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The Deacon's Bench

Madonna of the Rosary (with Mysteries of the Rosary)by Lorenzo Lotto(1539) Oil on canvasChurch of San Nicolo, Cingoli The Rosary is a way of contemplating the face of Christ seeing him – we may say – with the eyes of Mary. For this reason, it is a prayer that drawing upon the core of the…

I’m surprised this little earthquake near Fresno, California hasn’t sent more aftershocks across the country. But Sunday, a Catholic priest there defied his bishops and spoke out against a bill that would ban gay marriage. Oh: and he also announced that he was gay. From the local ABC affiliate: Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint…

Well, here’s something useful: a new online database listing every saint and blessed. It comes on something called the eCatholicHub, and it appears to be the first online resource of its kind. As they describe it: Starting in the summer of 2008, eCatholicHub began creating the best and most complete database of saints anywhere online.…

Fr. Matthew is an Episcopal priest-blogger who posts some of his wisdom on YouTube. Which is where I dug up this clever look at what goes into writing a sermon. I’m sure a lot of you out there will relate. Enjoy.

Leave it to California: this weekend, they had the traditional Blessing of the Waves out in Orange County. It was totally gnarly, dude: About 400 people gathered at sunrise Sunday to thank God for a gnarly ocean and to hang ten on some righteous waves. The Roman Catholic Dioceses of Orange hosted its first annual…

Hot on the heels of this item – wherein one American bishop compares supporting pro-choice candidates to endorsing homicide — a retired priest, Fr. Emmett Coyne, has penned a short opinion piece on the importance of conscience, and he takes the bishops to task: A well-formed conscience, according to the bishops, is interpreted as being…

It’s now less than 30 days to what may be the most critical election in decades — and the Catholic Church is kicking it up a notch. From Sunday’s New York Times: As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual “respect life” Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic…

The other day, a California TV station gave a heartbreaking glimpse at what is happening to thousands of people right now. It reported on an area near Pasadena known as “foreclosure alley” – a part of the state where 700 families a day are losing their homes. And it followed a cleanup crew going from…

The good folks at Our Sunday Visitor have just published a special vocations section — and Your Humble Blogger is prominently featured on the front page. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.) The link will take you to the menu, where you can download the section.

Some people might file this under the category of “Dog Bites Man” — not news, and not all that surprising. But it’s interesting that the subject of prayer and contemplation is generating some serious study. This comes from a Catholic website in the UK: Catholics feel less pain than atheists and agnostics after contemplating the…
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