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The Deacon's Bench

The above rendering will evidently recreate the areas Muslims used for prayer in the World Trade Center. Details: In an interview with Art Threat, Las Vegas-based artist Paul-Felix Montez wants to create a downtown exhibit that addresses the experience of ‘finding one’s place…in American society,’ especially common among immigrants. ‘ The Prayer Room’ exhibit, inspired…

The once-and-future late night star Conan O’Brien is getting set to launch his new series on TBS — and he’s asking viewers to pick his first guest. There’s an online poll — and the first choice is Pope Benedict. Vote here — early and often.  Meantime, he’s announced his other guests for the first week. 

The award-winning star of “Amadeus” is scheduled to play the celebrated “blessed,” according to news reports: The first film about Blessed John Henry Newman is in the works. Italian director and screenwriter Liana Marabini, who specialises in directing films about the Church, will begin to shoot The Unseen World, a biopic about Newman, in the…

Someone has an idea, and we’ll start to see it unfold this Christmas season: Throughout Advent, Twitter users will be able to follow “Natwivity” and witness different figures from the world’s most famous story bash out 140-character updates each day. The characters will include Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, the three wise and King Herod. The…

This week’s Commonweal contains a must-read: Peter Steinfels’ long, hard, grieving look at the state of the American Catholic Church. It begins with this observation: It is not often that someone at a New York dinner party calls for a count of religious affiliations, and I cannot recall exactly what led to it. But one…

And, as he did last year, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York lets them have it: I know, I should drop it. “You just have to get used to it,” so many of you have counselled me. “It’s been that way forever, and it’s so ingrained they don’t even know they’re doing it. So, let…

There are some pretty compelling conclusions here — and I’m sure there will be a lot of debate about what it all means. Details: Public outcry about the sex-abuse crisis, disdain for arrogant bishops and disagreement with church doctrine about birth control and abortion rights have not eroded the faith of Roman Catholics in Chicago,…

“If anyone ever compliments me and says, ‘Gee, that was a good homily,’ I learned a long time ago never to ask them why because I get so depressed. I worked so hard on this and I expect them to say, ‘Gee, that was a good insight, a good story…’ but they all say the…

If anyone has forgotten, there are some broad guidelines that I posted several months back about blog comments. Please read them and follow them. The vitriol and lack of charity lately has become — to use a word — insidious. I don’t want to start censoring comments, or deleting them. But if I have to,…

This is pretty funny — and, I think, not too far off the mark. H/T to Marcel at Aggie Catholics.
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