Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

The Deacon's Bench

What’s it like to live in a really really big family? Meet the Littletons of Chicago — James and Kathleen, who’ve had 19 (yes, 19) children. ZENIT has the first of a two part interview: Q: What do you suggest for couples seeking to discern what God asks of them through the Church’s call to…

The Vatican is reportedly preparing to issue new rules about Marian apparitions: Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of…

A popular inspirational series has now published a volume offering inspiration specifically for Catholics. The Catholic Review in Baltimore has the soup — er, scoop, from CNS: The “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series can now add Catholics to the more than 200 groups in its targeted audience. In mid-December, Simon & Schuster published “Chicken…

With a new team in charge in Washington, winds of change will inevitably be blowing — and the National Catholic Register looks at where those breezes may take us: The 111th Congress convened on Jan. 6 with strengthened Democratic majorities and increased political clout once Barack Obama becomes president. The new Congress also has a…

This just in: the president-elect has invited an outspoken Episcopalian cleric to give the invocation at a key inaugural event next weekend: An openly gay bishop will deliver a prayer for President-elect Barack Obama in an inauguration event on Sunday that could help defuse controversy over an anti-gay pastor who will give the main invocation.…

If you thought that the vocation crisis was just a Catholic problem, think again. This comes from the Erie Times News in Pennsylvania: Is there a Protestant clergy shortage? Yes and no. The answer, as in the Catholic Church, often depends on where you worship. Some churches, especially those that are small or rural, struggle…

Tough times are taking a toll on Catholic schools. There are increasing reports of school closings and consolidations in my own state, and now the Washington Post is taking a look at what’s happening in private schools around the country: Cynthia Hogan pulled her daughter and son out of Catholic school when she started feeling…

Catching up on various bloggery this Sunday, this item from Patrick McNamara caught my eye — and might raise an eyebrow or two. As Washington prepares to welcome the country’s first African-American president, it seems the city had another African American president in the 19th century — at Georgetown University. He was Fr. Patrick Healy:…

“The cycle of Christmas solemnities brings us to meditate on the birth of Jesus announced by the angels suffused with the luminous splendor of God; Christmas time speaks to us of the star that guided the magi from the east to the house of Bethlehem, and it invites us to look to the heavens opened…

Miss me? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I spent a blissful two-and-a-half days out at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, New York — the historic house of formation for the Dioceses of Rockville Centre and Brooklyn. It was my first visit there. The place sits on over 200 wooded acres that lie along Long…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners