President Barack Obama’s executive order casting aside the ban on federal funding for developing and using new embryonic stem cell lines was nakedly inconsistent and, despite his protestations, thoroughly political.
Obama said: “As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering . . . I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.”
These days one does not need to look very far to know that our society is facing many challenges. Every day, even every hour, it seems we hear more news of the deepening economic crisis, corporate excess, massive layoffs, failing businesses, and increasing home foreclosures.
The current crisis seems to have affected nearly every facet of life. In one way or another, it touches every person and every organization, including our diocese, our parishes, and our schools.
The Survivors Club is currently a best seller. In his travels far and wide, the author found that faith in God was the top reason people gave for surviving the ups and downs of life.
Speaking of survivors, have you heard the story about the three Olympic Games fans who had no tickets to see the track and field events?
Whenever we at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference talked to groups last year about the US Bishops’ statement on political responsibility, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, we emphasized that faithful citizenship is about more than voting. It is about doing the hard work of citizenship on a year-round basis.
In the coming weeks, Catholics around the state who want to live out their call to be faithful citizens will have a chance to do so — by attending one of six hearings on the 2009 budget bill. The hearings, conducted by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance will take place over a two-week period beginning on Monday, March 23, and concluding on Friday, April 3.
What do fish, coffee, and apples have in common besides being an interesting Lenten meal?
Each of these foods has a story that highlights how Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has worked with local people to find a new way to create economic success.
CRS is the major international outreach to 100 countries in Central and Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. Programs are designed to work with people of a community in helping lift their poverty.
These three examples of fish, coffee, and apples show how small changes lead to big results.
Recently, a young man on American Idol sang a “modern” song, one of those all-beat-and-no-sense. I used to complain that I couldn’t understand the words, but now that my TV has the words printed on the bottom of the screen and I can actually understand them, I know I wasn’t missing much. And nothing rhymes. How can they memorize them? Oh, yes, they just repeat one phrase a hundred times.
In a recent interview, one of these guys whose voice seemed spectacular despite the song said that his vocal music training had come primarily from church choirs. Two thoughts came to my mind: He should have stuck with the church music and where have I heard that before?
Lent is a time for fasting. When we think of fasting, we probably think of fasting and abstaining from food and drink for the sake of Jesus according to the Lenten regulations.
However, in Isaiah 58:1-9, through Isaiah, God reveals another kind of fasting that enables us to feast and feed on living God’s way more fully.
Daylight Savings Time returns. One rooster’s step longer. That is how my parents described the gradual lengthening of brightness each day from winter into spring.
One day at a time like the little step of a bird, the world enjoys more light as we shed the winter wearies and embrace the lingering dusks to come.
Over 500 Catholics from across the United States and a few foreign countries gathered in Washington, D.C., from February 20 to 25. Sponsored by 19 groups, from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities to the United States Conference of Bishops, people focused on the theme, “Christ Our Hope: Healing a Broken World.”
With the economic crisis as a backdrop, workshops, discussions, and prayer focused attention on bringing Catholic social teachings to assist the poor, wherever they live.
Over the years, a number of unjust laws have come to be replaced by more just ones. Laws overturning the practice of slavery, for example, were a significant step forward in promoting justice and basic human rights in society.
Yet in recent times, unjust and immoral laws have, with increasing frequency, come to replace sound and reasonable ones, particularly in the area of sexual morality, bioethics, and the protection of human life.
