occassionaly yield some nuggets of gold. And this is one of them: This is know: I believe in the Lord’s Prayer, all of it, but particularly where it says, “Thy will be done.” For me, that’s one clear channel to God. That one belief,…

There have been some developments in a story I posted last month, about a Dominican sister working as a volunteer escort at a Chicago abortion clinic. From American Papist: Public Statement of the Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation  “Several months ago the leadership of the Sinsinawa Dominicans was informed that Sr. Donna Quinn, OP, acted as a…
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