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The Deacon's Bench

Washington’s Archbishop Donald Wuerl has now added his voice to the chorus opposing gay marriage. From the Washington Post: Wuerl sent a letter to 300 local Catholic priests Tuesday reminding them about the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, and he launched a round of media interviews to bolster the church’s presence in the debate. In…

New York’s Archbishop found himself far from the Big Apple recently, but had some valuable thoughts on the subject of vocations — ideas that go beyond boundaries. From Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register: Over the weekend, 530 Serra Club members from 12 different countries gathered at their annual international conference in Omaha, Neb.…

A few people are starting to think so. And that, at least, is the assessment of this commentary over at Catholic Culture: No intelligent observer can credit the official explanation: that Bishop Martino retired because of health problems. The outgoing bishop openly acknowledged to reporters that he “clearly” was not suffering from any grave illness.…

Some people might start to wonder. One company based in California (where else?) is taking the notion of designer babies to the extreme: Want your baby to look like Prince William? Easy. Michael Phelps? Done. A California fertility company whose anonymous sperm donors bear uncanny resemblances to the prince, the swim god and other men…

Here’s a fitting touchstone — or cornerstone? — for the Year for Priests: The Archdiocese of Havana announced this week that it will open a new seminary in 2010, the first such building project the Church has undertaken in Cuba in the last 50 years. John Paul II blessed the cornerstone of the seminary during…

After gobbling up tons of bandwidth over the Kennedys, let’s now turn to the other side of the aisle, and another political dynasty, okay? Rumblings about George W. Bush converting to Catholicism have been heard since before he left office. And the other day, his brother had something to say about that: At Communion and…

Over at U.S. News & World Report, Dan Gilgoff (with a big nod to David Gibson) takes note of an interesting demographic point: Ted Kennedy’s death is an end to several different eras, but Politics Daily’s David Gibson warns against seeing it as the end of an era for the socially minded ethnic Catholic tradition…

Those words, from the Rite for Ordination for the Order of Priests, seem to sum it all up for the picture below. H/T to The Crescat via New Advent for bringing this to my attention. As noted: 4 June 1962. Navy chaplain Luis Padillo was giving last rites to dying soldiers as sniper fire surrounded…

I posted some of the remarks below in the comment box. I’m putting them here for further thought, and prayer. And I place this here, mindful of the fact that several readers have written me personally, deeply distressed at the tone that has overtaken the blog in recent days. I know: people are anguished about…

That is the one word summary for the sudden departure of Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino, who had more to say on the subject this morning at a news conference: After officially announcing his resignation this morning, Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino said he had formally submitted the resignation to the pope in June and…
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