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The Deacon's Bench

The excellent diocesan paper Florida Catholic is touting an upcoming vigil for life by recalling one inspiring success story from last year’s vigil: The prayers of hundreds of participants in the 2008 “40 Days for Life” campaign at Planned Parenthood in Sarasota were answered in a special way March 25 when Baby David was born.…

If you’re interested in comparing funerals, you can pay your respects at Your Funeral Guy — yes, that’s the name of the site — for an overview of the funeral of Ted Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Shriver, held two weeks ago. H/T Concord Pastor.

In Southern California, a La Cañada Flintridge resident arrives at a police checkpoint to try to see whether her home was spared from the fire. Photo: by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Below is the video of the one moment in Kennedy’s funeral mass where we heard from Boston’s Cardinal Archbishop, Sean O’Malley: the commendation at the end. Over at GetReligion, there’s an interesting discussion on the liturgy — and some questions being raised about whether O’Malley was, in fact, the presider, or merely a spectator.

This was conveyed to me today by the parishioner in the story, who wanted to know if I’d heard about it. It was concerning my homily last weekend. Knowing the priest involved, I thought this was hysterical — and typical: Parishioner to priest: Father, someone sitting behind me said something so nice about the Deacon’s…

A priest friend dropped me an e-mail with his thoughts on the Kennedy funeral: i. We have a crisis in liturgy in this country. What it comes down to is that we are addicted to “therapeutic religion;” the religion that comforts, but never challenges. ii. Nowhere is that clearer than at funerals. The purpose of…

From, of course, the amazing wizards at Brooklyn’s beloved Grassroots Films. Want to see what New Evangelization looks like? This is it. Big time. God bless GF founder Joe Campo and his amazing crew.

Actually, this happened one Sunday, after mass, outside the church. Parishioner (to Deacon), while shaking his hand: Nice sermon, Father! I always like what you have to say. We need more people like you. You and Bill O’Reilly. You two are my favorites.

Once again, the subject is baptisms. Caller: We have people from overseas visiting and I’d like to have our baby baptized while they’re here. Do you have any room in October? Deacon: Actually, no. October is booked solid. We try to limit it to eight babies, and we’ve already got 12. We can do November…

Anyone wondering what was in that letter that Ted Kennedy sent to the pope got a glimpse this afternoon, when Washington’s retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick read an excerpt at the graveside: McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, read from a letter from Kennedy to Pope Benedict XVI, hand-delivered earlier this year by Obama. “I know that…
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