The Deacon's Bench
Spotted outside a school in New York City: Read all about it here. Read more
Spotted outside a school in New York City: Read all about it here. Read more
The day will be marked on May 20th, but the Vatican — in keeping with tradition — released Pope Benedict’s letter on the topic today, the Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers and journalists. A snip: Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer, meditation or... Read more
He posted several pictures (including the one above) on his FB page. And the Amarillo newspaper explains: A Roman Catholic priest restricted to ministry within the Diocese of Amarillo participated in March for Life events Monday in Washington with the permission of his bishop. The Rev. Frank Pavone had a full calendar during Monday’s annual pro-life gathering marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Pavone, a priest under the authority of Amarillo... Read more
I haven’t seen this commercial in a while. It’s worth another look today. Read more
Looking for a recording of the new Exsultet? Look no further. The version below comes from this website (I believe the text is available there as well, and you can download it to your iPod). Be forewarned: it’s long. About a minute or so longer than the version most of us are familiar with. And it’s tricky. The Vigil will be here before you know it. Start practicing! Just click the green arrow below. [audio:http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/deaconsbench/files/2012/01/exsultet.mp3|titles=exsultet] Read more
The AP’s David Bauder watches TV so you don’t have to. And it’s not pretty: Last week seemed typical for CBS’ sitcoms on Monday night, television’s most popular — and raunchy — night of comedy. There was a strip club visit on “How I Met Your Mother,” lap dance included. The stars of “2 Broke Girls” mistakenly believed an upstairs neighbor ran a brothel. “Two and a Half Men” included jokes about masturbation, oral sex, sex with moms, trading cigarettes... Read more
The phenomenally successful program Catholics Come Home is touching thousands of lives around the country. Take, for example, Augusta, GA: There is a poster board in the narthex of St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church in Grovetown that says, “We Miss You.” The hope is to draw the eyes of former or inactive Catholics who may have seen one of the television ads of Catholics Come Home, the national campaign inviting lapsed Catholics back to the church. The Georgia-based nonprofit... Read more
Details: Catholic Healthcare West, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems, is ending its governing board’s affiliation with the Catholic Church and changing its name, two steps intended to help the system expand throughout the states in which it operates _ California, Arizona and Nevada — and beyond. The changes, which executives plan to announce Monday, underscore the unique challenges facing Catholic hospitals in the marketplace, where there are tremendous financial pressures for hospitals to merge or form formal alliances... Read more
The result strikes me as closer to Little Red Riding Hood than the Little Flower. Which, I guess, is the point. Details, from the Paris Review: Modest, natural, and snazzy—those were the three directions Mother Mary Magdalene gave artist Julia Sherman for designing the habits for the Community of Compassion, Mother Mary’s new Anglican Catholic order in Forth Worth, Texas. “You can’t just go to the store and buy a habit,” Mother Mary wrote to me. “Every order has to... Read more
A few people have asked me about this, so I finally decided to give it a shot. Below is this Sunday’s homily, recorded as it was delivered at the 11:30 am Mass at my parish in Queens. The yawns, screams, cell phones and crying babies are all real. So is the sound of hurled vegetables hitting the ambo. I don’t know if I’ll do this every week, but it was an interesting experiment. See what you think. Click the arrow... Read more
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