It has been six months since an earthquake devastated the country of Haiti, affecting an estimated three million people and leaving more than one million Haitians homeless.
Immediately after the earthquake, people throughout the world responded generously with humanitarian aid. The outpouring of support was especially needed in Haiti, which was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere before the quake.
Ever since the April 20 explosion and fire on the BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans have stood by, watching helplessly as millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf each day.
We’ve observed the failed efforts of BP to stop the oil spill. We’ve seen marine animals covered with the globby black mess. We’ve heard stories of the economic hardships experienced by fishermen and other workers affected by the disaster.
It’s predicted that this man-made disaster will have far worse consequences than Hurricane Katrina five years ago. The Gulf area is still recovering from Katrina and it’s now dealing with the oil spill, with no end in sight.
Many of us continue to feel helpless in the face of this situation. What can we do? How can we help?
Back when I was growing up, priests were an important part of my daily life. I attended a Catholic school and the students went to Mass every morning during the week, so we saw our parish priests almost every day.
Besides celebrating Mass, our priests taught in the school. They prepared us for the sacraments of Reconciliation and First Communion and gave us those sacraments for the first time and many times after that.
On Sunday, June 6, a statue recognizing Msgr. Thomas F. Campion, founder and director of the Apostolate to the Handicapped in the Diocese of Madison, will be unveiled and blessed by Bishop William H. Bullock, bishop emeritus, in a 2 p.m. ceremony in the courtyard of St. Victor Church in Monroe.
As part of the celebration of St. Victor’s 150th anniversary, the statue honors an important part of the parish’s life for nearly 40 years. Monsignor Campion brought the Apostolate to the Handicapped with him in 1971, when he came to Monroe. The priest served as chaplain at St. Clare Hospital and the Monroe Clinic for many years along with directing the Apostolate.
This week two men will be ordained as deacons and in June, two others will be ordained as new priests for the Diocese of Madison.
Having met all four of these fine men, I can tell people that we are indeed fortunate to have such fine men willing to serve our diocese as priests. They make us proud!
On Friday, May 28, Bishop Robert C. Morlino will ordain Jorge Miramontes and Timothy Renz to the Order of Deacon. They will be ordained as transitional deacons, meaning that they plan to be ordained to the priesthood in the following year. On June 25, Deacons David Carrano and Gregory Ihm will be ordained to the priesthood.
This is the season of graduations. Students, family members, friends, and teachers are celebrating graduation from pre-schools, grade schools, high schools, and colleges.
It’s a time of great joy mixed with some sadness, as students celebrate their accomplishments but also leave behind the familiar and venture into the unknown. Parents of high school graduates especially find themselves looking forward to their children growing into adults and possibly leaving home for college. Some parents may face the empty nest with trepidation — and others may high five their spouses!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’ve heard about the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. But seeing a picture of the remains of a statue of Mary that survived one of those bombs made those tragedies a reality for me.
A scorched head of a statue of Mary (pictured with this editorial) remained after the blast that destroyed Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral on August 9, 1945. The statue once graced the main altar of the cathedral. The haunting eyes of the statue remind viewers of what it might have been like for the 75,000 people who died during the blast.
One definition of an endangered species is “a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters.”
We usually don’t think about people as an endangered species. In fact, we seem to hear more about overpopulation than whether we have enough human beings in the world.
Should we be offering public prayers for our country? Should there be events such as the National Day of Prayer?
These questions have come to the forefront because of a ruling issued on April 15 in Madison by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb. She said that the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion. Judge Crabb did postpone enforcement of her ruling until all appeals are exhausted.
In past years during tough economic times, there was a decrease in the number of people serving as volunteers in our country.
Fortunately, that has not been happening during our current economic crisis, reported a recent poll taken for PARADE magazine. Instead, this poll shows that there’s a “compassion boom” with more and more people helping others.
