I got this email this morning: Yesterday I asked for your prayers for a 4th year theologian/seminarian for the Diocese of Nashville, William Carmona. He was due to be ordained a deacon this Fall and ordained a priest in June; however, he is dying from cancer. Bishop Choby chose to ordain William both as a deacon and a priest today, Sep. 8, if William was alert enough to participate. My prayer request was that he live long enough to be... Read more
The Anchoress today takes a thoughtful look at the controversy swirling around Cardinal Dolan and the St. Patrick’s Day parade and takes sides—but it’s the side of Christ. Read on: What about a bishop agreeing to be Grand Marshall in a Saint Patrick’s Day parade wherein homosexual groups — yes, even the sort of lobbyist homosexual groups over which Pope Francis expressed concern — will be included among the participants? That’s pretty bad, right? For some it is causing scandal and confusion and... Read more
The striking image, shown here, is the work of artist Neilson Carlin. It’s a rare depiction of three generations of Christ’s family—all with eyes fixed on Jesus, whose own eyes are fixed on us, the viewer. Visit his website to learn more about some of the beautiful religious images he’s created. There’s a very good profile of him from last summer at CatholicPhilly.com, in which he says: “I look upon the studio as a cloister…At the altar of my easel, paint... Read more
From The Boston Globe comes this intriguing interview with Amy-Jill Levine, a New Testament scholar whose new book “Short Stories by Jesus” offers a view of the parables you might not expect. Snip: IDEAS: A theme of this book is that the parables should not be seen as platitudes. LEVINE: Parables have often been domesticated. They’re taught to people as children, so they’re interpreted as children’s stories, or they become so familiar that everybody becomes bored with them, or we determine that... Read more
Sister Maria Goretti Hanna, O.P., and Good Shepherd Sister Marie-Claude Naddaf meet with workers creating shelters for refugees in Erbil, Iraq. (photo: CNEWA) From CNEWA’s blog, One-to-One, a letter from a nun in Iraq paints a picture of what they are confronting: St. Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians, “And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also,... Read more
So, this seems to be a thing now. The image below is ricocheting around Facebook with the simple headline: “My church gave prepackaged communion,” but no other explanation. Okay. This is clearly not Catholic; anything like this in a Catholic setting would be invalid and illicit. (And have no fear: if Catholics found these things being dispensed in the communion line, more than a few people would simply raise hell about it.) Curious, I did a little digging. A search... Read more
Stupid TV ads pop up all the time on FB and they’re instantly forgettable. But this is something else. It’s been around since 2013, but this is the first I’ve seen it, and it’s one of the few times I watched one of these and honestly laughed out loud. It’s not stupid. It’s endearingly, hilariously smart. And very clever. Turns out what bears do in the woods isn’t quite what we’d expect. Need a laugh? Enjoy. Read more
His tenure was exceptionally short—less than a year. From The Los Angeles Times: Roman Catholic Bishop Cirilo Flores died Saturday after a battle with cancer, the Diocese of San Diego announced. Flores, 66, died at 2:47 p.m., at the Nazareth House senior living facility in Mission Valley where he had been transferred this week from a hospital in Los Angeles. Flores “passed away peacefully,” with his cousin Dr. Tom Martinez, Msgr. Steven Callahan and the Sisters of Nazareth at his... Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Mauro Pallotta, a Rome-based street artist, was reading a Superman comic strip while watching a TV documentary on the pontiff when he had an idea. Why not create a mural of Pope Francis as a superhero? So on a cold night last January, the 42-year-old who goes by the pseudonym MauPal, sneaked out to put an image of the pope up on a wall next to the Vatican, while his girlfriend kept watch. The mural showing... Read more
The Cardinal Archbishop of New York offered some thoughts on the controversy in an exclusive interview with John Allen over at Crux: Q. Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois, seems to fault the archdiocese for slowing down the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Is it true you’ve put on the brakes? A. No, that’s not true. I share Bishop Jenky’s expectation and hope to go forward as quickly as possible, and I’m very grateful for all the work Peoria has... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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