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The Deacon's Bench

A California paper visits one of the leading manufacturers of church vestments to find out: It sounds like a New Yorker cartoon the way Mannix Delfino describes a recent Saturday afternoon in her Carson shop. “It was so cute, the entire room was filled with young priests, all of them about to be ordained, all…

From Salon comes this wrenching story of a young woman struggling to save her brother from his own madness: Like any New Yorker, I was no stranger to homeless people. I passed by them on my way to the shiny glass tower where I worked for a glossy women’s magazine: the older lady perched atop…

Maybe, according to local news reports: Parts of St. John the Baptist’s relics might have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea town of Sozopol, report Bulgarian media. Archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol have found an exquisite reliquary – a relic urn – built in the altar…

That’s the question that is lurking in the back of Cathleen Falsani’s mind. She’s been asked to officiate at the wedding of two friends, and is mulling what to say. From the Huffington Post: In the Book of Common Prayer’s traditional marriage vows, which Susan and Todd have chosen to exchange this weekend, I will…

Interfaith dialogue in action.  These people need prayers. This is the sort of nonsense that gives Christianity a bad name.  Comments are now closed on this thread.

A lecturer at Oxford University’s Center for Jewish Studies claims colleagues discriminated against her after she converted to Christianity. From the Telegraph: Dr Tali Argov says she was overlooked for promotion, stripped of her privileges and cold-shouldered at social gatherings. She says staff wanted to vet her lectures to make sure that, as a Christian,…

During my recent visit to Cincinnati, I spent a pleasant hour sipping coffee at “The Catholic Cafe,” the radio show hosted by Deacon Jeff Drzycimski. The program we taped is now online for those who’d like to hear Your Humble Blogger babbling about blogging, TV, ministry and other weird media-related stuff.  Check it out here. …

Shocking news out of Eastern Europe: The parents decided to baptize the child on July 22. The priest of the local church, who is also the chief of all priests of the district, was not going to be there, so he asked priest Valentine Tsaralunge from the village of Taul to perform the ceremony. “We…

In Britain, it’s a crisis that could lead to extinction, according to the BBC: The future of four Catholic orders in Cambridge is in doubt, because no new nuns have joined since the 1980s. Sister Gemma Simmonds is a lecturer and from the Congregation of Jesus, which set up, but no longer runs, the Cambridge…

From the Brooklyn Desk… The Bench has just gotten word that Friday is National Cheesecake Day. The good people at Junior’s — a Brooklyn institution, if ever there was one — are offering a free slice of their iconic desert all day, in honor of the restaurant’s 60th anniversary. Go. Eat. Enjoy. Want seconds?
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