Author: Chris Lee

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Chris Lee

Treat miscarried babies with the dignity they deserve

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As soon as I heard my wife burst out the bathroom door that sunny spring day, I knew she was pregnant. I hadn’t yet opened my eyes but I didn’t need to. Her footsteps told me everything.

My wife didn’t have any particular reason to believe she was pregnant. But after a couple years of praying for a second child, I’d grown accustomed to Laura taking random pregnancy tests — hoping against hope that somehow that second pink line would appear. This time it did.

Joyful days

The days ahead were as joyful as any we’d experienced in our life together. We beamed when friends who knew of our struggle with secondary infertility congratulated us and we devoured all the fetal development materials we could find, eager to mark every last milestone in our baby’s nascent life.

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Chris Lee

American society has been redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich

To the editor:

The column entitled, “‘Social justice’ is a complex concept” by Fr. Robert A. Sirico published in the April 14 issue of the Catholic Herald is confusing.

United States income has been redistributed from the poor and middle class to the wealthy for 30 years. The book Winner-Take-All Politics by Pierson and Hacker shows that in 2005 dollars, income of the 20 percent of American households earning the least rose from $14,900 in 1979 to $16,500 in 2005, or 10 percent. Average income rose from $42,900 to $52,100 or 21 percent.

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Chris Lee

El Cielo: Destino de nuestro camino

Bajo el libro del evangelio por Obispo Robert C. Morlino
Esta columna está dirigida a los fieles de la Diócesis de Madison. Cualquier circulación más amplia transgrede la intención del Obispo.

Queridos amigos:

Al entrar en esta Semana Santa, somos muy conscientes de la ausencia del Obispo Bullock, del Obispo Wirz, de Mons. Wil Schuster, y de Mons. Tom Campion, quienes recientemente han sido llamados al encuentro con Cristo. Los extraño mucho personalmente y, sin entrar en detalles, la muerte de cada uno de ellos puede ser vista como el final de una era distinta en la diócesis de Madison. Su fallecimiento nos recuerda que, como dice la Escritura, “el mundo como lo conocemos está pasando”. La verdad de ese misterio nos incluye también a nosotros.

Hay mucho por lo cual estar agradecidos por la vida de nuestros dos buenos obispos y estos dos buenos sacerdotes, quienes ahora contemplan el rostro de Cristo. Los recordamos con esperanza e incluso con alegría, en términos del maravilloso camino por que el vivieron y murieron. Ese destino, claro está, no es otro que el Cielo.

 

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Chris Lee

Article was an insult to gun owners who are law-abiding and qualified to carry guns

To Stephen Kent:

Your article in the April 7 issue of the Catholic Herald was an insult to every gun owner.

You generalize the population as unqualified to own a weapon. Evidently you are not a gun owner nor were you raised in a conservative hunting family.

I assure you that I, my family, and my children are just as qualified as most police officers or even more so.

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Chris Lee

In time of crisis, there must be peace and discourse

To the editor:

In a time of crisis in our land, our people are called to repent, to pray, and to praise God. We are to be a prayerful, sacrificial people. We are to be a “Light for the World.”

We are to forgive and start anew. We are to recognize that God calls us to reconciliation. We must reach out to our neighbor — to start anew and seek the highest holiness.

The common ground must be love, peace, charity, and respect for others. Our history of kindness must be carried forward without reservation for past hurts.

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Chris Lee

Public broadcasting does not deserve public support

To Mark Pattison:

I am writing in response to your column in the March 31 issue of the Catholic Herald about the defunding of public broadcasting.

I am very surprised and shocked at your overwhelming support! Do you not see the very liberal-mindedness of the PBS programming? Multiple shows constantly reaffirm the lie that evolution is a fact and not just an unproven theology.

Also, what about shows like In the Life that constantly affirm homosexuality?

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Chris Lee

Easter reminds us that the best is yet to come

A widow told her son she sometimes wished that when she died, she could be buried with a fork in her hand. When he asked her “why,” she explained that at a banquet, the head waitress often requests that we keep our fork because the best is yet to come.

She told her son because of our faith in the resurrection, and God’s mercy, that after death the very best is yet to come — the priceless gift of eternal life. Christ’s resurrection gives us hope of enjoying eternal happiness in heaven.

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Chris Lee

Redemptive suffering is part of being a Christian

Cutting Edge by Sr. Margie Lavonis

It is not easy to block out the multiple cries of pain and suffering that permeate the world. It is almost deafening.

All one has to do is turn on the radio, read the newspaper, watch television, or go online. We are bombarded with news of pain and suffering, almost to the saturation point. I think of the people in Libya, Haiti, Japan, and others affected by war and natural disasters. It gives me an overwhelming feeling.

Good people suffer

A couple of years ago I attended several lectures on the martyrs of El Salvador who were killed during a civil war that took place there in the 1970’s and ’80s. Archbishop Oscar Romero, four women missionaries, and several Jesuits — only to name a few of hundreds of people — were brutally murdered because they spoke out against the intense suffering of the Salvadoran people and a system of government that perpetuated it.

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Chris Lee

Mass for Bishop William H. Bullock is ‘celebration of life and hope’

Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki, surrounded by bishops from around the country, presides at the Mass of Christian Burial on April 7 for Bishop William H. Bullock, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Madison, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in Madison. (Catholic Herald photo/Kat Wagner)

MADISON — It was “a celebration of life and hope and of Christ’s love.”

That’s how Bishop Paul J. Swain described the Mass of Christian Burial on April 7 for Bishop William H. Bullock, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Madison.

In his homily, Bishop Swain said that Bishop Bullock would not want to be remembered so much for his accomplishments as for the witness of his faith and life as a follower of Christ.

“He would want this Mass to be a celebration of life and hope and of Christ’s love, which he preached sometimes with words, and to encourage us all to live in that love, to love others as He has loved us.”

Now the bishop of Sioux Falls, S.D., Bishop Swain served for eight years with Bishop Bullock. They arrived at the chancery of the Diocese of Madison on the same day in June of 1993. Bishop George O. Wirz, who had been administrator of the diocese after the death of Bishop Cletus F. O’Donnell, had asked then Fr. Paul Swain to join the chancery staff.

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