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The Deacon's Bench

I can still remember the shock from 10 years ago: just days after the death of another world icon, Princess Diana, the world lost a living saint. Mother Teresa, of course, is back in the news again, with the publication of her letters, “Come Be My Light,” and uncounted souls around the world are commemorating…

“Hey,” I said to the couple sitting across from me in the rectory office, “you guys live in the building next to mine.” They had arrived a few minutes earlier to schedule their newborn’s baptism, and I was going over their paperwork. “Really?,” the husband said. “Well, would you be able to bless our apartment?”…

I love coffee. I consider it to be my one vice (or, at least, the one I’ll admit to.) So it was with fascination and a little awe that I read this item about a coffee shop owner who is becoming a consecrated virgin: A 41-year-old coffee shop owner in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has decided to…

“Can’t you guys get anything right?” I hear that a lot from people who are unhappy with the way we in the mainstream media cover the Church. And it’s not just Catholicism the press gets wrong. It’s almost all religions and all denominations (though, admittedly, the Catholic Church has a longer and more colorful history…

Lately, it seems the Mother of God is making more public appearances, in more unexpected places, than Angelina Jolie. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at this item in a paper from Reading, Pennsylvania: They came — to an alley behind the nondenominational Church of Broken Pieces — armed with faith and hoping to…

What’s it like to be married to a member of the Catholic clergy? My wife, seen with Your Humble Blogger on the left (in the recessional at my Mass of Thanksgiving, after being a deacon’s wife for less than 24 hours) is suspiciously silent on the subject when asked. “Challenging,” is about the best she…

Last month, I posted the story of a Catholic school teacher who lost his job because he remarried without an annullment. That wasn’t the end of the story. According to the Des Moines Register, he’s fighting back: Tom and Molly Girsch had less than a week of wedded bliss before their lives were thrown into…

From California — where trends like to begin — comes word of a new website devoted to Catholic business professionals: the Catholic Business Journal. According to the California Daily Catholic: CBJ’s inaugural press release announced its ambitious August public launch, hoping within a few months to “consistently reach” more than three million Catholics business people…

We’ve heard of student exchange programs, for high school and college students. Now comes word of a priest exchange program, being tried in Kentucky, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader: Record hot temperatures in recent weeks haven’t phased the Rev. Shijo Vadakkumkara. The 28-year-old priest said he’s used to the humid and sultry weather with only…
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