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The Deacon's Bench

Below the Mason-Dixon Line, they like to say that the South will rise again — and, sure enough, it’s happening. At least, when it comes to vocations. Atlanta — land of the free and home of the Braves, not to mention CNN and Rhett Butler — is busting with seminarians: Metro Atlanta’s Roman Catholic churches…

“I Know What I Did Was Wrong,” Says Priest Who Jogged Naked

They buried France’s beloved Cardinal Lustiger today, and Rocco has the scoop on the funeral. France’s president was there, and the former First Lady Bernadette Chirac, and Lech Walesa, among others. His piece concludes with this haunting quote, from the plaque that will be placed in Notre Dame — the late cardinal’s message to the…

A new study is out on the American Catholic Church — or, more specifically, Catholics who are American — and Andrew Greeley has donned his sociologist cap to ruminate on it in the current issue of America. The study is called “American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church,” and it was…

Some of us can remember the controversy that ensued when the Church removed St. Christopher from the calendar many years ago — more or less saying “We’re not sure if he existed, so we’re not calling him a saint anymore.” But old habits die hard. And some are now coming back. This item appeared in…

My brother deacon and classmate, Deacon Tony, has a great post up about one of the patrons of deacons, St. Lawrence. Check it out and then ponder the portrait below, one of my favorite images of this remarkable saint: The print is by graphic artist Lawrence Klimecki, who is himself a candidate for diaconate ordination…

If you want a glimpse at what the New Evangelization might mean, take a gander at this intriguing piece from a Catholic newspaper in Texas. The advice it contains seems both practical and prayerful — and sounds like plain old common sense: “There is not one single solution or magical solution available to bring people…

The funeral for Cardinal Lustiger tomorrow will reportedly be rife with symbolism and rich with meaning — as befits a man who survived the Holocaust and went on to become a leading figure in the Catholic Church: Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who sought to bring Jews and Catholics together in life, is continuing the mission in…

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was profiled the other night on — ahem — some TV network. He spoke movingly about his battle with cancer. But it turns out he also wrote about it a few weeks ago, in this excellent piece for Christianity Today: The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow…

Catholics don’t “do” church signs very much — it’s pretty much a Protestant phenomenon. But now someone has collected a few of the more memorable (and photogenic) ones in a book, The Great American Book of Church Signs. The good folks at Beliefnet have put up a gallery of the signs. They also describe the…
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