I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photograph quite like this before: the pope going to confession. CNS tweets: Before pope goes to hear confessions, he kneels before a priest to confess himself UPDATE: Below is the video. I don’t mind admitting: it moved me to tears. I did a Google search and couldn’t find any images of a pope going to confession. As a piece of photojournalism, this may be a first. (It’s also rare to see a pope... Read more
From Steven Greydanus at National Catholic Register: It is not a “Bible movie” in the usual sense, with all the story beats predetermined by the text, and actors in ancient Near Eastern couture hitting their marks and saying all the expected things. It is something more vital, surprising and confounding: a work of art and imagination that makes this most familiar of tales strange and new: at times illuminating the text, at times stretching it to the breaking point, at... Read more
Details: American Catholicism is becoming knitted into a broader Latin American faith. This matters, even for those who care little for religion. Catholic institutions are estimated to employ more than 1m people. (Walmart, the nation’s biggest private employer, has 1.3m workers in America.) Catholic institutions run 5% of the nation’s schools and 10% of its hospitals. A quarter of Americans describe themselves as Catholic, a proportion that has remained steady even as the share of Baptists and other Protestants has... Read more
Hot on the heels of a similar move in Cincinnati, Honolulu is updating its teacher contract. Details: The Hawaii Catholic schools office, which supervises three dozen Roman Catholic private schools in the state, has just approved a new contract that says teachers can be fired if they engage in homosexual activity or marry someone of the same sex. The contract goes on to list a wide array of actions and behaviors that would justify termination. Among the other acts... Read more
From the Vatican, Pope Francis’ remarks to participants in a “Course on the Internal Forum,” dealing with reconciliation and the ministry of confessors: You are called to always be “men of the Holy Spirit,” witnesses and heralds, joyful and strong, of the resurrection of the Lord. This testimony is read on the face, is heard in the voice of the priest who administers with faith and with “unction” the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He welcomes penitents not with the attitude of... Read more
CNS sent out the picture below this morning. It’s unusual, I thought, to see a woman (in this case, Susan Rice) meeting the pope while she’s wearing both pants and a veil. I posted it on Facebook and it got a lot of comment—many wondering why it was such a big deal for a woman at the Vatican to be wearing pants. Anyway, that prompted a reader to send me the following: the guidelines by the State Department on dressing for... Read more
Now for something completely different. From a TV station in Lincoln, Nebraska: The 19-year-old who posed nude in front of a Catholic high school went to jail Wednesday. Valerie Dodds, known as Val Midwest online, will spend the next 45 days locked up in Lancaster County Jail. Dodds posted pictures of herself outside Pius X High School last June. KETV NewsWatch 7 spoke with Dodds Wednesday before she reported to jail. “I’m taking it as a really bad vacation. I’m... Read more
This item popped up on my Facebook feed this morning. It’s from someone I don’t know personally, but who is connected with many deacons on my “FB friend” list. He’s Deacon Lee Hunt, from Muskegon, Michigan, now serving in Edmond, Oklahoma. He posted this on his timeline three days ago: Today we met with oncologist Dr. Amor who went over all results. I have inoperative, stage-4, pancreatic cancer with a survival rate of 1 week to 4 months. I will... Read more
From AP: A visibly energized President Barack Obama held a nearly hourlong audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday, expressing his great admiration for the pontiff and inviting him to visit the White House. Although Obama and the church remain deeply split over abortion and contraception, Obama considers the pontiff a kindred spirit on issues of economic inequality, and their private meeting in the Papal Library ran longer than scheduled. After they emerged to cameras, Francis presented Obama... Read more
A reader sent this my way tonight. The California congresswoman posted this on Twitter today: Thank you @SpeakerBoehner for this delicious gift on my birthday. It's certainly testing me during lent! pic.twitter.com/VGLhnXDI4N — Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) March 26, 2014 Read more
The Deacon's Bench
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In