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The Deacon's Bench

This item crossed over the wire this afternoon: On last night’s “Tonight Show,” Jay Leno said the following: “Oh, and a Catholic priest in Connecticut has been charged with stealing $1.3 million in church money and using the money for male escorts. Of course, his parish is very upset about this–except the altar boys. They’re…

A couple weeks back, a parish in Manhattan drew a lot of attention — and criticism — for its involvement in New York’s annual “gay pride” parade. I posted an item on the controversy and it got some lively comment. On “Currents,” we decided to take a closer look at the parish and its outreach…

The simmering thread about church music got me to thinking about church architecture. (No, I’m not going to start another Top 10 list…but it’s tempting…) I remembered a conversation I had when I met Fr. George Rutler, at his magnificent church, Church of Our Savior. I commented about how beautiful the church was and he…

Yesterday, I linked to a First Things post about the “10 Worst Hymns.” A friend and longtime reader wrote to me this morning, disappointed: I think lists like this could be a turn off for some Catholics of my generation (30s). FWIW, it didn’t sit well with me. Like it or not, hokey as these…

He may be the most unusual priest in all of Mexico — but he speaks to his flock in a language they understand. His story, from the New York Times: Frederick Loos was cussing like a sailor the other night, which was surprising given that he is a Roman Catholic priest and his foul-mouthed discourse…

A wedding photographer, perhaps confused about which sacrament he’s attending, opts for full immersion.

Ross Douthat has some thoughts on that question: The Church has been horrifyingly corrupt in previous eras and still survived. It’s been led by ecclesiastics who make Bernard Law’s hands look clean, and still survived. It’s faced fiercer enemies than Richard Dawkins (think Nero, or Attila, or Voltaire) and still survived. Time after time, G.…

That crafty Elizabeth Scalia has drawn our attention to a list of “The Ten Worst Hymns”, which has some real doozies — some of which I’d all but forgotten. One particularly awful one — so bad, it’s good — is “Sons of God,” which seems to have disappeared from the popular canon. (God is merciful.)…

And now, from Austria, a little something that looks like a holiday barbecue which was, evidently, Holy Mass. (H/T) Can anyone translate?? 

Some days back, I posted the eye-popping speech — in Latin — delivered by a young woman from my parish, Mary Anne Marks (Harvard ’10). Now, I’ve learned that the Harvard Gazette did a short piece on her, and some of the other speakers, and explained how their speeches were chosen: Queens, N.Y., native Mary…
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