The Deacon's Bench
Emmitt was happy to see his military dad after nine long months apart. Separation is rrrrrruff. h/t WelcomeHomeBlog Read more
Emmitt was happy to see his military dad after nine long months apart. Separation is rrrrrruff. h/t WelcomeHomeBlog Read more
It involves aborting one twin — and it’s more common than you may think. The New York Times took a closer look at the practice in the Sunday magazine last weekend: As Jenny lay on the obstetrician’s examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen. She didn’t want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often... Read more
It’s no secret that people entering religious life these days are increasingly attracted to wearing the kinds of clothes that were abandoned in the ’60s and ’70s — habits and veils for women, cassocks and birettas for men. U.S. Catholic looks at how one order is addressing this old-fashioned new fashion: Around the time Karen Lueck entered the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1967, the community had decided to forgo its traditional habit. “Many people who had worn the... Read more
I think it’s a message more of us need to hear — now, more than ever. I stumbled on this in the Office of Readings for his feast, which was August 14. It comes from his letters: It is obedience and obedience alone that shows us God’s will with certainty. Of course our superiors may err, but it cannot happen that we, holding fast to our obedience, should be led into error by this. There is only one exception: if... Read more
The New York Times this morning catches up with the tragic story unfolding in Missouri, surrounding Fr. Shawn Rattigan and the actions of Bishop Robert Finn: In the annals of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, most of the cases that have come to light happened years before to children and teenagers who have long since grown into adults. But a painfully fresh case is devastating Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., where a priest, who was arrested... Read more
“Henri Nouwen, I think, felt a profound connection to Mary’s simplicity and humanity. In one of his journals, he describes meeting a priest who summed up Mary’s meaning to the world so beautifully. ‘To look at Mary,’ this priest said, ‘is to see God’s original plan for humanity.’ As Nouwen explained, ‘In her, we see the way God wanted us to be…Mary shows us how to receive the marvelous gift of God’s love, and how to respond to God’s redemptive... Read more
Details, from Castel Gandolfo in Italy: Pope Benedict XVI has marked the 70th anniversary of the death of a Polish Franciscan friar hailed as a martyr for volunteering to die in the place of another man at Auschwitz. Benedict said Maximilian Kolbe’s heroic act set an example “amid the human drama of hatred, suffering and death.” The pope was greeting Polish pilgrims after his Angelus prayer delivered Sunday from his summer residence near Rome. The German-born Benedict, who was forced... Read more
Now it can be told. Read more
“Henri Nouwen, I think, felt a profound connection to Mary’s simplicity and humanity. In one of his journals, he describes meeting a priest who summed up Mary’s meaning to the world so beautifully. ‘To look at Mary,’ this priest said, ‘is to see God’s original plan for humanity.’ As Nouwen explained, ‘In her, we see the way God wanted us to be…Mary shows us how to receive the marvelous gift of God’s love, and how to respond to God’s redemptive... Read more
In a rare move, three bishops from three different faiths have taken legal action to fight a new law that they believe will criminalize part of their ministry. Details from the New York Times: On a sofa in the hallway of his office here [in Cullman, Alabama], Mitchell Williams, the pastor of First United Methodist Church, announced that he was going to break the law. He is not the only church leader making such a declaration these days. Since June,... Read more
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