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The Deacon's Bench

The cost of Ireland’s sex abuse scandal is spiraling — and the country’s government is compelling the cash-strapped religious orders to pick up the tab. From the AP: Ireland’s government announced Tuesday it will summon Roman Catholic orders and demand they contribute more funds to the thousands of people who suffered rampant abuse in church-run…

From Manhattan comes this hip liturgy: a Sunday night jazz mass. Dig it. This comes from the America magazine’s web page.

Michael Paulson at the Boston Globe has picked up on something that may have eluded most Americans — and even, most Catholics: if Sonia Sontomeyer is approved as a justice to the Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court will become overwhelmingly Catholic. Read on: Judge Sonia Sotomayor has much to distinguish her, but one element…

The USCCB has weighed in with its own review of Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons”: Highly improbable but mindlessly entertaining sequel to “The Da Vinci Code” – adapted from Dan Brown’s prequel written in 2000 — in which religious symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and a scientist (Ayelet Zurer) join forces with a church official…

“Look. When it’s all said and done, I did a pretty good hatchet job on my marriage myself. I’m to blame. If you’re inclined to judge, put it here.” — Mel Gibson, talking last night to Jay Leno about the end of his marriage.He also confirmed that his girlfriend is pregnant.

“An article on Page 30 this weekend about Conan O’Brien misspells the given name of the secretary of state, who appears on some of his memorabilia. She is Hillary Clinton, not Hilary.” — A correction from yesterday’s New York Times that, for some reason, just cracked me up.

With ordination season upon us, the Buffalo News decided to check in with a group of men who were ordained 40 years ago. It’s a fascinating glimpse at “the way we were” as a church — and the way we are. Take a look: It took two Buffalo cathedrals and a basilica in Lackawanna to…

“Are you out of your Vulcan mind?” — James Tiberius Kirk, in that movie. I finally saw it today. Everything you’ve heard is true. And then some.

I blame The Anchoress for this. She posted a string of great Paul Simon songs, which sent me scurrying to YouTube to find one of my all-time favorites. Here it is: a bittersweet elegy that comes from a different time, but that somehow still speaks to our own peculiar, troubled age.

“Amid all the reaction to these terrible revelations, I have heard no one address the question of what it means, in this context, to know. Human beings — human beings everywhere, not just in Ireland — have a remarkable ability to entertain simultaneously any number of contradictory propositions. Perfectly decent people can know a thing…
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