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The Deacon's Bench

Well, I married one — a lovely lass named Siobhain, whose great grandmother arrived at Ellis Island with little more than a handbag and a determined attitude. And yesterday, for my first baptism, I baptized one — another determined little lass named Margaret Flanagan. It was a wonderful moment for me (and, I hope, for…

Intriguing news clattered over the wire a short time ago: the prestigious Pontifical College Josephinum, the only Pontifical Seminary in North America, has announced the establishment of the Institute for the Formation and Ministry of the Permanent Diaconate at its historic campus in Columbus, Ohio. As the press release puts it: Rev. Christopher J. Schreck,…

Animal lovers everywhere have lost a special soul: the founding abbot of The Monks of New Skete, Father Laurence Mancuso has passed away, from complications of injuries suffered in a fall. He was 72. The fabled Monks of New Skete pioneered a sane and loving way of raising dogs, and their hilltop monastery in upstate…

One of my favorite archbishops, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, has been blogging for a while now. Friday, he took it upon himself to blog about his meeting with Pope Benedict, where he and several others were briefed on the motu proprio, which will permit more people to celebrate the Tridentine rite of the mass: The Holy…

Most Catholics probably know someone who has been through the agony of annullment. It’s not pretty. But it’s not supposed to be. Marriage is serious business — a sacrament — and ending one takes serious thought, effort and no small amount of interior reflection. And now a columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times has weighed in…

My wife was taught by Holy Cross Sisters down in Maryland, and we get a lot of e-mails from them. The e-mail we received yesterday struck me as both important — and savvy. Here’s part of it: The Holy Cross Sisters USA Province headquartered in Merrill, WI, recently took action at their Provincial Chapter to…

As we get ready to celebrate another 4th of July, another Independence Day, Peggy Noonan has offered us a reminder of what it means to be an American, and it involves a story about Brooklyn and a priest: I was at a wake for an old family friend named Anthony Coppola, a retired security guard…

As reported a couple of weeks back, Pope Benedict today made it official: next year will begin a special jubilee year in honor of St. Paul: The pope said the Pauline year will run from June 28, 2008, to June 29, 2009, to mark the approximately 2,000th anniversary of the saint’s birth. He made the…

We had a fierce storm in New York City last night that did a very good job of flooding some roads and knocking out some power in pockets around town. So it is with a little irony, and a lot of gratitude, that I stumbled on this post from David Kuo, which introduced me to…

I’ve spent most of my adult life working in television. It never ceases to amaze me what TV executives think people want to watch. And when I saw this story pop up, I was surprised all over again: there’s a new TV drama called “Vows,” created by Karen Hall, which actually treats the priesthood with…
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