What was it like to be one of the first permanent deacons in the United States? The Catholic Review chats with surviving members of the class of ’71: After Cardinal Lawrence Shehan ordained Deacon George Evans as one of the first permanent deacons in the United States 40 years ago, a lot of people didn’t know what to make of the new clergyman. “It was a struggle in the first few years,” remembered Deacon Evans, now retired but still assisting... Read more
Got a hundred million bucks to spare? The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has a good way to use it, with an ambitious plan to support its schools. From the Los Angeles Times: Dwindling enrollment and other challenges have decimated urban Catholic schools nationwide, but a high-profile initiative to raise $100 million in tuition assistance may allow thousands of children to continue attending schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese and save those schools from extinction. The initiative, headed by former Los... Read more
After the recent decision in Phoenix, cutting back on distributing the Precious Blood at communion, there’s been a lot of discussion about whether Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (EMHCs) are really all that necessary or helpful. My neighbor in Patheosian bloggery, the great Max Lindenman, has some thoughts: Serving as an EM, like manning a soup kitchen, is an enriching experience. But the enrichment is of a very different type. I’ve only done it a few times — at my... Read more
That was Antonin Scalia’s message to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh on Saturday. The Supreme Court Justice spoke at an event marking the school’s 100th anniversary. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Scalia’s 20-minute address to about 1,200 people in the A.J. Palumbo Center, Uptown, included a defense of religion in the public life and of an approach to constitutional law that he helped pull into the mainstream of legal thought. “Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent... Read more
Thursday night, I got a call from a classmate and friend, the DRE in my parish, Deacon Bill, explaining that his mother-in-law had died after a long illness. As a result, he would not be attending or preaching at the special mass for third graders in our parish Sunday. He asked: Could I fill in for him? I said sure. Saturday night, I took a crack at revising and rewriting my original homily (you can read it here) to make... Read more
Thursday night, I got a call from a classmate and friend, the DRE in my parish, Deacon Bill, explaining that his mother-in-law had died after a long illness. As a result, he would not be attending or preaching at the special mass for third graders in our parish Sunday. He asked: Could I fill in for him? I said sure. Saturday night, I took a crack at revising and rewriting my original homily (you can read it here) to make... Read more
They took to the skies, and to the streets, Friday, according to local reports: An airplane, two trucks and one demonstrator holding signs made up the efforts of an anti-abortion organization Friday to urge local Catholics to implore Diocese of Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to rethink his decision to keep prominent anti-abortion priest Father Frank Pavone in Amarillo. The demonstration highlights the public nature of the dispute between the two church figures, which University of Dayton theology professor Dennis... Read more
The Vatican news site picks up on some troubling statistics: India is the fourth country in the world most at risk for the female gender, after Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan, and the widespread practice of selective abortion of female fetuses makes the situation even more difficult. Since the last provisional census carried out in 2011, in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, where the ratio between males and females between 0 and 6 years has fallen to 886 girls per 1,000... Read more
[Click here for readings] Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it’s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. This weekend, we’ll have a special mass commemorating a Filipino martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz. We also have special masses for the Korean Martyrs and the Chinese martyrs. Last week, I learned something remarkable about one of the martyrs whose feast we celebrated this summer: St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. He was a Chinese layman who was executed in 1900, along... Read more
[Click here for readings] Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it’s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. This weekend, we’ll have a special mass commemorating a Filipino martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz. We also have special masses for the Korean Martyrs and the Chinese martyrs. Last week, I learned something remarkable about one of the martyrs whose feast we celebrated this summer: St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. He was a Chinese layman who was executed in 1900, along... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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