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The Deacon's Bench

This is a season for the ringing of bells — but for a group of Catholics in St. Petersburg, Florida, the peal will soon have a different appeal. They’ll be ringing bells for the pope: To most Catholics, having an audience with the pope would be a dream come true. For Michele DiLuzio, it will…

I’m struck every year by the timing of this feast, celebrating the Holy Family. It comes on the first Sunday following Christmas, and at a time when I think most of us – after the parties and cooking and visiting and obligations and expectations and disappointments — have started to have about as much “family”…

Evan Austin, 4 years old and a patient at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen, S.D., showed his excitement in learning that Santa Claus knew where to find him. Photo: from Associated Press

Like a lot of people of a certain age, I remember well the first time I heard this gospel proclaimed – and it wasn’t in church. It was in my parent’s den, in Rockville, Maryland, watching an 18-inch Philco black and white TV. The person proclaiming the gospel wasn’t a priest or deacon or minister.…

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this particular singer — so here’s an early Christmas gift, from Your Humble Deacon to you. Merry Christmas!

I suspect we’ll be hearing more and more about Tony Blair’s conversion, as more experts and friends and enemies weigh in. Today’s nugget: from Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent from the London Times, who spoke with one of the priests who shepherded Blair on the road to Rome: The Roman Catholic priest who was instrumental in…

People have been wondering about that star, the one that guided the magi, for 20 centuries, and now an astronomer at Notre Dame is giving it a shot: His quest: discovering just what “the star in the East” was that led wise men to travel to Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. As a theoretical astrophysicist, Grant…

Bulldozer, a 5-month-old male giraffe calf, is fed by Santa Claus at the San Francisco Zoo, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007 in San Francisco. Photo: by George Nikitin, San Francisco Zoo, via AP

Whenever I think I’ve seen everything, someone comes along to prove me wrong. Such is the case with this unbelievable display in Washington State: If you’ve stood in one line too many at the mall as you watched your bank account dwindle and your credit debt rise this holiday season, you might find a kindred…

I was wondering if anyone had posted this to YouTube, and sure enough, it’s there: one of the most unusual — and on re-viewing, charming — television duets from about 30 years ago. You can read the story behind it at this link. A more detailed report was published in The Washington Post just last…
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