Columns – Page 90 – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) is recognized as the “mother of Mother’s Day.” She never married or had children, but as a child she heard her mother wish that there was a day to honor all mothers, living and dead.

She started the custom of wearing carnations on Mother’s Day. White carnations were her mother’s favorite flower because they symbolized a mother’s pure love. Today, red and pink carnations are given to honor a living mother and white carnations to honor a deceased mother.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe, shocked by the Civil War’s bloodshed, organized a mother’s day for peace. This prepared the way for today’s Mother’s Day.

Making a Difference

On April 30, 2015

Tony Magliano

Dialogue: an essential ingredient for peaceful relationships

According to the New York Times, during a White House luncheon in 1954 Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw [talk-talk] always is better than to war-war.”

While clearly not a pacifist, the United Kingdom’s World War II prime minister had seen upfront the absolute horror of war and became convinced that tirelessly striving to resolve disputes through respectful dialogue was always preferable to war.

A lion of the American Church

First in a series of reflections by Fr. Robert Barron on the life of Cardinal Francis George.

Cardinal Francis George, who died April 17 at the age of 78, was obviously a man of enormous accomplishment and influence.

He was a cardinal of the Roman Church, a past president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the archbishop of one of the largest and most complicated archdioceses in the world, and the intellectual leader of the American Church.

A number of American bishops have told me that when Cardinal George spoke at the bishops’ meetings, the entire room would fall silent and everyone would listen.

Undoing a chemical abortion

In 1978, Charles E. Rice, a former professor of law at Notre Dame Law School made this prediction in his book Beyond Abortion: The Theory and Practice:

“The abortion of the future will be by pill, suppository, or some other do-it-yourself method. At that point the killing of a baby will be wholly elective and private. We have, finally, caught up with the pagan Romans who endowed the father, the pater familias, with the right to kill his child at his discretion. We give that right to the mother. But it is all the same to the victim.”

Senior bullying and taking action to prevent it

Q After much debate and even some coercing, my mother who is in her late 70s moved to a senior apartment complex.

We were all so relieved. We thought that she would be happy, make new friends, have more opportunities for social connections, and in general be able to relax and enjoy things without the stress of home ownership and all of the upkeep.

I think we may have made a huge mistake.

Word on Fire

On April 23, 2015

Fr. Robert Barron

Problem of Catholics leaving Church

A survey by William J. Byron and Charles Zech appeared in America magazine. It was conducted at the request of David O’Connell, the bishop of Trenton, and its focus was very simple: it endeavored to discover why Catholics have left the Church.

No one denies that a rather substantive number of Catholics have taken their leave during the past 20 years, and Byron and Zech wanted to find out why. They did so in the most direct way possible: they asked those who had quit.

Startling news of the resurrection

Just a few weeks before the most significant Christian holy day of the year, British Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on an evangelical radio program, articulated what, for him, is the meaning of Easter.

He explained that the central message of Easter is “kindness, compassion, hard work, and responsibility.” I’m for all of those virtues, but so, I would venture to guess, is any decent person from any background, religious or non-religious. Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, fair-minded agnostics, and atheists would all subscribe to that rather abstract and harmless description of the significance of Easter.

In a sense, we shouldn’t blame the prime minister for his characterization, for the Christian Churches in general, but especially the Anglican Church, have not distinguished themselves for the crispness of their doctrinal formulations.

But if that’s all Easter is about, not to put too fine a point on it, the jig is up.

Let us make every day an Earth Day

On clear mornings from my apartment window which faces Platteville’s Mound, I enjoy watching the morning sun, like a huge orange-red host, rise majestically from earth’s chalice, inspiring me to offer a new day to God.

Beautiful sunrises deepen my respect for God’s gift of creation. Celebrating Earth Day on April 22 reminds me of my responsibility to care for this gift.

Adaptation and renewal of Religious Life: Special gifts of the Holy Spirit

Editor’s note: During this Year of Consecrated Life, this is the third in a series based on the Second Vatican Council’s document, Perfectae Caritatis (Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life) written by Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, former abbot primate of the Benedictine order who now resides in Madison.

The decree of the Second Vatican Council on which these reflections are based speaks in the very first paragraph about special gifts of the Holy Spirit which have been imparted to the Church.

The purpose of these gifts is the building up of the Church in the world, and for manifesting God’s own kind of Life in the world.