Most Americans accept cohabitation, even for couples who don’t plan to get married. Not exactly shocking news. From Pew: As more U.S. adults are delaying marriage – or forgoing it altogether – the share who have ever lived with an unmarried partner has been on the rise. Amid these changes, most Americans find cohabitation acceptable, even for couples who don’t plan to get married, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Even so, a narrow majority says society is... Read more
From The New York Times: A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday overturned the Trump administration’s expanded “conscience” rule, which would have made it easier for the government to punish health care institutions or states and cities with the loss of federal funds if they did not allow workers to object to abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds. The rule is part of a broader agenda by the Trump administration, which says it wants to expand protections... Read more
“Once you become conscious of death, and experience it, you undertake a new approach to life.” Memento mori, anyone? Details: More than 25,000 people have participated in mass “living funeral” services at Hyowon Healing Center since it opened in 2012, hoping to improve their lives by simulating their deaths. “Once you become conscious of death, and experience it, you undertake a new approach to life,” said 75-year-old Cho Jae-hee, who participated in a recent living funeral as part of a... Read more
A timely question for this month when we remember our beloved dead. And here’s the answer, from the Rev. Kenneth Doyle via CNS: There is no canonical rule against having a Mass said for a deceased non-Catholic. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true; the church’s Code of Canon Law says, “A priest is free to apply the Mass for anyone, living or dead” (Canon 901). This means that the Eucharist can be offered for anyone — dead... Read more
You may remember this story from last spring. Now, an update: A Pennsylvanian state lawmaker who offered money in exchange for the identities and other personal information of pro-life activists, including two minors, has apologized to the family, five months after his actions. Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia), the subject of an unrelated ethics investigation, wrote a card to the Garecht family of Pennsylvania in late October apologizing for recording them outside of a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia in mid-April. Sims had recorded... Read more
This Orthodox priest in Romania evidently took matters into his own hands: An Orthodox priest was captured by a professional photographer as he was feeding a baby girl while proclaiming the Gospel at the child’s baptism service at the Ascension of the Lord Church in Podu Olt, Brasov County. During the Baptism service, infants who are about to receive this great Sacrament of the Church can sometimes become more agitated because it is a different environment from home or simply because... Read more
The young man who claims he did it released a video on YouTube this morning. He appears to be affiliated with the St. Boniface Institute, whose website states: The St. Boniface Institute was founded to give Catholic laity the possibility to speak out. No to paganism in the Church! No to the globalist agenda in the Church! No to the ongoing destruction from within! From the heart of Europe, we want to fight for the restoration of our wonderful Catholic... Read more
The relatively new pontifical society, devoted to celebrating Mass in the Extraordinary Form, reports a surge in Mass attendance around the country. From its website: Fraternity parishes and chapels around the country report major increases in Sunday Mass attendance compared with last year. Newer apostolates have seen dramatic growth, some doubling their numbers over the last year, such as Los Angeles, which went from 250 per Sunday to 500. The apostolate did not even have its own church until 2018,... Read more
Leave it to Crux’s John Allen to connect the dots and find a link between Francis and John XXIII through Our Lady of Loreto: There’s a sense in which the Francis papacy can be understood as a sort of salsa-infused homage to St. John XXIII. The latest reminder of the point came Thursday, when Francis added the feast of Our Lady of Loreto on Dec. 10 to the universal calendar of the Catholic Church, including celebration of the Mass that... Read more
It happened in 2008. It got some attention at the time but has been largely forgotten. While the circumstances and people involved are significantly different, this gives one perspective, and a rare first-person account, of someone who was publicly refused the sacrament. Douglas Kmiec — a pro-life, conservative supporter of Ronald Reagan — came out in support of Barack Obama and, for that announcement, was denied communion at Mass in California. It began when he found himself the subject of... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In