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The Deacon's Bench

Over the last few weeks in Matthew’s gospel we’ve been hearing the Kingdom of God unfold in a series of parables. The images presented are striking. A mustard seed. Yeast. A treasure. A pearl. These were all things that the people of Jesus’ time would know and recognize. They’re familiar. But to help understand what…

Just when you thought the world couldn’t sink any lower…it did. Someone took Barack Obama’s prayer out of the Western Wall, and published it. A private communication, between a man and The Almighty, is now public. And a few of Obama’s critics are sniping at the contents. (The Anchoress, who is beside herself with shock…

Word is trickling out from Rome that the first phase of new English translations of the mass have been approved. It will likely be another 2-4 years before we start hearing them in church. But the article below from CNS gives a preview of things to come: The Vatican has given its approval to a…

This gifted man — who was himself a gift — is gone. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, has died of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pausch, 47, who turned the lecture into a book, said that no one would have been interested in his…

I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it: clapping during mass. I know one or two priests who encourage it (to express appreciation for the choir or to pay tribute to an usher turning 80) but sometimes it just happens, even at the most reverent of liturgies. Now a clapper is ‘fessing up,…

When was the last time you saw a church — Catholic or otherwise — packed with more men than women? USA TODAY takes note of a curious phenomenon, and what some churches are doing to change it: Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely…

A writer at the New York Times wonders if the prejudice that stalked Al Smith and John Kennedy is dead. He uses as his starting point a panel discussion on the topic held the other day at the Museum of the City of New York. From the paper’s City Room column: When Gov. Alfred E.…

That could be the case if John McCain ends up selecting Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate, as recent media rumblings suggest. His official biography makes no mention of his religion. But Wikipedia has this posting: With Polish and German heritage, he was raised a Roman Catholic. His present conversion to the Protestant…

The pictures are disturbing, and so is the story surrounding them, from Italy: Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on…

This news might raise an eyebrow or two: arguably the greatest rock band in the world was, in fact, Christian to the core. Here’s the story, from CNS, via the National Catholic Reporter: British radio has broadcast an interview with John Lennon in which the late singer-composer claimed the Beatles were a Christian band that…
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