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The Deacon's Bench

Last summer, I posted this item about a remarkable order of African American nuns in Harlem. Late today, some sad news about one of their members: An elderly nun was killed after a minivan fleeing the police struck a Honda at an intersection in Harlem, sending the minivan over a curb and into three pedestrians…

Incredibly, a grade-schooler in Indiana can name every one of them, in six minutes. From Today’s Catholic News: Eleven-year-old John Paul Fitzmaurice has completed a project so difficult that few lay men and women even attempt it. The Granger boy has committed the names of all 265 popes to memory. From St. Peter to Benedict…

Some advice to all those young priests being ordained this year: save your stipends. From the AP: Clergy seem an unlikely group to be facing a retirement security crisis. They generally are looked up to by their parishioners as wise and frugal. Their pay, although modest, is enough to get by on. And they typically…

I asked, you answered. A sharp-eyed reader responded to my bleg for a snapshot of the Archdiocese of New York’s new deacons. Here it is, below. “Not the best picture,” my e-mailer confessed, “but it shows everyone.”  Thank you!

You never can be sure what God has up His sleeve. Consider, for example, the remarkable stories of the two men who were recently ordained priests for Salt Lake City. The saga of Fr. Tai Nguyen really is something: Nguyen, 44, was reared in a devout Vietnamese family. His grandparents were killed by the Viet…

From the Times this morning comes this touching profile of a priest who did so much — and still has more to do: On a recent overcast morning, the Rev. John C. Flynn, an 80-year-old Roman Catholic priest with bright blue eyes and thick white hair, stepped out of his Bronx rectory and into the…

That’s the question that Fr. Kevin O’Rourke, a bioethicist and canon lawyer, attempts to discern in this article from America magazine. It is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive and detailed overview of the facts surrounding the controversial abortion performed last year at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix. Those who have been following the case…

Not long ago, I blogged about the “invisible mouse” being developed for laptop computers. Well, here’s another gee-whiz moment for techno-geeks: technology that could change typing — and remove the tapping in typing — forever: Back in the 1990s, typing out “hello” on most cellphones required an exhausting 13 taps on the number keys, like…

A lot of people have asked me “So what did you think of ‘Toy Story 3’? Was it really that good?” Yes, it really was.  Really.    But two things stand out. (Warning, spoilers ahead!) The first struck me because I saw the movie on its opening weekend, on the day before Father’s Day, so…

There are no atheists in foxholes — or in Louisiana politics, especially during a crisis of historic proportions. From CNN: While cleanup crews and technical teams continue efforts to stop crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana lawmakers are proposing a different approach: prayer. State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to…
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