You may have heard: we’re about to get a little rain. I’ve been following the stories in the paper and on TV. They’re encouraging people to be prepared. I made the mistake of going to Walgreens last night. It was packed with people. Stores around the area report that they have run out of batteries, flashlights, bread, canned goods, generators, even water. My boss lives on Staten Island and said he thought his neighborhood grocery store had run out of... Read more
You may have heard: we’re about to get a little rain. I’ve been following the stories in the paper and on TV. They’re encouraging people to be prepared. I made the mistake of going to Walgreens last night. It was packed with people. Stores around the area report that they have run out of batteries, flashlights, bread, canned goods, generators, even water. My boss lives on Staten Island and said he thought his neighborhood grocery store had run out of... Read more
A friend from my parish called, wondering if there was any policy about Mass and bad weather, or if any of the three dioceses in our region had issued a statement on Hurricane Irene. Here’s what I found. All three have statements on their websites from their respective bishops. From Nicholas DiMarzio in Brooklyn: “In light of the serious threat posed by Hurricane Irene, which is due to hit our area over the weekend, I urge the faithful of the... Read more
In space, no one can hear you scream. The pictures below, from our friends at NASA. You can see more shots of Irene here. I stopped by Walgreens to get some odds and ends this afternoon, which turned out to be a terrible idea. (You can never have too much dental floss or deodorant!) My boss, who lives on Staten Island, reported that most of the shelves at his local story were emptied out last night. “Except for the ethnic... Read more
Clouds are scuttling across a beautiful blue sky here in New York City. But batten down the hatches. Stay tuned. Things could get interesting in the next day or so. Meantime, take it away, Lena. Read more
Why is that? Some details: While the Bible Belt is known for its devotion to traditional values, Southerners don’t do so well on one key family value: They are more likely to get divorced than people living in the Northeast. Southern men and women had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than their counterparts in other parts of the country: 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census... Read more
The winner of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s Best Joke award, by Nick Helm: “I needed a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” Are you in stitches yet? Read the other winners. Read more
But it will take place at another location, according to reports out of Cincinnati: Mother of Mercy, a Catholic girls high school, complied with a request from Archbishop Dennis Schnurr and backed out of hosting an interfaith Ramadan dinner at the school Friday night. Instead, the dinner will be held in the Catholic Center at St. Monica-St. George Parish in University Heights, which is not a school. Schnurr on Monday asked Mother of Mercy to cancel its plans to host... Read more
It happened Thursday afternoon. Details, from the Boston Globe. Nearly 10 years after a worldwide clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted in the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley today released a long-awaited roster of 159 archdiocesan clerics who have been accused of sexually abusing children. But O’Malley’s action was immediately criticized by Attorney General Martha Coakley and advocates for clergy abuse victims because it lists only those priests who have already been publicly accused, and omits the names of dozens... Read more
The United States bishops yesterday released their annual statement for Labor Day: “This Labor Day, the economic facts are stark and the human costs are real: millions of our sisters and brothers are without work, raising children in poverty and haunted by fears about their economic security,” said Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California in “Human Costs and Moral Challenges of a Broken Economy,” the annual Labor Day statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). He added,... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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