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The Deacon's Bench

As we near the end of Respect Life month, this story jumps out as especially timely: My son is not a hugger. He’s almost 2 years old, and I can count on one hand the times he’s squeezed his chubby arms around my neck (they all involve my husband running the vacuum). I’m okay with…

Here’s a curious tidbit from Maryland, about an Episcopal bishop who wants to remind people that the conversion door swings both ways: Lost in talk of the splintering of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton says, is the appeal that the 45,000-member Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has held for former Roman Catholics and others…

Out in Los Angeles, there’s this remarkable story of a priest’s own struggle with cancer — and how he’s using that to spread the gospel message: In his flowing, cream-colored chasuble, Msgr. Marc Trudeau ambled back and forth in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels’ altar, at ease with himself and…

Check out this classic Colbert from earlier in the week. MCPF Stephen Colbert on the pope: “He’s like a flying squirrel.” You have to see it. Enjoy.

Personally, I’d love to hear this for myself: There was some Catholic toe tapping to the strains of banjo and fiddle as the first ever “Bluegrass Mass” was celebrated in September exactly where it belonged: the “birthplace of country music,” Bristol, Virginia.  The unique Mass at St. Anne’s Catholic Church was held on the weekend…

That seems to be a sticking point in publishing the document that will help ease the way for Anglicans hoping to enter the Catholic Church: The delay in publishing the apostolic constitution, which will allow large numbers of Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church, is due not so much to translation problems as…

That would be Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who just posted a lively, and timely, attack on anti-Catholicism in general — and the New York Times in particular. He lists a number of compelling and frankly outrageous examples, and then concludes: I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the…

Over at his blog, Msgr. Charles Pope has some intriguing ideas about one way to improve the quality of homilies: My own experience as a priest powerfully underscores the role of congregation in helping to craft the preaching moment. I have served almost all of my 20 years in African American parishes. In these settings…

From Texas comes a moving story of forgiveness: On July 9, 2007, while unloading groceries in his garage, Don McCullough noticed a young man hurrying along the sidewalk and perspiring on the hot day. McCullough called out and offered the stranger a bottle of the water he was carrying in his grocery sack. Alonzo Lewis…

Acclaimed Catholic novelist Mary Gordon has a new book out — and the subject strikes very close to home: it’s all about the gospels.  From Newsweek: The novelist and literary critic Mary Gordon loves the story of the prodigal son, for she is a Catholic in her bones. The story, from the Gospels, is of…
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