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The Deacon's Bench

Incredibly, it was one year ago tonight that we launched the world’s first — and so far, only — 30-minute daily Catholic news show. Today marks the one-year anniversary of “Currents,” the nightly news magazine on the NET, the cable channel of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Congratulations to my hard-working staff — along with prayers…

A little news that broke over the weekend: The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of…

When was the last time your kids saw you pray? This columnist suggests it doesn’t happen often enough: Years ago, well before I had children of my own, I was giving a talk to the parents’ Sunday school class at a church in downtown Memphis. The topic was how to keep teens involved in church.…

The beautifully rendered conclusion of “Saving Private Ryan.” We remember. With gratitude and sorrow and love.

It happened in Buffalo: Donald Weigel left his job six years ago as a corporate executive at a Fortune 500 company to pursue a different calling, to become a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church. He returned to Western New York from Richmond, Va., and over the course of five years, he taught and worked…

That’s just one of the cringe-inducing questions that potential seminarians now have to answer, as part of the vetting process. And the New York Times takes a look at what that process entails in 2010: Every job interview has its awkward moments, but in recent years, the standard interview for men seeking a life in…

How is the District of Columbia spending its taxpayers’ money? On better, bigger condoms: High school students and college-age adults have been complaining to District officials that the free condoms the city has been offering are not of good enough quality and are too small and that getting them from school nurses is “just like…

“Recently, a good friend told me about one of the local unknown saints here, Maria Luisa de la Peña, a refugee from Mexico who founded the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles. Venerable Mother Luisita would tell everyone: “For greater things you were born!” That’s it, my friends! That’s the good…

It happened in Albany, and made some history. From the Albany Times-Union: Four area men had the distinction Saturday of being ordained deacons of the Catholic Church in the first celebration held in the newly restored Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The colorful Ordination to the Diaconate was celebrated by Bishop Howard Hubbard of the…

Strong words today from a Vatican prosecutor: The Vatican prosecutor of clerical sex abuse warned perpetrators on Saturday that they would suffer damnation in hell that would be worse than the death penalty. The Rev. Charles Scicluna, a Maltese priest who is a top official at the Vatican’s morality office, led a special “make amends”…
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