From the Philadelphia Inquirer: A Philadelphia man told a jury today that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest who allegedly sexually abused him for years starting the late 1970s had said a colleague who is now a bishop in West Virginia also had sex with teenage boys. The 48-year-old witness, identified only as “John” in the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury, described a meeting one summer in high school where he spent summers at the Rev. Stanley Gana’s... Read more
Details: House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) chastised Catholic bishops at a Wednesday news conference on Capitol Hill, saying they needed to look at the bigger picture after they complained that the GOP budget plan fails to meet “moral criteria.” The bishops had written letters to Capitol Hill, arguing many elements of the Republicans’ budget proposal, such as cuts to food stamps, harmed the poor while the wealthy benefitted. “At a time of great competition for agricultural resources and budgetary... Read more
Details from TIME magazine: With his crimson cassock, wide grin and rotund good cheer, Timothy Dolan, 62, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, seems a figure out of the age of the old movies Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s — a warm prelate who leads his flock more by charm than fiat. Yet in 2012, this priest with a mien dating back half a century did something few other American Roman Catholic leaders have managed in recent... Read more
“The response, the new response, is rather encouraging. But there are still developments that will be made, and examined, and decisions which should be taken in the next few weeks.” — Fr. Frederico Lombardi, head of Vatican Press Office More details here. Read more
My colleague at CNEWA Michael La Civita went to France for Easter and expected to find a secularized country utterly devoid of Catholic fervor. But he found something very different: I wandered down to my favorite neighborhood, Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Entering the dark medieval church that gives the district its name, I lighted some candles, offered a few prayers and reveled in the quiet. The emptied church suited my need to escape, and I figured it foreshadowed a quiet, low-key holiday spent... Read more
It’s considered by many a masterpiece — though that may be a matter of taste — but this celebrated and much-visited church in France has just gotten a new convent and visitor’s center. The New York Times architecture critic dropped by for a visit: Completed in 1955, Le Corbusier’s hilltop chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in this hardscrabble patch of eastern France attracts some 100,000 supplicants each year, architectural and religious. If critics still sometimes blame Le Corbusier... Read more
Here’s a great slice of American ingenuity for you, the one-man Poem Store: Zach Houston runs his Poem Store (on any given sidewalk) with these items: a manual typewriter, a wooden folding chair, scraps of paper, and a white poster board that reads: “POEMS — Your Topic, Your Price.” Houston usually gets from $2 to $20 for a poem, he says. He’s received a $100 bill more than once. The Oakland, Calif., resident has been composing spontaneous street poems in... Read more
Earlier, I posted about parishes in Seattle that were declining to take part in the petition drive against same sex marriage. Now, some reaction from the pews: The congregation at Seattle’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church gave the Rev.. Tim Clark a standing ovation Sunday when he announced that the parish would not gather signatures for a referendum to repeal same-sex marriage. The parish became the sixth in Seattle to opt out of the petition drive for Referendum... Read more
This is eye-opening, and disturbing, from the Wedding/ Celebrations pages of the New York Times: Jennifer Derrick’s weight had crept to 159 pounds from 125, and she knew she would not fit into her grandmother’s wedding dress. “Women were smaller back then, and there was nothing to let out,” said Ms. Derrick, of Rockford, Ill. She took prescription pills, had vitamin B shots and made weekly $45 visits to a Medithin clinic in Janesville, Wis. When she married on March... Read more
You might be surprised. Check out this release: In his foreword to YOUCAT — the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church — Pope Benedict XVI urges readers to “study this Catechism with passion and perseverance.” The book’s amazing, global popularity suggests that millions of Catholics have embraced the Holy Father’s call. YOUCAT now ranks as the best-selling Catholic book in the world, with more than 1.7 million copies already sold around the globe. Not surprisingly, the Youth Catechism is at the top... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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