DODGEVILLE — Catholic Financial Life Chapter 296 Mount Horeb and 261 Cross Plains are holding a Stations of the Cross Tour on Sunday, Sept. 21, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Rosary will be recited at 1p.m.
The outdoor Stations of the Cross is located at 4718 Chimney Rock Rd., Dodgeville. Cars may be parked near the Rosary garden, and visitors should walk to the stations from there. Be sure to wear good walking shoes.
DANE — On […]
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
I pray that you’ve all had a restful summer . . . as it seems, sadly, that we’re coming very quickly upon its last days! For myself, I’m maintaining hope that the winter is mild. I know that such a hope might be foolish — but I’m a man of hope, nonetheless!
In considering the readings of this past Sunday, I think it’s very important that we reflect together, once again, on the theme of fraternal correction — which is what the first (Ez 33:7-9) and the third (Mt 18:15-20) readings were about.
Fraternal correction is the way we correct one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We do so not in arrogance, nor in contempt, but with love. Fraternal correction in the Church is a service of love.
In our day and age, nobody wants to correct anybody (unless perhaps it’s anonymously, of someone we don’t know, and in an online forum — which is certainly not charitable correction). To correct someone directly, someone whom we actually know, requires us to make claims about right and wrong, and about what is good and evil. Nobody wants to do that because, “you have your own truth and I have my own truth and we just peacefully coexist and it’s all just wonderful!” . . . except that it’s not. It’s a confused world.
In this confused world, it’s politically incorrect to correct anyone for anything! For instance, you even have to be careful, lest you say that ISIS is a group of extremist Islamic terrorists, who are absolutely wrong. Now, that’s obviously true, but some can’t say that. Because, after all, “we simply don’t see the world as ISIS does. They have their own truth, so we have to be polite when we deal with them.” . . . Just as I’m sure they are polite when they are beheading people.
MADISON — Women of the diocese are invited to fall vicariate meetings scheduled at parishes in Spring Green and Jefferson, Sept. 18; Berlin, Oct. 14; Bloomington, Oct. 16; and Pine Bluff, Oct. 22.
Rosa Roper, president of the Madison Diocesan Council of Catholic Women (MDCCW) encourages women to take advantage of these meetings to connect with other Catholic women in their area. The half-day meetings offer prayer, socializing, and service and fit into her theme as president: “Live, Learn, Love, and Share Our Catholic Faith.”
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| Alejandro Bermúdez |
MADISON — “Who Is Pope Francis? What Is His mind?” is the topic of the next St. Thérèse Lecture to be presented on Friday, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Bishop O’Connor Catholic Pastoral Center, 702 S. High Point Rd.
It will be presented by Alejandro Bermúdez, author of Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend: Personal Recollections about the Man Who Became Pope.
Bermúdez will reveal little-known insights into the pope’s personality, his interior world, his human abilities, his work habits, his devotions, his concerns, and his friendships.
Bermúdez will open a fascinating door to better understanding the man whom the Holy Spirit called to lead the Church at this time.
Bermúdez is director of ACI-Prensa, the world’s largest Catholic news agency in Spanish, as well as the executive director of Catholic News Agency and the Portuguese agency ACI digital.
Bermúdez is a frequent contributor to the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor, and he hosts several Spanish programs on EWTN, including Criterios on Radio Católica Mundial.
He was a participant in the pivotal Fifth Conference of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) at Aparecida in 2007, where Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was elected to draft the final document.
The cheerful smiles and “hellos” of the Schoenstatt Sisters greeted everyone as they entered the air-conditioned chapel and hall on Madison’s east side.
Bishop Robert C. Morlino thanked members of the Lumen Christi Society for their support of diocesan seminarians at a recent reception held at the Bishop O’Connor Catholic Pastoral Center.
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Shame on Wisconsin voters! Approximately 12.7 percent of eligible voters turned out for the August 12 partisan primary, according to results certified by the state’s Government Accountability Board (GAB).
There were 552,342 votes cast in primaries for governor, which is 12.7 percent of Wisconsin’s 2014 voting-age population of 4,348,307, according to Census estimates.
Before I proceed, I have to confess that I am one of those citizens who did not vote in the August 12 primary. I could plead that I was too busy: I worked all day and attended the Diocese of Madison’s Lumen Christi Society event that evening.
But that is really no excuse. I could have left work to vote or even stopped by the polling place between work and the evening event.
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In his classic text After Virtue, the philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre lamented, not so much the immorality that runs rampant in our contemporary society, but something more fundamental and in the long run more dangerous; namely, that we are no longer even capable of having a real argument about moral matters.
The assumptions that once undergirded any coherent conversation about ethics, he said, are no longer taken for granted or universally shared. The result is that, in regard to questions of what is right and wrong, we simply talk past one another, or more often, scream at each other.
I thought of MacIntyre’s observation when I read an article on the Supreme Court’s consideration of the much-vexed issue of gay marriage.
It was reported that, in the wake of the oral arguments, Justice Elena Kagan remarked, “Whenever someone expresses moral disapproval in a legal context, the red flag of discrimination goes up for me.”
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Is there such a thing as a just war? Can the massive death and destruction of armed conflict ever be morally justified by followers of the Prince of Peace?
For the first disciples of Christ the answer was a resounding “No!”
During the first 300 years of Christianity, it was unthinkable for followers of the nonviolent Jesus to kill a human being.
They took most seriously Jesus’ command: “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well. . . . Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Typical of early Church teaching on nonviolence, St. Clement of Alexandria said to wealthy Christians, “Contrary to the rest of men, enlist for yourself an army without weapons, without war, without bloodshed, without wrath, without stain — pious old men, orphans dear to God, widows armed with gentleness, men adorned with love.”
