Think it’s easy shoveling out all this blog stuff every day? Ha! My Boss, Elizabeth Scalia (or the Artist Otherwise Known As The Anchoress) is taking a well-deserved blogging break this week. She’s stepped away from the boiler, and put aside her shovel, and enlisted some able-bodied replacements to continue keeping the engine humming. Further proof that she’s indispensable: she’s drafted three people to do the work normally done by one. (Can you say “Blessed Trinity”?) And it’s a... Read more
For the really really rich executive who has everything: a smart phone that’s so smart, it costs $2,400. A review: Let’s begin digging into what will interest the business elite — the phone’s design and hardware. First off, we’ll need to answer the first burning question: does the P’9981’s cost have anything to do with functionality? After all, a device that costs that much should certainly do our laundry for us, right? Nope. Wash the dishes? Nuh uh. Walk our dogs? Strike... Read more
Another angle of this story, from the New York Times: Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham University law student, knew that the school’s health plan had to pay for birth control pills, in keeping with New York state law. What she did not find out until she was in an examining room, “in the paper dress,” was that the student health service — in keeping with Roman Catholic tenets — would simply refuse to prescribe them. As a result, students have had... Read more
Many commenters know Greta and her husband Mark. The Anchoress last night posted this comment from Mark: My wife continues to decline. She was not supposed to go to the march for life but insisted and anyone who has seen her post knows that stopping her on anything to fight for life has a hard task. She just completed her second round of chemo in her fight with cancer a few weeks back and the doctors did not want her... Read more
My parish is celebrating its centenary this year. As part of the festivities, this weekend we had a special Mass at 1 p.m. honoring the school and its alumni. Two of those alumni, Msgr. John McGuirl and Msgr. Ned Ryan, concelebrated. Below is the homily I delivered for that event. It’s a little rough; I didn’t know I would be doing it until Saturday night, and it was composed with a lot of coffee and very little sleep. (I was... Read more
It’s happening in Los Angeles, but I can think of a lot of other corners of the country (including my own) where something like this could reap dividends. From The Tidings: The group of nuns and priests sitting around the conference table had been invited to a historic event: an orientation meeting for the “Teachers and Preachers Learning Together” pilot program providing one-on-one elocution help for immigrant priests serving in the archdiocese. “Congratulations, you are pioneers,” said Louis Velasquez, special... Read more
My parish is celebrating its centenary this year. As part of the festivities, this weekend we had a special Mass at 1 p.m. honoring the school and its alumni. Two of those alumni, Msgr. John McGuirl and Msgr. Ned Ryan, concelebrated. Below is the homily I delivered for that event. It’s a little rough; I didn’t know I would be doing it until Saturday night, and it was composed with a lot of coffee and very little sleep. (I was... Read more
Given the state of the Church in Ireland these days, I have to wonder how this will turn out. Details: A homily delivered at Knock shrine by the Bishop of Raphoe, Philip Boyce, is being investigated by the Director of Public Prosecutions following a formal complaint by a leading humanist who claims the sermon was an incitement to hatred. The gardai have confirmed to former Fine Gael election candidate John Colgan that they have prepared and forwarded a file to... Read more
I got an early start, and preached this weekend’s homily at Saturday’s 5 pm vigil Mass. You can hear it by clicking the arrow below. [audio:http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/deaconsbench/files/2012/01/HOMILY0129121.mp3|titles=HOMILY012912] Read more
An era is ending: A renowned city architect designed St. Peter the Apostle Church 170 years ago. Irish laborers dug the foundation by hand, donating their labor to build it. And its early parishioners spared no expense in adorning their house of worship. They installed an elaborate white marble altar, with a life-size statue of the church’s patron saint towering over it, and placed intricately carved angels at the sides of the tabernacle. Now those angels are gone, donated to... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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