Year: 2013

On
Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Navigate your faith: The Catholic press is more important than ever in today’s stormy culture

Editor's View by Mary C. Uhler

Let’s face it. People obtain their news from many different sources these days. How do you know who to trust in this profusion of newspapers, Web sites, blogs, television and radio programs?

There are also many sources of religious news today, some of them purporting to be Catholic. Yet I’ve found that some of these so-called “Catholic” news outlets and blogs do not always report the full truth of the Catholic faith.

We must be careful that we are getting clear Catholic teaching as handed down by the magisterium or teaching authority of the Church through our popes and bishops and as articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents.

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On
Fr. Donald Lange

Fr. Samuel Mazzuchelli: an inspiration in the Year of Faith

Carlo Gaetano Samuele Mazzuchelli was born on November 4, 1806 in Milan, Italy. He died in 1864 as pastor of St. Patrick’s, Benton. Years later, as pastor of St. Patrick’s, I walked the parish grounds, presided at Mass, and visited his rectory and grave. My knowledge and admiration of him deepened. He certainly is an inspiration in this Year of Faith.

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On
Patrick Gorman, For the Catholic Herald

Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion

MADISON — The Rite of Election of Catechumens and Call to Continuing Conversion for Candidates for Full Communion in the Catholic Church will be celebrated by the parishes of the Diocese of Madison on Sunday, Feb. 17, at 3 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Church in Waunakee.

Parishes from throughout the diocese will send those who will celebrate the sacraments of initiation this Easter, as well as their sponsors, family, and friends. About 800 people are expected to attend, with Bishop Robert C. Morlino presiding.

 

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Fr. Rick Heilman, For the Catholic Herald

Church Militant Boot Camp

What are your plans for Lent this year? Here we are in the Year of Faith, a year that Pope Benedict XVI hopes will awaken humanity at a critical moment.

“In vast areas of the earth the faith risks being extinguished, like a flame without fuel,” the pope warned. “We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of a religious sense which represents one of the greatest challenges for the Church today . . . The renewal of faith must, then, be a priority for the entire Church in our time.”

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On
Tony Magliano

King’s advice to the president

Making a Difference column logo

What advice would America’s most renowned black man offer to America’s first black president? If he were alive today, what wisdom would the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., offer to President Barack Obama?

This question takes on added significance considering that this year the federal holiday honoring King, and Obama’s second public inauguration, fell on the same day — January 21.

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On
John R. Smith

America’s problems occur when Constitution ignored

To the editor:

In response to last week’s disturbing column by Stephen Kent and the need to change the Second Amendment, it should be pointed out that all of America’s problems — slavery, the relocation of Native Americans, prohibition, concentration camps for Japanese-Americans, undeclared wars, and Roe v. Wade — occurred when we ignored or “improved” the Constitution.

Even more curious is the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statement that guns are too easily accessible. Were it not for the Second Amendment, there would be no Catholic Herald, a Conference of Catholic Bishops, or even Catholics, for that matter, since we would long ago have been hunted down like rats, just like in the mother country of Merrie Olde England.

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On
Alexandra Hamar

Nation grieves for 20 lost, but how about 55 million?

To the editor:

As a former student of Sandy Hook Elementary School who still lives in Sandy Hook today, I am saddened at the tragedy that occurred. It is devastating that so many innocent children’s lives were taken before they had their first day of middle school, their first day behind the wheel, their first time falling in love — so many firsts that these children will never experience.

On January 25, hundreds of thousands of people who have achieved these milestones were going to “March for Life” in Washington for another group of people who have not been given the opportunity to experience their most important first — their first breath.

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On
B.L. Johnson

Socialism has resulted in poverty, repression, death

To the editor:

I want to thank the Catholic Herald for running the excellent article on Pope Leo XIII’s assessment of socialism as evil. It truly is.

Socialism, with its tempting allure of equality, has not produced equality, only poverty, repression, and death. Socialism has manifested itself worldwide in many forms and variants, but always with a similar end result of poverty and death.

Whether it was the millions killed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the genocide of Hitler’s German Socialist Workers Party, or the mass desert graveyards of Saddam Hussein’s Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Iraq, the result is always the same.

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