Details: Pope Francis has revealed for the first time the reasons for his decision to shun the official papal apartments and instead live in a much more modest Vatican ‘hotel’. He has told a friend that he likes being in daily contact with ordinary people, does not want to be isolated and enjoys sitting down to meals with visiting clergy. The Pope, 76, who on first seeing the papal apartments reportedly exclaimed “But there is room here for 300 people!”... Read more
Remember scenes like this one in a Catholic classroom? Learning the catechism? The basics of Catholicism? Things have changed. Not long ago, I heard of a grade-schooler who was attending his First Communion and, when the pastor in his homily mentioned the honor and privilege of “eating the Body of Christ,” the kid freaked. He had no idea that was what the Eucharist was all about. And there you have Exhibit A of what Barbara Nicolosi describes in extravagant and... Read more
Details: The Catholic Archdiocese of Portland and the parish of St. Mary’s Cathedral will hold their annual blessing of the bikes at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 9, in the cathedral courtyard. The 30-minute rite is open to the bicycling community and the public at large. “Portland is a platinum cycling city,” says Deacon Thomas Gornick, director of evangelization for the archdiocese and a member of the cathedral parish. “St. Mary’s is bounded by the bike lanes in 18th Avenue and Everett Street. Many cyclists... Read more
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Strange Gods, the first book by our own Elizabeth Scalia. (I’m working my way through it now and hope to write about it in the next few days; I can report that my wife, who rarely reads anything other than her Bible, read the book in one sitting on our flight to Los Angeles last week!) Anyway…Kathryn Lopez has her own take on the book and its relevance to our times: “If... Read more
That’s how Msgr. John E. Kozar, president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) —and, not insignificantly, my boss—describes the first stirrings of his own vocation in this comprehensive interview with Fr. Thomas Rosica of Salt + Light TV in Canada. Msgr. Kozar is featured in the picture above, top center, sharing a joyful moment with the Vincentian Fathers of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in southern India. For anyone curious about CNEWA—one of the best-kept secrets of the Catholic Church!—or... Read more
Details: A record 40% of households with children include “breadwinner moms,” according to a report out today. These moms are the sole or primary source of income for households with children younger than 18, a Pew Research Center analysis finds. Theanalysis looked at data from the U.S. Census Bureau. “The share of households with children where there is a mother who is the sole or primary breadwinner is up about fourfold from 1960, when it was only 11%,” says report co-author Kim Parker,... Read more
From the pope’s General Audience today: The whole history of salvation is the story of God seeking man, offer[ing] humanity His love, embracing mankind. He called Abraham to be the father of a multitude, chose the people of Israel to forge an alliance that embraces all nations, and sent, in the fullness of time, His Son, that His plan of love and salvation be realised in a new and everlasting covenant with humanity. When we read the Gospels, we see... Read more
From Vatican Radio: From the Cook Islands to Chile, Burkina Faso, Taiwan, Iraq, Bangladesh, the United States, and the Philippines, people will unite in prayer with Pope Francis this weekend before One Lord and in One faith, for an hour of Eucharistic Adoration. The Worldwide Eucharistic Adoration, will be broadcast from St. Peter’s Basilica next Sunday, 2 June from 5:00pm-6:00pm local time. Its theme is: “One Lord, One Faith”, which was chosen to testify to the deep unity that characterizes... Read more
From the canny mind of Fr. Robert Barron: Fitzgerald saw that, given the breakdown of traditional morality and the marginalization of God, many people in the postwar West simply surrendered themselves to wealth and pleasure. Commitment, marriage, sexual responsibility, and the cultivation of a spiritual life were seen as, at best, holdovers from the Victorian age, and at worst, the enemies of progress and pleasure. Gatsby’s parties were, we might say, the liturgies of the new religion of sensuality and... Read more
From this morning’s New York Times: Not long after the curtain rises on the second act of “The Trip to Bountiful,” the Broadway revival of the Horton Foote play at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, something unusual happens.Cicely Tyson, as Mrs. Carrie Watts, sits on a bus station bench in a small Texas town. She is on the run from her abusive daughter-in-law and henpecked son in Houston, desperate to see the family farm in Bountiful once more before she dies. Overcome with... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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