MADISON — “Planted and Built Up in Jesus Christ, Firm in the Faith.” With these words of the venerable Apostle St. Paul, the Holy Father once again is inviting young people from all over the world to join him in the international celebration of World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid, Spain, August 16 to 21, 2011. WYD is a celebration of the youthfulness and future hopes of the Church.
Day: December 2, 2010
Pilgrims at the consistory
ROME, Italy — At first the thought of standing in line for baggage, hotel rooms, metal detectors, tickets, admissions, etc. in my orthotic-assisted shoes was a bit daunting.
Prayers to God for the unborn
MADISON — Bishop Robert C. Morlino presided over a vigil for the unborn November 27 at St. Patrick Church in Madison, leading people from around the diocese in prayer in communion with Pope Benedict XVI and faithful around the world.
Bishop Wirz said the ‘romance of the priesthood’ never left him
Bishop George O. Wirz was in love — with the priesthood. When he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a priest in 1977, he told his parishioners at St. Bernard Parish in Madison, where he was the pastor, “The romance of the priesthood has never left me. I’m still in love.”
If I had asked him that question before he died, I’m sure he would have said the same thing. In fact, I did talk with him the week before he died. Since 2010 marked his 50th anniversary of being named a Monsignor and the 45th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, we discussed setting up an interview to talk about those occasions.
In his usual humble way, Bishop Wirz said we should wait until after the holidays, when things slowed down. Although we weren’t able to meet for that interview, I know from previous conversations what he might have said.
Why convert?
Q:Why are parishes required to eventually convert to ParishSOFT and QuickBooks? We like our current program.
A: Parishes are currently using dozens of different software programs. Each program has different fields and different reports and it’s like we’re speaking different languages between us. It’s very important for all the parishes in the diocese to be using the same programs so the data is predictable and consistent. For instance, coding a parishioner as Active in one parish does not mean the same thing to another but our goal is that in the future, it will. We need to speak the same language with the data and terms so we both can use it to communicate with parishioners.