Category: Columns

On
Sr. Margie Lavonis

Lent may be a good time for a ‘faith lift’

I always love to read the signs outside of churches. Once I saw a clever one that asked, “Do you need a faith lift?” It was a good question that made me stop and think about my own faith life and where I need some spiritual Botox.

Guest Column

Now that we are in the dark dreary time of the year when life is cold and monotonous, at least in the Midwest, and we probably have broken many of our new year’s resolutions, it is a good time to reflect on how we need our spiritual life lifted. Lent is a perfect season for renewal.

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On
Barbara L. Lyons

Abortion program politically, financially motivated

Imagine that you are a patient needing routine surgery at an outpatient facility. At the Madison Surgery Center, you receive treatment to enhance your health, while in the next room or down the hall a fully formed 19 to 22 week unborn baby is being dismembered, experiencing significant pain from the abortion procedure.

Guest Column

The UW Hospital and Clinics, Meriter Hospital, and the Madison Surgery Center recently approved such a venture. The second trimester abortion program was discussed for months, shrouded in secrecy. Since becoming public knowledge, information from facilities’ officials has been incredibly inconsistent and filled with public relations puffery.

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On
Msgr. Daniel Ganshert

Helping others teaches us compassion

Living and Learning column by Msgr. Daniel T. Ganshert

Lent presents us with an opportunity if we choose to take it. Just like God has given us people in our lives to help us if we take the opportunity and let them: family, parish, community, among others. However, to ask others for help can be humbling. Yet, knowing that we all need help can teach us compassion for others.

Lenten fasting, prayer, and almsgiving remind us of this. It is a special time and opportunity for us to ask for help and to ask out loud. When God hears our prayers, sees our fasting, and almsgiving, that’s one thing. But when we hear and see one another praying, fasting and giving to others in our families, parishes, and communities, it amplifies the impact. All of a sudden we can be moved by the example of those who recognize not only their need for help, but also their need to help others.

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On
George Weigel

‘Afflicted’ with fertility?

The Catholic Difference by George Weigel

What’s the biggest threat to the world’s prosperity and stability over the medium haul — say, between 2020 and 2050?

The proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction? A continuing economic recession? Jihadism running amok? The Detroit Lions ushering in the Apocalypse by winning an NFL championship? (Just kidding on the last . . . )

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On
Audrey Mettel Fixmer

On the road . . . still

Grand Mom by Audrey Mettel Fixmer

Too old to travel? Who? Me? Don’t even suggest it. I’ll find a way to get to that grandson’s wedding or that resort in a warmer climate no matter what. Of course, we must listen to our aging bodies and adapt to new ways to get around.

We were in our mid 60s and newly retired when we first became aware of that. My husband and I were boarding a flight to Puerto Rico when the older lady in front of us asked Bob if he would hoist her bag into the overhead compartment. As he reached up to do so, his pants fell down. That’s when we realized he had to start wearing suspenders.

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On
John Huebscher

One day, two hearings, same story

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

Anyone who wants to know how much our society values vulnerable children need only take note of two hearings held in the same city, Madison, on the same day, February 4th, to get an answer: nowhere near as much as we should.

Beginning at 10 a.m., a joint hearing by the two legislative committees that address issues affecting children and families heard testimony from a variety of perspectives on “The State of Wisconsin’s Families and Children in an Economic Crisis.”

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On
Msgr. Daniel Ganshert

Looking at abortion facts and figures

Living and Learning column by Msgr. Daniel T. Ganshert

Parish signing campaigns against the proposed Freedom of Choice Act are ongoing in our diocese. These campaigns also are allowing the people of the Diocese of Madison to voice their concerns related to second-trimester abortions performed at the Madison Surgery Center.

Finding the following comments from Mr. Joseph Collison, director of the pro-life office for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn., to be helpful, I want to share them with you by means of this column because the numbers are frightening.

Mr. Collison states that every fourth baby conceived in the United States is deliberately destroyed in our nation’s busy abortion businesses. Every day 3,500 developing babies are killed. Almost 1.5 million are killed every year. Our nation has the highest abortion rate in the Western world, and half of the American mothers seeking abortions have already aborted at least one child before.

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On
Richard Bonomo

Morality and the military

Fr. Jim Murphy, in his letter in the December 25 edition of the Catholic Herald, argues that Catholics ought not participate in the U.S. military at this time because that participation “would likely involve immoral activity.”

Guest Column

He cites papal and other ecclesiastical opinions that our invasion of Iraq was not moral, conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison, and the holding of people at the Guantanamo Naval Base, the rendition program, the condition of veterans returning from the theater of combat, the existence of nuclear weapons, and the shear size of annual military spending.

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On
Msgr. Kevin D. Holmes

Conversion happens: One voice can make a difference

Editor’s note: This commentary was written for the bulletin of the Cathedral Parish in Madison for the weekend of January 24 and 25.

Guest Column

What a great feast it is that we celebrate today! Saul, the most ardent persecutor of the Faith, becomes St. Paul, its greatest proponent. That is really something to celebrate . . . for a number of reasons.

For one thing, this feast is a tremendous sign of hope for the Church as she travels through history. In this world, the Church has enemies. But we should look at each of them with the awareness that here may be the next Saul: the greatest enemy can become the greatest ally.

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