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The Deacon's Bench

Just in time for the holidays, atheists and humanists are out to spread their message of non-belief: Four separate and competing national organizations representing various streams of atheists, humanists and freethinkers will soon be spreading their gospel through advertisements on billboards, buses and trains, and in newspapers and magazines. The latest, announced on Tuesday in…

God of peace, we pray for those who have served our nation and have laid down their lives to protect and defend our freedom. We pray for those who have fought, whose spirits and bodies are scarred by war, whose nights are haunted by memories too painful for the light of day. We pray for…

And the ordinations keep on comin’. These happened last weekend: Thomas Dewhirst recommitted himself to his Catholic faith in 1998, after years outside the church. About a year later, he felt God was calling him to become a deacon. He initially rejected the idea. “I thought, ‘No, not me,’ ” Dewhirst recalled. “‘I didn’t go…

“Shocker” is how Rocco tweeted it, and that about sums it up: Nearly a year after Fulton Sheen was celebrated anew across the globe on the 30th anniversary of his death, the iconic prelate’s boyhood diocese has suddenly pulled out of leading the charge for his beatification. In a release posted to its website late…

Who can forget the haunting ballad by Gordon Lightfoot?  The Edmund Fitzgerald went down on November 10, 1975.   Years later, the tragedy formed part of the first homily I ever delivered in homiletics class (and which I preached again later after I was ordained.)   God bless those men, and their families.  Eternal rest…

That would be the back of the priest, actually. Fr. Richard Simon writes of his experience recently saying mass “ad orientem,” facing away from the congregation for a small portion of of the liturgy. The reaction from the people in the pews wasn’t entirely warm: Some people loved it, most didn’t like it, some were…

Details, from the British paper the Telegraph: A Christian woman has been sentenced to hang in Pakistan after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed. Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother-of-five, denies blasphemy and told investigators that she was being persecuted for her faith in a country where Christians face routine harassment and discrimination. Christian groups…

This ad for American Express is clever, artful, lavish — and hilarious. I can’t believe he did this. 

How is this for a testament of faith? From UPI: A California priest accused of sex crimes against a 12-year-old boy has been freed on bail with money raised by parishioners who say they believe he’s innocent. The Rev. Alejandro Jose Castillo, 57, was arrested Oct. 25 and charged with seven counts of lewd and…

That’s the eyebrow-raising comment made by a Melkite Archbishop, interviewed recently by Catholic News Service: Heading a southern Lebanese diocese that goes from the sea then east two-thirds of the way along the border with Israel, the one problem Melkite Archbishop George Bakhouni of Tyre says he doesn’t have is finding priests. In fact, the…
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