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The Deacon's Bench

The diminishing vocations to the priesthood have had an effect not only in the United States, but in mission countries, particularly Latin America. Reuters takes a look: They avoid taking buses, make sure friends know their schedules, and rarely go out when it’s dark. For the three foreign-born Roman Catholic bishops under death threat in…

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes Hail Mary, poor and humble Woman,Blessed by the Most High!Virgin of hope, dawn of a new era,We join in your song of praise, to celebrate the Lord’s mercy, to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom and the full liberation of humanity. Hail Mary, lowly handmaid of the Lord, Glorious…

Those iconic words are inscribed over the entrance to the cloister at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, and they were the words Amy Welborn had inscribed on the back of the holy card for her husband’s funeral. They are especially meaningful now. Visit her latest post for more.

Fr. Jim Martin dropped me a line to let me know about this timely clip, from his DVD “Who Cares About the Saints?” It’s the portion that deals with St. Bernadette, and he recounts the story of the appearances of Our Lady of Lourdes (whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, February 11). Take a look:

Some interesting and timely news out of Rome early this morning: Two months after his trip to Africa, the Holy Father is scheduled to visit the Middle East where he will see the place of Jesus’ baptism, a mosque in Jordan, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, as well as Bethlehem and Nazareth. Though the trip…

An alert reader sent this my way: the poignant story of a baby in need of a miracle, and the namesake who just might provide it: Tracy and Tami Hauser are praying for a miracle and asking others to do the same. On Oct. 8, their seventh child, John Paul, was born with a rare…

“The last several weeks of curial chaos, confusion, and incompetence in the wake of the lifting of the excommunications of four Lefebvrist bishops have made clear just how dysfunctional the curia remains in terms of both crisis analysis and crisis management. A curia in which no one in authority had the sense to Google ‘Richard…

The saga of St. Mary’s in Brisbane, Australia has attracted a surprising amount of attention. The blog Te Deum laudamus has a write up, and no less a luminary than Fr. Z. has also weighed in. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, just take a look below. UPDATE: CNA has…

During this year devoted to St. Paul, there’s been special attention in my diocese to something often overlooked in the modern church: indulgences. This morning’s New York Times takes another look at them, and what they mean: The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness…

Two famous Germans — one a chancellor, the other a pope — chatted on the phone Sunday. They didn’t talk about the weather. From the AP: The German chancellor called the pope Sunday, days after she demanded he clarify the Vatican’s stance on the Holocaust after it lifted the excommunication of a bishop who denies…
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