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The Deacon's Bench

Looking for a special way to remember the pope’s big trip to the United Kingdom this week? How about this little item: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Benedictaphone: a key ring/recording device to let you record the pontiff’s every word. (Or, if you’re not within earshot of His Holiness, you can use it to keep…

“Both Elizabeth and Benedict have seen war and its woeful aftermath, up close. They have watched totalitarian regimes advance and decline, and seen religion used as a justification for slaughter. They know what the rhetorical jackboot sounds like and how seamlessly it can advance; they can speak to our time, if we let them. Over…

The esteemed Fr. Robert Barron is about to stake his claim on that title, doing what no priest has done since Sheen: he’ll launch his own national TV show on a commercial network. From the press release: In a bold move to reach Catholics and those searching for Christ in their lives, Father Robert Barron…

Over at the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, Anthony Stevens-Arroyo has this take on two branches of Catholicism: I avoid writing about “liberal” and “conservative” Catholics. These terms are too easily politicized as Democrats v. Republicans. Moreover, the meanings of these terms have varied so much in the course of history that yesterday’s liberals are…

“The creative possibilities for diaconal ministry are opened for the Church when we move away from restrictive notions of the deacon as being primarily defined by service as the minister of charity or social justice. Deacons are primarily those who proclaim the Gospel, in the name of their bishop, to the assembled community and those…

The Beeb has a charming profile of one Catholic family eagerly awaiting the pope’s visit this week — all of them, converts: “It will be just like going to Wembley to watch Bristol City play, with the flags flying, but better.” That’s how Mike Smith, from Frome has described what it will be like going…

That’s the question posed to Fr. Z., who offers this response: I think the pastor does have a certain measure of control over what you preach. He is the pastor, even if he is an heterodox jackass. The pastor, parish priest, parochus, is responsible for preaching in the parish. For example, the pastor can determine…

From Pennsylvania comes this story of a group of nuns who have made a thriving ministry from the good earth: Standing in a field of cherry-red maize and ripening pumpkins, John Moreira spotted a large insect flying amid the cornstalks. “See the praying mantis?” said Mr. Moreira, director of land management at Villa Maria, the…

Statistics like that are mind-blowing: my busy parish in Queens averages a little over 100 baptisms a year. Details: Extended families greet one another with hearty handshakes and pecks on the cheek as they file in to Incarnation church in Minneapolis on a recent Saturday morning. Professional photographers and video­graphers scope out ideal vantage points…

Clint Eastwood continues to amaze — at the tender age of 80. Here’s the first trailer from his new movie, “Hereafter,” which takes a B-movie premise and seemingly turns it into something approaching art. We’ll have to see how it turns out, but I can’t help but think that a man of Eastwood’s age and…
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