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The Deacon's Bench

From West Virginia comes this news of a significant piece of history being made. Two Catholics are running for governor. And their religion is being greeted with little more than a shrug. From the Huntington Herald-Dispatch: Quietly, discreetly, with practically no one paying attention, the West Virginia gubernatorial race has swept away the last remnants…

Just in time for the start of the school year, a study reports that kids who attend church regularly get higher grades: In the nearly 24 years Carolyn Knight has been director of children’s ministries at the United Methodist Church in Mitchell, she has seen the number of children participating in youth groups and summer…

The middle of last week, I exchanged e-mails with a friend of mine who has what must be the worst job in America. He works for Lehman Brothers. I hadn’t heard from him in several weeks, and given the news of the last several days, I wanted to find out how he was doing. He…

How does Barack Obama plan to woo voters of faith? David Gibson found out: Obama’s two top lieutenants in faith outreach came out to address dozens of reporters at the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference in Washington late this afternoon to pitch the campaign’s new Faith, Family and Values Tour, which will launch next week…

That’s the bemused headline of this well-thought-out argument from the editor of First Things, Joseph Bottum. A snip: Do they think this is a debate they’re actually going to win? Do they imagine the Catholic theologians of America–from Avery Cardinal Dulles all the way to Sister Sara Butler–are suddenly going to whack their heads and…

Most of the people in the pews — and the people in the pulpit, for that matter — know this inconvenient truth: a lot of sermons are dull. But the guy in this story, from the Boston Globe, thinks he has the solution: ‘Most preaching is boring.” There. He said it. In front of 30…

That is what some Middle Eastern people believe, and USA TODAY published this piece from the AP on that subject a few days ago: On a sweltering August morning, a small group of Iranians crowded outside the green metal door of a cemetery. They wanted to go in to look at the remains of one…

I need more warning about things like this.

From Los Angeles comes this story of an ingenius new tool for teaching children about scripture: a talking bible. Really. From The Tidings: Three years ago, St. Paul the Apostle parishioner Pamela Fischer woke up one morning in Los Angeles with a new vocation. The 48-year-old wife and mother of two St. Monica High School…

“It takes a long time to construct the assembly plant, but once you get the thing built you can get the product out more quickly.” — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, commenting on the difficulties of implementing wider use of the Tridentine mass, one year after Summorum Pontificum was issued.
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