From The New York Times: The fertility rate in the United States fell to a record low for a second straight year, federal officials reported Thursday, extending a deep decline that began in 2008 with the Great Recession. The fertility rate fell to 60.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, down 3 percent from 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. It was the largest single-year decline since 2010, when families were still feeling the effects of... Read more
From The New York Times: President Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting on Wednesday, warning in front of news cameras that dangerous people were clamoring to breach the country’s borders and branding such people “animals.” Mr. Trump’s incendiary comments came during a round-table discussion with state and local leaders on California’s so-called sanctuary laws, which strictly limit communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration officers, and which the Trump administration is suing to invalidate. It was... Read more
From The Buffalo News: Someone smashed a statue of Mary outside an East Side Catholic church on Tuesday, and left an anti-Catholic note beside the pieces of the statue, according to a Buffalo police report. “This building will be destroyed,” the handwritten note began. “Stop worshiping Mary. Worship God. Catholics are a man-made religion.” The Rev. Michael H. Burzynski, parish administrator at St. John Kanty, read the entire seven-sentence note over the phone during an interview with a Buffalo News reporter.... Read more
The hardworking staff of The Compass has thoughtfully posted on Facebook over 60 pictures of last weekend’s ordination in Green Bay, with this brief description: Bishop David Ricken ordained six men to the diaconate today at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral. The newly ordained include Deacons Brian Albers, Frank Birr, Randy Jaeckels, Randy Meidl, Todd Raether and Greg Rotherham. (Compass photos by Sam Lucero) Check out the images. It’s a great gallery. Kudos to Sam Lucero! You can also read profiles... Read more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71BXNzaoDQ8 The poignant video above shows the caskets arriving in Cairo yesterday. The story, from AFP: The remains of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians executed by the Islamic State group in 2015 near the Libyan city of Sirte, the jihadists’ former bastion in the country, arrived home on Monday, an official at Cairo airport said. Egypt’s Coptic Church head Pope Tawadros II was at the airport to receive the remains, which were flown from Misrata on a Libyan Afriqiyah Airways cargo... Read more
From CNS: The Vatican has given its permission for the opening of the sainthood cause of an Iraqi priest and three deacons who were murdered by armed gunmen in Mosul. The Congregation for Saints’ Causes gave the “nihil obstat” (“no objection”), permitting a diocesan bishop to open a local inquiry into a candidate’s sanctity, according to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, May 14. Fides confirmed that the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle... Read more
The CBS News program “60 Minutes” last night aired an interview with director Wim Wenders, and gave viewers an exclusive first look at his new documentary on Pope Francis, “A Man of His Word.” As reporter Jon Wertheim puts it in the introduction: A German experimental filmmaker — and a lapsed Catholic at that — is hardly the conventional choice for the Vatican to hand-pick as the pope’s documentarian. But Pope Francis has, you might say, excommunicated convention. You can... Read more
I haven’t seen any images yet, but The Catholic Globe reported last month: After almost five years of formation, five men of the Diocese of Sioux City will be ordained to the permanent diaconate on May 12. Bishop Walker Nickless will ordain Michael Higgins, Brad Magill, Don McGuire, David Penton and Dale Tigges at 10 a.m. at Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City. This will be the 22nd deacon class since 1977 and the seventh class to be ordained by... Read more
This is a must-read, from America magazine: On the day after Easter, five incarcerated women at the Dayton Correctional Institution in Dayton, Ohio, were initiated into the Catholic Church. They ranged in age from their 20s to 40s and had each committed different crimes, from robbery to selling drugs to murder. Some will be discharged next year; at least one will be in prison for life. On this day, though, they were starting over. I had been invited by Cincinnati’s... Read more
The local press offered this preview: Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, will ordain 19 permanent deacons at 10 a.m., on Saturday, May 12, at Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State St., Chicago. The newly ordained deacons will be assigned to their home parishes, which this year includes parishes in: Arlington Heights, Berwyn, Brookfield, Chicago, Cicero, Des Plaines, Glenview, Grayslake, Ingleside, Oak Forest, Orland Park, Mundelein and Round Lake Beach. “Deacons give life to the mission of the Church... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In