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The Deacon's Bench

Anyone wondering how the Church is using new media to reach the masses might just want to download this unusual selection to their iPod: the rosary, set to contemporary music. From the AP, via a newspaper in Salt Lake City: Madonna is on Jennifer Zablocki’s iPod. So is ”The Madonna.” The Detroit-area 12th-grade teacher works…

Hard to believe, but it’s been five years since Sean O’Malley became the Archbishop of Boston, replacing the notorious Bernard Law, who had left in disgrace several months earlier. I’ll be up front about this: I’m an O’Malley fan. (It’s hard not to like a man with a red hat who wears a brown robe.…

With so much attention over the last few days being directed at the anniversary of Humanae Vitae a certain amount of attention should also go to the woman pictured on the left. She is Mrs. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. I discovered the other day a rare television interview with her — and…

When I was growing up, my mother was a food service director and dietician at a big hospital outside Washington DC. I remember that one of the cookbooks she had was called “Food for 50” – it contained all these recipes for things like lasagna and tuna casseroles, with massive amounts of ingredients, for feeding…

As many of you may have heard, there was a Blogger/Google glitch — a “brain fart,” someone called it — which shut down my little blog (and, it seems, hundreds of others) for a couple days. It now appears to be back. Whoo-hoo! (However, there appears to be something freaky going on with Internet Explorer;…

Remember Joe Eszterhas? In the 1980s, he gained considerable notoriety for penning Hollywood pulp that included “Flashdance,” “Betrayed,” “Sliver,” “Basic Instinct,” and “Showgirls” (which won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay.) He battled throat cancer a few years back — and it seems to have transformed him. This comes from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:…

Yep. Hard to believe, but true. At a time when Catholic schools are closing, are raising tuition to levels many parents can’t afford, one school in Pennsylvania is bucking the trend. It’s free. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: When the Rev. John Haney came to St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin in 1983, the church elementary…

Looking for Mr. (or Ms. or Miss) Right? Take a number and get in line. A lot of Catholics are looking, literally and figuratively, for their soul mate. Which makes this charming essay by John Zmirak all the more poignant and sweet: It’s no news to paleos that the Net empowers eccentrics of every sort,…

I got an e-mail the other day from a reader in Minnesota who took issue with this blog post, quoting Curt Jester (Jeff Miller) who said (among other things): “How comes the ‘women’s ordination movement’ doesn’t have any seminaries? They just ordain women without any real preparation.” The reader wanted to set the record straight.…

He’s been mentioned on the short list of John McCain’s possible running mates. And now Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is getting closer scrutiny from the media. The Wall Street Journal recently looked at his remarkable faith journey: In 1988, 16-year-old Piyush Jindal totaled his father’s new car a few weeks before graduating from Baton Rouge…
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