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The Deacon's Bench

You might think so, based on some reports. But the rector of the cathedral in Sacramento explains: First of all, the “Qu’ran blessed at California cathedral” was misconstrued and of course the event was not in the Cathedral building but merely on the steps allowing visibility from the square. The term “blessed” has distinct meaning…

Historian and theologian Fr. Mark Massa, S.J. has just written a new book called “The American Catholic Revolution: How the ’60s Changed the Church Forever,” and he gave an interview about it to the Religion News Service: Q: Why should American Catholics care what happened in the 1960s? A: Starting with Vatican II, Catholics became…

I’m grateful to see that Danielle Bean is paying attention — and the rest of us should, too. Teresa Lewis is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night — and would become the first woman to be executed in the United States in five years. As news reports note: Teresa Lewis, a 41-year-old grandmother……

This moving video was created for a confirmation class, and comes to us from Frank Weathers, one of the contributors to the terrific blog “Why I Am Catholic.” So: why am I Catholic? Cue the music, crank up the speakers, and enjoy.

Here’s something inspiring for you. A priest visiting friends in a far-removed Nigerian village last year found himself unexpectedly celebrating Mass in a Muslim home. He writes: Within a short time of my arrival, news went around the community that a priest was visiting, and people started coming around to visit with me. Some of…

Grim numbers from Ohio point to a larger trend in the American Church: Almost two out of three Catholics in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky won’t go to church this weekend to celebrate Mass, an event they have been told since childhood is the center of their spiritual lives. The church’s most recent count of…

Two Belgian bishops are openly questioning whether celibacy should be mandatory for priests: The bishop of Hasselt, Patrick Hoogmartens, and his counterpart in Bruges, Jozef De Kesel, said in separate comments that married men should not automatically be excluded from priesthood. The comments come amid the scandal over sex abuse among the clergy which has…

Read all about it. Everybody needs an editor.  And spellcheck.  

That seems to be the title Christine O’Donnell is going for (with a h/t to Seinfeld, of course).  Elizabeth Scalia takes note, and reminds us of what is taught in the catechism: Perpetual adolescents will demand that the masturbation quotes dog her campaign (and O’Donnell should prepare to hear boisterous strains of “Every Sperm is…

One of the biggest surprises of Pope Benedict’s historic trip to the United Kingdom may be how few people realize that it was, in fact, historic. Sunday night, I was chatting by phone with my father-in-law in Maryland. I told him I’d been busy with the papal coverage all weekend. “Didn’t seem like much happened,”…
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