Category: Columns

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Beth Ulaszek

Theme three: The meaning of Human Sexuality

Beth Ulaszek

To prepare for the upcoming World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia this September, the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis of the Diocese of Madison is providing a monthly series on a particular theme on marriage and family. Each theme is a chapter in the preparatory catechesis developed for the event entitled Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive, available in paperback from www.osvparish.com or for free online at www.worldmeeting2015.org

Four years ago I was given the first in a series of life changing gifts in the form of a diamond ring.

For weeks I would stare and delight in its beauty as light touched it and bounced back in various colors. In my excitement every friend, acquaintance, and stranger got to know my beloved as I feverishly relayed the story of how such a beautiful gift wound up on my finger.

Greater gifts followed as I became a wife and mother of two.

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Veronica Arntz

St. John Paul II: patron saint of the family

Veronica Arntz

St. John Paul II — the beloved pope and now saint — contributed a vast amount of knowledge and wisdom to the Church’s teachings on marriage and family.

Born on May 18, 1920, and ordained a priest in 1946, Karol Wojtyla’s adolescent years were marked by the reign and violence of the Third Reich.

Philosophy of personalism

Due largely to his devout Catholic parents, Wojtyla, rather than turning to violence himself, cultivated his mind through poetry and plays, eventually turning to philosophical inquiries, particularly in personalism.

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Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Changing my body to ‘match’ my ‘identity’

The famous Olympian Bruce Jenner made headlines recently when he told ABC News, “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman . . . That female side is part of me. That’s who I am.”

He has been receiving hormonal treatments to acquire feminine traits and is not yet sure whether he will undergo surgery to “complete” the process.

His dramatic case raises important ethical and medical concerns about properly understanding our identity and respecting the given order of our bodies.

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Fr. Robert Barron

We’ve been here before

Recently, I had the privilege of spending four hours in the Sistine Chapel with my Word on Fire team. Toward the end of our filming, the director of the Vatican Museums, who had accompanied us throughout the process, asked whether I wanted to see the “room of tears.”

This is the little antechamber, just off of the Sistine Chapel, where the newly-elected pope changes into his white cassock. Understandably, tears flow in that room, once the poor man realizes the weight of his office.

Papal memorabilia

Inside, there were documents and other memorabilia, but what got my attention was a row of albs, chasubles, and copes worn by various popes.

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Jean Mueller

Long distance caregiving

Q My mother lives in a small community in northern Wisconsin. My dad died a few months ago and since his passing the children (three daughters) have noticed how much he did for mom.

We collectively have noticed some forgetfulness, lack of attention to housekeeping, and poor nutrition.

We all live in different communities. My oldest sister is the closest, about a one hour drive; my youngest sister is the farthest, a six hour drive; and I am in the middle, about four hours away. My older sister feels that in order to keep mom home where she wants to stay, we should each spend one week each month with her.

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Morgan Smith

The awakening

Morgan Smith

I am thinking now of my friend’s face. It is lit up with a mix of joy and surprise.

The other day, he was talking about his brother, whom he had seen the weekend before. His brother is in a program for recovering addicts which after years, he had finally wanted to enter. My friend was struck by his conversation with his changing brother. And so was I.

A new view of life

My friend said of his brother: “He shared in a way I’ve never witnessed him share before, about some changes in himself. He’s forming a new view on life; in particular he has an openness to being surprised, to novelty. He now takes his walks differently, open to beauty, and treats his interactions with people differently, wanting to learn about them and hear their story.”

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Tony Magliano

Encyclical is prophetic, challenging, wonderful

It’s courageous, it’s prophetic, it’s challenging, it’’ holistic, it’s wonderful: That’s what I think of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.

Quoting his patron saint, Francis of Assisi — who is also the patron saint of ecology — Pope Francis begins his papal letter with a beautiful verse from the saint’s Canticle of the Creatures: “‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.'”

Our common home

“St. Francis of Assisi reminds us,” writes the pope, “that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. . . .

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Fr. Robert Barron

Love, tolerance, and making distinctions

Last time, I wrote a piece on Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. I argued that the manner in which Jenner spoke of his transition reflected a Gnostic anthropology, which is repugnant to a biblical view of the human being.

I didn’t say a word about Jenner personally; I urged no violence against him/her; I didn’t question his/her motives. I simply made an observation that the moral and spiritual context for transgenderism is, from a classically Christian standpoint, problematic.

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