Author: Chris Lee

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Chris Lee

Supporting the rights of the unborn

When I taught religion at Beloit Catholic High, I invited pro-life speakers to give talks. I especially remember a pro-life doctor who described the tragedy of aborted babies. During his talk, he wept. Each tear convinced us that he truly believed that unborn babies were persons. Aborting them was destroying human lives.

Tears flowed from the eyes and hearts of committed pro-lifers when on January 22, 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Their ruling made it legal for mothers to abort their unborn baby.

The Church position on life

In no. 2270 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person . . . among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” The Church’s position, which recognizes the individual as human from conception until death, is supported by natural law.

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Chris Lee

Wanted: A synod of affirmation

Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from October 5 to 19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family.

In my view, the synod should focus on two related themes: marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world; the answer to that crisis is the Christian view of marriage as a covenant between man and woman in a communion of love, fidelity, and fruitfulness.

To focus the conversation elsewhere is to ignore a hard fact and a great opportunity.

Collapse of marriage culture

The collapse of marriage culture throughout the world is indisputable. More and more marriages end in divorce, even as increasing numbers of couples simply ignore marriage, cohabit, and procreate.

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Chris Lee

Parable of the talents revisited

The attendance at our Mass at Mundelein Seminary on Labor Day weekend was sparse. Many of the students had gone home while others were on a special tour of Chicago churches.

The celebrant and preacher for the Sunday Mass was Fr. Robert Schoenstene, our veteran Old Testament professor. Father Schoenstene offered the best interpretation I’ve ever heard of a particularly puzzling parable of the Lord, and I wanted to make sure his reading got a wider audience.

Rich man gives talents to servants

The parable in question is the one concerning the rich man who gives talents to three of his servants and then sets out on a journey. Upon his return, he assesses the situation and discovers that the servant to whom he had given five talents had invested them fruitfully and that the servant to whom he had given three talents had done the same.

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Chris Lee

Pew survey looks at religion and politics

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

Polls and surveys are not infallible. Nor do they define what is true. But they do have their uses.

If they are conducted carefully and without bias, they can offer insights regarding public opinion or perceptions at a given moment in time. Among other things, polls can help us understand the mood of the moment and confirm or question trends of changing opinion.

Among the more respected polling organizations is the Pew Research Center. The center has a particular interest in measuring the role of religion in public life and how those who identify as adherents of a particular religion feel about issues and events.

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Chris Lee

Priests for Our Future capital campaign seeks $30 million to endow education and formation of future priests

There are now 33 seminarians in the Diocese of Madison, up from six in 2003. Six were missing for this photo, taken at the seminarian gathering in Madison in August. Also pictured are Bishop Robert C. Morlino and Fr. Greg Ihm, director of vocations. A capital campaign seeks to raise $30 million for the education and formation of priests. (Catholic Herald photo/Pam Payne)

MADISON — Both by lay people and priests alike, it’s been talked about, studied, and identified as the top concern facing the Diocese of Madison for several years now: the vocations crisis.

With a continuous line of faithful senior priests reaching retirement and a decidedly thinner lineup of priests ordained in the 1980s and ’90s, it would be hard to deny a crisis brewing.

Number one priority

In fact, so serious was the concern in the mind of Bishop Robert C. Morlino, and so clear was the message that he received from around the diocese, that he made the fostering of vocations to the priesthood his number one priority upon arriving in Madison in August of 2003.

The bishop, priests, and faithful of the diocese together initiated a program of fostering a “culture of vocations,” of inviting young men to consider the call God might be making to them, and to prayer — especially in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament — asking that more and more might answer the call of Jesus Christ.

Increasing numbers

And increasingly, men have been answering this need and God’s call with a profound “yes.” From six seminarians in 2003, the diocese has seen a near six-fold increase.

This year, the diocese is blessed to have 33 men studying for the priesthood, and the good news is that hopes remain high that (with continued prayers) growth in seminarian numbers will continue.

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Chris Lee

Ten years of praying bears many fruits

MADISON — It was 10 years ago that three diocesan seminarians began a Holy Hour for Vocations in the chapel of the Bishop O’Connor Catholic Pastoral Center in the summer of 2004.

Knowing that the seminarians would be returning to their studies in fall, members of the Serra Club of Madison — along with then Fr. Jim Bartylla, the club’s chaplain and director of vocations for the Diocese of Madison — decided to institute daily Eucharistic Adoration for Vocations weekdays in the chapel from 9 to 11:45 a.m.

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Chris Lee

The truth about climate change

“Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change . . . loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes, and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions?”

These aren’t the radical words from the leader of a secular environmental organization, no; these are the radical words from the former leader of the Catholic Church!

In his 2010 World Day of Peace message titled, “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote that “it would be irresponsible not to take seriously” the signs of a growing environmental crisis.

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Chris Lee

Calvary: portrait of a priest-shepherd

St. Pope John Paul II said that a priest should have the heart of Christ the Good Shepherd.

Far too many saccharine paintings of effeminate Jesuses in the midst of delicate lambs have conduced toward a misconstrual of this image as something sentimental and harmless.

But shepherds not only had the smell of their sheep (to use Pope Francis’ language), but they also wielded a stick to bring back strays and fend off threats. Real shepherding was, and is, a dirty, hard-edged business.

John Michael McDonagh’s film Calvary shows, with extraordinary vividness, what authentic spiritual shepherding looks like and how it feels for a priest to have a shepherd’s heart.

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