Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

The Deacon's Bench

The popular public affairs show on The NET, “In the Arena” is back on the air, returning for a second season. And once again the star attractions (from the WWF, it seems) are Elizabeth “The Anchoress” Scalia and Grant “Commonweal” Gallicho. The ringmaster is Jane “Stay Classy” Hanson (formerly of WNBC TV here in New…

In a world known for divas and egos, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony is something altogether different: a committed Catholic who considers his talent a gift. From the New York Times: Many works in the classical music canon were written for the greater glory of God, but performers these days generally reflect little…

Those immortal words were uttered earlier this evening by one Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, and the man who can claim to occupy arguably the second biggest pulpit in the world (the first, of course, being Benedict’s, wherever he might be at any given moment). Dolan held forth at a Theology on Tap in…

Somehow, I missed this eye-popping piece of news when it broke late last week — but it deserves some space here. It tells of a life deeply rooted in faith, tradition and family: When Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and…

What is it like to be a Catholic chaplain in Afghanistan, serving at the front lines? This gives a vivid picture: The U.S. Army brigade’s Catholic priest spits, smokes, cracks jokes and has come under fire like so many other American soldiers. He keeps altar bread in an empty grenade canister. On Sunday, he donned…

Evidently, that idea was floated during the recent meeting between the Irish bishops and the pope. From the BBC: Two of the Vatican’s most senior officials have raised the issue of reducing the number of dioceses in Ireland. The Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Noel Treanor, told BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence it came…

With the Olympics now underway, I finally caught up with this remarkable story of one of the Canadians who carried the torch earlier this month: The Olympic spark has been ignited within the soul of Vancouver seminarian Noel Oco, one of those carrying the Olympic torch through Vancouver prior to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.…

In Iowa last week, Ash Wednesday became an occasion for trying penitence — and for trying a judge’s patience: The age-old question of separation of church and state played itself out in a Marshall County courtroom Wednesday. After a lunch recess while prosecuting a trial for attempted murder, Assistant County Attorney Paul Crawford returned from…

This is news to me — and, I expect, to a lot of journos. I hadn’t realized that no journalist has ever been named a saint, or even been beatified.   Take a look: Manuel Lozano Garrido, a Spanish journalist of the 20th century, is expected to become the first journalist to be beatified by the…

Continuing a quiet trend in this country, another diocese is about to get its first married Catholic priest: Prentice Dean will be ordained as a Catholic priest on Monday — while his wife watches. The former Episcopal priest and father of two will become the first married priest in the Nashville diocese. He resigned from…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners