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The Deacon's Bench

If it’s Tuesday, that means it’s primary day in an election season that is increasingly feeling like “Groundhog Day.” And Catholics, according to this report, are playing a huge role in one of the campaigns: White Roman Catholics have become a key base for Sen. Hillary Clinton in her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination…

A nice blogger friend sent this my way last week, and I finally got around to reading it. Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput on politics, priests, laity and a lot of other important things. It’s just superb: Catholic leadership in the secular world belongs to laypeople, not to clergy or religious. The visible role of the…

Years ago, I can remember the debate that raged over whether John Gotti should receive a Catholic funeral and burial. But now comes this story out of Iowa. See what you think: The Catholic Church’s decision to grant Steven Sueppel a funeral at St. Mary’s Church after he killed his wife and four children on…

A favorite joke: St. Peter is giving Jesus His monthly tour around heaven. Jesus notices there are some new faces who clearly don’t belong there. He’s understandably concerned. “Peter,” says Jesus, “I know who these people are, and some of them aren’t supposed to be Up Here. What’s going on?” Peter stops and sighs. “Well,…

A fellow deacon sent to me with five simple words: “A must for your blog.” He’s right. Watch this with a box of Kleenex handy. It’s incredible. And beautiful. And it will leave you utterly devastated.

Well, it took a while, but the Church — according to this report — has given her approval to an apparition in France: A Roman Catholic bishop said Sunday that the church has officially recognized that the Virgin Mary appeared to a teenage shepherd girl in the French Alps starting in the mid-1600s. The announcement…

A few weeks back, there was news of a book that was published – it may be one of the most talked about, written about, and wondered about books in the world. But hardly anyone has read it. There is only one copy. It is 40 pages long, bound in leather, written by hand. It…

We spend a lot of time praying for vocations, but here is a vocation that doesn’t get much attention — but should. Like all religious vocations, it entails commitment and sacrifice and formation. From Florida Catholic in Tallahassee: Seven new members of the Third Order Lay Carmelites of St. Thérèse of the Holy Face put…

The Archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, has now joined Cardinal Egan in discussing the controversy over communion during the pope’s visit. From the Catholic Standard: A decision regarding the refusal of Holy Communion to an individual is one that should be made only after clear efforts to persuade and convince the person that their actions…

This is pretty damn funny. I wasn’t wild about Lamott’s last book, Grace, Eventually, but her first spiritual memoir, Traveling Mercies is a wondrous and hopeful and often hilarious collection of essays about her search for salvation as a recovering alcoholic and single mom. She’s also the author of one of my favorite maxims: “The…
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