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

The Deacon's Bench

With Epiphany Sunday upon us, we’ll all be following The Star — but a few people are already following other stars, some bold-letter ones who are slipping in and out of church in a bid to rehabilitate their image: Forget Le Deux, Bungalow 8 and Pure. The hottest place for starlets to go after a…

Surfing around, I found this wonderful little video that speaks beautifully to the idea of service. Each of us has something to give. What is yours?

Tony Blair’s recent conversion has sparked a fair amount of comment, not all of it positive. But the Times of London has just posted this compelling response, from author Msgr. Roderick Strange, who places it in a very interesting historical context: In his final days as Prime Minister, Tony Blair went to Rome and visited…

Once again, the subject of a married priesthood has come up — and once again, someone is saying it’s not in the cards: Ordaining married men is not a guaranteed way to solve a vocations crisis, and it will not automatically improve the quality of priests, said Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Kiev-Halych, head of the…

In a world hungry for hope, here is something to lift the heart: the story of a New York City window washer who fell hundreds of feet from a skyscraper and, in what may be the very definition of “miracle”, survived: Alcides Moreno plunged 47 stories that morning last month, clinging to his 3-foot-wide window…

Did anyone else notice Mike Huckabee’s unusual quote last night in his Iowa victory speech? A Baptist minister running for president quoted a British convert to Catholicism, G.K. Chesterton: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” Which made me wonder:…

And you will be, after you see and hear this amazing rendition of “Ave Maria,” by Bobby Ferrin. Hat tip to New Advent for linking to it, and to Alive and Young for first posting it. It’s just wonderful. Enjoy.

Here’s some remarkable coverage of a story that we don’t hear often enough: a priest accused of sex abuse has been cleared: Christmas came two days early this week for parishioners of Our Lady of the Rosary Church when their beloved priest, Father Al Gondek, was allowed to return to the parish cleared of allegations…

With an eye toward today’s caucusing in Iowa, and an ear on the heightened religious rhetoric of the campaign, Andrew Greeley is offering a few thoughts — not all of them warm: I’m a Catholic. You got a problem with that? I’m a Christian too. You other guys got a problem with that? My crowd…

You rarely read about so much attention being paid to high school architecture, which makes this story out of South Carolina so surprising — and hopeful: Tom Loosbrock, a former architect who serves on the planning committee for a proposed Catholic high school to be built in Jasper County, wants to make sure the school’s…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners