Category: Columns

On
Jean Mueller

What does ‘health care power of attorney’ mean?

Q. My father has just asked me to be his health care power of attorney. I am not sure what that entails and what my responsibilities would be. We have a good relationship and I am willing to help him (he is 78 and in fairly good health). In the worst case scenario what would this mean? (From a son in Dodgeville)

A. This is a great question because there is a lot of confusion about health care power of attorney and what that entails.

The power of attorney or “agent” is a person who has the permission to make health care decisions for the “principal” (in your case your father) in the event of incapacitation.

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Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Unconditional parental love

Making Sense out of Bioethics column by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Once I met a woman who had worked for years in fashion and modeling. Unsurprisingly, she was strikingly attractive.

She was accompanied by her teenage daughter who, by contrast, was rather unremarkable to look at, maybe even a plain-Jane.

After spending time with them, I began to sense that the mother, whose life had largely revolved around her appearance, seemed to look down on her daughter, perhaps unconsciously, because of her average appearance.

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Msgr. James R. Bartylla

To the threshold of the apostles

“Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days” (Galatians 1:18).

From February 9 through 17, 2012, Bishop Robert C. Morlino and the bishops of Region VII (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) will visit Rome for their quinquennial “ad limina apostolorum” visit (literally, “to the threshold [of the tombs] of the apostles” [SS. Peter and Paul]).

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Audrey Mettel Fixmer

Following the recipe for a good life

grand mom

During the holidays I love hearing from old friends, voices from my past; Charlotte, a “mother’s helper” who lived with us for her senior year of high school and now has grandchildren of her own; Tom and Betty, who taught with Bob in the ’50’s and shared our laughter and tears.

They were the short term relationships, the layers of love that add flavor and richness to our lives. The long term relationships were the foundation.

I thought of the analogy as I was making my seven layer taco dip for a New Year’s Eve party.

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Fr. Donald Lange

We need priests to celebrate the Eucharist

In the United States the Catholic Church celebrates National Vocation Awareness Week from Monday, Jan. 9, to Saturday, Jan. 14, this year.

During this week the Church asks us to pray for all vocations. In no. 2013 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. All are called to holiness.” God calls us all to live our faith and seek out our vocation as a deacon, priest, Religious Brother, Sister, married, or single person.

No priests, no Eucharist

However, we need to continue to pray for and encourage priestly vocations because priests preside at the Eucharist, which is the center of Catholic life. During the 2009 Year for Priests, Pope Benedict stressed that without priests there would be no Eucharist, no mission, or Church. We priests have the privilege of celebrating Mass and ministering to Catholics at key spiritual times in their lives from infancy to old age. Priests administer the sacraments, preach, offer pastoral care, and much more.

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John Huebscher

Recall season overlays final legislative sessions

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

A year ago, the first thing the newly elected Legislature did was to adopt its scheduling resolution for the 2011-12 legislative session.

This resolution defined the floor periods during which the Legislature would meet to debate and pass legislation. In so doing, the legislators determined that they would convene for three “general business” floor periods between January 17 and March 15 in 2012, the last day of regular business for the year.

Complicates legislative schedules

When they adopted that resolution, our lawmakers had no way of knowing that their session schedule would mesh with Wisconsin’s first ever recall of a governor and recalls of several state senators. But that is what appears will happen and it will affect what lawmaking takes place in these final floor periods.

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Sr. Margie Lavonis

Where are the vocations?

Cutting Edge by Sr. Margie Lavonis

The shortage of priests and religious men and women in the Church, particularly in Europe and North America, is common these days. Many international congregations like my own, the Sisters of the Holy Cross, are still getting new members, but in countries other than the United States. Many consider it a crisis.

Too often when we speak of vocations we limit that term to mean the call to ordained ministry and the consecrated life. When we pray for vocations, we usually ask God to inspire young people to answer a call to be Sisters, Brothers, and priests. Once in a while we might include the call to lay ministry in the Church, but that is the exception.

God calls each of us

We do not have to look far to find vocations. The truth is that each baptized person has a vocation, not just religious and clergy. By our Baptism each of us is called to share the mission of Jesus. As disciples of Jesus, every Christian is called to reveal God’s unconditional love and to spread that love to others. The next time you are at a Baptism liturgy listen closely to the prayers.

 

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George Weigel

The cardinal Down Under

The Catholic Difference by George Weigel

In the Baltimore of the 1960s, my canny pastor devised a neat scheme for getting “Father Visitor” (as the confessional doors read) to fill in during the summer for his vacationing curates: bring over newly-ordained Australians from their studies in Rome.

There were no language issues (save for those of, er, accent); by the standards of student priests fresh from the Urban College of Propaganda Fidei, the young Aussies were recompensed handsomely and got to see something of the United States; it was win-win, all around.

Thus in the summer of 1967 I met Fr. George Pell of Ballarat, who, with the oils of ordination still wet on his forehead, spent several months at my parish before embarking on doctoral studies at Oxford.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Christmas prepares us for new beginnings

In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but might have eternal life.”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote that out of love for us, “The hands that made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle and too tiny to change his own clothes or put food in his mouth. To share God’s love, Jesus experienced infant helplessness.”

Scripture tells us that God created us in his image. Since God is love, we image God best when we love. But sin keeps us from loving.

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Tom Nelson

How we eat is as important as what we eat

The season of celebrating the Nativity of Jesus Christ is complete with abundant opportunities for eating, many from long-held family traditions and others might just be questionable habits we have picked up in our daily struggle to make ends meet and jam another activity into our already over-scheduled daily routines.

What if the old maxim “You are what you eat” also included “You are how you eat”?

A fast-food culture

For instance, when was the last time I ate by myself from a fast-food drive-up window?

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