Interesting stories in this week's Long Island Catholic:

Diocese enjoys surge in priestly vocations

"Last Friday 11 men preparing for the priesthood for the Brooklyn and Rockville Centre Dioceses were ordained as deacons at Immaculate Conception Seminary here.

“This was the most that either diocese has had in years,” noted Father Thomas Coogan, vocation director for the Rockville Centre Diocese."

Although vocations still have a long way to go, this is an encouraging sign. There are about 40 seminarians today as opposed to 17 in 2002. Those who are aware of the changes made in this Diocese over the past few years would not be surprised that vocations are up.

3,000 Kellenberg and St. Martin de Porres students went to see The Nativity Story movie for Advent.

Kellenberg is the school that sent most students to see The Passion of the Christ movie also. I just received mail today from St. Martin de Porres that indicated that when the Marianists took over the school in 2004, the enrollment was at 120, and today there are 419 students there. So, the Diocese continues to see some good signs.

The former Newsday Publisher was sentenced to 15 months in jail for child porn. One of the people who wrote to the judge asking for lenient sentencing was the head of the editorial board, James Klurfield. Those who know about Newsday's anti-Catholic history will be somewhat bemused by all of this. In fairness, I should point out that despite its anti-Catholic history the paper did do a good job reporting on the sex scandals involving Catholic priests over the years.

In a related note, the Bishop of Arlington, VA wrote a pastoral letter warning about pornography.

I want to point readers to two local blog posts:

Eternity Road's Sunday Ruminations

Be Not Afraid on The Black Madonna