Details: The former prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy has told a traditionalist group that Pope Francis has no intention of restricting access to the Extraordinary Form of the Latin liturgy. “I met Pope Francis very recently and he told me that he has no problem with the old rite, and neither does he have any problem with lay groups and associations like yours that promote it,” Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos told members of Una Voce International (FIUV), who... Read more
Details: U.S. Catholic bishops on Tuesday elected Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, as president of their leadership conference, and Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston diocese as vice president. The election of Kurtz and DiNardo to three-year terms comes as Catholic bishops worldwide are being given new direction by Pope Francis, who has emphasized greater humility and more concern for the poor. The bishops oversee 69 million American Catholics, or about one-quarter of the U.S. population. Stay tuned. You... Read more
From the Just Down the Expressway Desk…some encouraging news from Newsday: Bucking a national trend, enrollment at most of Long Island’s Catholic high schools is strong and holding steady, even as falling numbers of students in the diocese’s elementary schools forced closures and the region’s economy struggles to regain its pre-recession footing. Seven of the 10 high schools showed enrollment gains over the decade from the 2003-04 school year through 2012-13, while three saw declines. One school, the all-girls Academy... Read more
From Religion News Service: Italy’s Center for Studies on New Religions reported Sunday (Nov. 10) that around half of the 250 priests it surveyed reported a significant rise in church attendance since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis in March. “If we project these findings nationally, and if half of the parishes have been touched by the Francis effect, then we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people returning to the churches,” said Massimo Introvigne, the center’s director and... Read more
Details, from the National Catholic Reporter: Tomas Murray, a member of a Catholic Worker community in Ohio, thinks where the bishops choose to eat also sends a significant message about how they see the role of the U.S. Catholic church. Murray is one of several people hosting an alternative dinner option for the prelates Tuesday night. They want the focus of their meal, held on the night of the annual assembly at which the bishops are also invited to a... Read more
Most of us know that it varies from parish to parish. Some places will decline to marry couples who are living together, or mandate that they separate for a period of time before the wedding. Other parishes (including my own) will not marry couples who do not live within the parish boundaries. It’s really a mixed bag. As a result, it’s not uncommon for couples to “church shop” for a wedding—or just throw up their hands, give up and do... Read more
From Amy Sullivan in the National Journal: Stephen Colbert may be—as he bragged in character last month at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner—”America’s most famous Catholic.” But he has serious competition for the title of most important Catholic in the United States. Until recently that distinction arguably belonged to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the powerful New York Archdiocese and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. When the charismatic Dolan’s term wraps up next week... Read more
From Catholic News Service: Of the 1.83 billion people chatting and posting in English on the Internet, guess what they’ve been talking about most ? Not only is Pope Francis the most talked about name of 2013, his twitter handle @Pontifex ranks in the top-five “top words” on the World Wide Web. The Austin, Texas-based Global Language Monitor combs the web and ranks the words, phrases and names that get the heaviest and widest usage in the English language worldwide. The results... Read more
National Review takes note of an item in a recent interview with USA TODAY, wherein the former candidate for Vice President says: [Billy Graham’s] message transformed my mom’s life,” Palin, one of the dinner’s speakers, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “In the 70s, she would tune into the Billy Graham crusades, televised. My mom was raised Catholic, and she . . . was yearning for something more,” she said. “His invitation for people to know that they could... Read more
Details: Archbishop of Naples Crescenzio Sepe didn’t mince words when speaking about the issue of pollution on Wednesday, going so far as to say, “Those who pollute are not in the grace of God and can not take communion.” His remarks came in the wake of revelations that local mafia had buried cancer-causing toxic waste around the city, posing a health risk to residents, reports Adnkronos. He told journalists at the 10th International Forum of the Christian environmentalist group Greenaccord, “Our people have to... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In