The Deacon's Bench
The Catholic Herald newspaper in Milwaukee has posted a terrific gallery of pictures of the diaconate ordination held on September 8th. Check it out. Congratulations! Read more
The Catholic Herald newspaper in Milwaukee has posted a terrific gallery of pictures of the diaconate ordination held on September 8th. Check it out. Congratulations! Read more
Bazinga! Details, from CNS: Choosing men and women from every part of the world and from a wide variety of professions, Pope Benedict XVI nominated 45 experts and 49 observers for the upcoming world Synod of Bishops. The Oct. 7-28 gathering will include the largest bloc of women — 10 experts and 19 observers — ever to participate in a Vatican synod. Europe accounts for the overwhelming majority of the appointees, followed by North America, with 10 people... Read more
Her name is Julia Kozerski, and she documented her weight loss (and struggles with body image) on her website using just the camera on her telephone: Following my wedding in July 2009, I decided to make a series of changes to my lifestyle in order to lose weight. During the year that followed, I successfully lost over 160 pounds. Throughout this time I was also working towards my BFA in photography at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD.)... Read more
From John Andrew O’Rourke and Blackstone Films, comes this potent and effective video that profiles Aid for Women, a crisis pregnancy center in Chicago. Read more
A former boss from CBS sent this my way, noting: “I found the description of the living arrangements and book title amusing…” From yesterday’s New York Times: Trevor Douglas McLaren and Owen Patrick Ryan were married Saturday in Washington. Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and a Universal Life minister, officiated at the couple’s apartment. Later in the day, the Rev. Brian D. McLaren, Mr. McLaren’s father and the former pastor of Cedar Ridge Community... Read more
From UCANews (h/t New Advent): The People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City today passed sentence on three Christian bloggers in a case that has polarized the religious community and drawn international criticism. Nguyen Van Hai and Marie Ta Phong Tan received sentences of 12 years and 10 years, respectively, with five additional years of house arrest, while Phan Thanh Hai received a four-year sentence and three years of house arrest. The bloggers were charged with spreading anti-government propaganda under... Read more
From CNS and Baltimore’s Catholic Review: When Major League Baseball umpire Mark Wegner, a Catholic, is in Baltimore to work at an Orioles game, one way he likes to spend his spare time is by helping people in need. “I have free time, and I try to use it productively, but nothing is more productive than, going to Mass, No. 1, but No. 2, coming to do some things like this,” said Wegner. Dressed in an Under Armour T-shirt, baseball... Read more
The Christian Post has details: Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was released Sept. 8 after three years imprisonment, issued a letter shortly after his new-found freedom, thanking his supporters and God for helping him through his difficult journey. Nadarkhani begins his Sept. 8 “thank you” letter, made available by persecution watchdog Present Truth Ministries, by offering his gratitude for those who prayed for him during his imprisonment. He then goes on to describe the challenges he faced during his three... Read more
From the New York Times, a profile of hope steeped in faith: Forty years ago, long before the recent afternoon when Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky knelt at the warped feet of his 4-year-old patient, he was a small-town teenager approaching his Catholic confirmation and needing to select a patron saint. He made an unlikely choice, a newly canonized figure, St. Martin de Porres, the illegitimate child of a former black slave in 16th-century Peru. Back then, in the early 1970s, as... Read more
Canon lawyer Ed Peters has some thoughts on Bishop Wcela’s essay advocating for women deacons. From his blog: The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2008 visitation of a latae sententiae excommunication on those attempting to ordain women to the diaconate represents, I suggest, something more than a temporary disciplinary measure against prematurely implementing a sacramental development that might, in fact, never come. That such a severe sanction is levied at all suggests to me that some very significant—if... Read more
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