Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

The Deacon's Bench

From the AP: VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Rev. Marcial Maciel, a Mexican priest who founded the Legionaries of Christ religious order and was disciplined by Pope Benedict XVI after sex abuse allegations, has died in the United States, his order said Thursday. He was 87. Maciel died Wednesday of natural causes, the conservative religious…

Wonder why more people don’t go to church? A new survey, reported in the National Catholic Reporter, from the Religion News Service, finds some answers: Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven’t darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is “full of hypocrites,” and even more of them consider Christianity…

I’ve been told it’s a lost cause, but American Papist has a few ideas. Check ’em out. And good luck. I know the Diocese of Brooklyn has been given a grand total of three (3) tickets per parish. My parish held a drawing to determine who would get them — and then selected a few…

Some rumors just won’t die. One of the most persistent ones floating around the blogosphere, and even in the mainstream press, is that a leading candidate for president is a Muslim. Details here from Busted Halo: Deb Geissler of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is working the phone bank for Barack Obama headquarters in her home state, when…

Looking for a room for the Super Bowl? No problem. Really. There is a little heavenly help available, according to this item in the New York Daily News: Nuns at a Phoenix monastery are renting out 10 of their rooms – at a rate far cheaper than local hotels – to fans descending on the…

While doing a little search for more memorable Super Bowl moments, or at least some cool ads, I stumbled upon the one below. I didn’t see it when it first aired in 2002. But it is a stunner. Audacious, and brilliant, and practically poetic. It will give you chills, goosebumps, and tears. The city’s a…

A reader in South Carolina sent this column along with a note: “This guy sounds like a great priest.” He sure does: There are people who stand by you. People who inspire you. People you imagine will always be there — because how could you live without their presence? My priest, Tim Lijewski, was one…

Here’s an idea whose time has come: improv comedy for Catholics! No joke. And just in time for Lent, too! From the Catholic Herald: Perhaps there is no parish fund-raiser Catholics appreciate more than the Friday fish fry. For something new, effective, and less fattening, parishes may want to try Fish Sticks – Fish Sticks…

Here’s a story that hasn’t been reported very much: Barack Obama’s mentor, who converted to Catholicism. Busted Halo has the scoop: In the early 1980s, when Jerry Kellman interviewed a young, idealistic Ivy League graduate for a $10,000 a year job with Chicago’s Developing Communities Project (DCP) he had no way of knowing it would…

That is exactly what the immigrant in this story is seeking — and for the time being, a Methodist church is willing to provide it: A Mexican woman says she is “picking up the torch” from another illegal resident who became a symbol for immigration reform when she took shelter in a Chicago church for…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners