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The Deacon's Bench

Well, the feast of St. Lawrence came and went on August 10th, but a leading figure at the Vatican has taken note: The Catholic Church increasingly relies on the ministry of permanent deacons, who must be experts in preaching the word of God and in outreach to the poor, said the prefect of the Congregation…

As you can imagine, there’s lots of mail stacked up here at The Bench from the last two weeks. This note comes from the wife of a newly ordained deacon in Los Angeles, and she takes exception to my posting and comments here. She writes: As a wife of one of the newly ordained on…

As many of you may have heard, there was a Blogger/Google glitch — a “brain fart,” someone called it — which shut down my little blog (and, it seems, hundreds of others) for a couple days. It now appears to be back. Whoo-hoo! (However, there appears to be something freaky going on with Internet Explorer;…

The Deacon’s Wife and I will be at Disney World for a few days. (Fr. Austin, I’ll be sure and send your regards.) Longtime readers will remember what a great time we had last year. We decided to do it again. (We have a timeshare down there, so we it’s become an annual pilgrimage.) We’ll…

I thought Weird Al might get to it first, but no! This delightful take-down of that great wedding video (which some say was crap, but I loved it anyway) nails it. Enjoy. See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. H/T to Big A. Oh: and it turns out, the couple that started it…

You might think it would be otherwise, but a story out this weekend indicates bad times are good news for charitable giving to churches: Frank Berning, a lifelong Roman Catholic, has upped his church giving as the economy drooped. “I always try to contribute what’s possible, and our priest stressed that there are unemployed people…

“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.” This week, I read about a man who did believe – and who spent his life doing the work of God. His name was William McCarthy. But countless people knew him as just “Father Bill.” He died last week at the…

The Anchoress sent me this link and — knowing how much I love this show — said, “Here. Knock yourself out.” I did. The results are below. The new season begins August 16. Set your TiVo!

Or, maybe, our desire for naps.

A reader sent me the picture below (I’m not sure where it was shot; it was sent to him by a friend) and noted: “Having traveled all over the US and Europe I haven’t even seen it before. So, I thought that you might be able to poll your alert readers to see if anyone…
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