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The Deacon's Bench

From Israel comes this touching tribute to France’s Cardinal Lustiger, who converted from Judaism as a teenager: One day Rabbi Rene-Samuel Sirat was invited to attend a lecture on the Holocaust, held in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne University in Paris. The speaker, a member of the Academie Francaise, moved the audience when he spoke…

Thanks to Diane at The Word: Catholic Colbert, for this little snip of Stephen Colbert chatting with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend the other night. They talk about faith, politics, the Our Father and, of course, love. (Speaking of love: Your Humble Blogger hopes to have some more Colbert news to report later today. Stay tuned…)

A pal sent this my way, and it’s too good not to share: a wonderful blog devoted to vocations, run by a fellow named Brad Watkins (seen on the left with an older priest who may be familiar to you…). According to his profile, Brad is married, with four young children, and in formation to…

Jim Wallis over at Beliefnet posted this haunting poem, from a Catholic poet named Mitsuyoshi Toge, who survived the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima: How could I ever forget that flash of light! In a moment, thirty thousand people ceased to be, The cries of fifty thousand killed At the bottom of…

Amy “Open Book” Welborn has launched a brand spanking new blog called, simply, “Amy Welborn”. If you want to know why, here’s part of her explanation: Because it takes a lot of time and energy that you just can’t see. There’s this cumulative expectation, built up over the years, that my blog had to be…

For nine days, leading up to the feast of St. John Vianney, August 4, my parish prayed a novena for vocations to the priesthood. Then, on August 4, at the 5 p.m. vigil mass, we had a special mass to conclude the novena. The celebrant was a newly ordained priest from our diocese, with six…

Pope Benedict used his Angelus address yesterday to remember one of his predecessors — a man who, arguably, redefined the Church for modern times, Pope Paul VI. He has been both revered (for Humanae Vitae) and reviled (for the Novus Ordo mass) but few can deny that he proved how much of an impact one…

If you haven’t heard of Tom Allen, chances are you have heard of his work. He’s the mastermind and editor-in-chief of the Catholic Exchange, a leading Catholic web portal, and something of a mini-mogul in the world of Catholic media. He’s also a New York native with a love of the Mets. A local paper…

One of my favorite people in the category of Not-Yet-Officially-A-Saint is Solanus Casey (others on my list would include Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and Charles de Foucauld). Fr. Casey was a simple Capuchin friar from Detroit and New York City who never received the full faculties of the priesthood, but was a powerful and prayerful…

Can the very tools you’re using right now help create vocations? Some are betting on it. More and more Catholic orders are using the internet and computers as recruiting tools, hoping that a mouse and a keyboard can help launch a soul or two into religious life: On the popular social networking site Facebook, Tracey…
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