On Thursday, April 5, Governor Walker signed about 50 bills into law, including three measures supported by the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC).
Category: State News
Legislature approves pro-life bills
In the closing days of the 2011-12 legislative session, the Wisconsin Assembly gave final approval to two bills that ensure access to health care without increasing support for abortion.
WCC helps defeat rent-to-own legislation
The Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) joined other pro-consumer groups to persuade legislators to reject a bill to exempt rent-to-own (RTO) businesses from key provisions of Wisconsin’s Consumer Act (WCA).
Revisions to sex education approved, awaits governor’s signature
On March 14, the State Assembly approved legislation to provide local districts more flexibility in teaching human growth and development classes. The bill also permits abstinence-based instruction.
Newly crowned Miss America is from Kenosha
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Miss Wisconsin, Laura Kaeppeler, talks to second-grade students at Blessed Sacrament School in Milwaukee Oct. 6, 2011. The 23-year-old Catholic was crowned Miss America 2012 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas Jan. 14. (CNS photo/Ernie Mastroianni ) |
MILWAUKEE (CNS) — All smiles, Susan Kaeppeler, fourth-grade teacher at Kenosha’s St. Joseph Academy’s lower campus, was greeted with the red-carpet treatment when she arrived to class Jan. 16 after a whirlwind weekend where she saw her oldest daughter, Laura, crowned Miss America.
The 23-year-old brunette, a Kenosha native, won the Miss America title at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas Jan. 14.
“Some of the parents decorated her classroom, and made some posters and put them up in the gym as the school day began,” Pauline McTernan, St. Joseph development director, said in a telephone interview with the Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Milwaukee Archdiocese.
“We rolled out a red carpet, presented her with a crown, bouquet of flowers, and balloons and led her to the gym as the school day began. The teachers all wore T-shirts that said, ‘I teach with Miss America’s Mom.’ It was so exciting!”
Particularly touching to McTernan was Susan’s impromptu speech as she reminded students what her daughter had said to them when she visited the school last October, as Miss Wisconsin, a title she won last June.
Catholic non-profit groups benefit from Packers’ success
GREEN BAY — Seminarians, Catholic schools, parish budgets, the homeless and hungry will all benefit when the Green Bay Packers take the field Sunday, Jan. 15, in a National Football League playoff game against the New York Giants.
Five hours before kickoff, hundreds of volunteers from all walks of life will begin descending on Lambeau for up to 12 hours of hard, and sometimes very cold work to assure that fans from both teams have food, comfort and plenty of souvenirs to take home.
“It’s a 12-hour day from the time you leave home until you get back home,” said Mike Bushman, who coordinates operations at a 22-man food booth on Lambeau Field’s fourth level for Knights of Columbus Council 5514 of Neenah.
Bishops ask Catholics to welcome immigrants, back reform
MADISON — Wisconsin’s Roman Catholic bishops are asking Catholics and others to reach out to immigrants and to back comprehensive immigration reform that does not unfairly discriminate against them in a pastoral letter to Wisconsin’s largest religious denomination.
The bishops released the letter, “Traveling Together in Hope,” on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas.
Tabernacle survives 1871 Peshtigo fire
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| Notre Dame Sr. Helen Plum, parish director at St. Mary Parish in Peshtigo, stands next to the tabernacle that was rescued from the Great Peshtigo Fire by Fr. John Peter Pernin in 1871. (Rick Evans | For The Compass) |
GREEN BAY — This year marks the 140th anniversary of a fire that killed 1,500 to 2,500 people and destroyed 2,400 square miles of forest and farm land in northeast Wisconsin. The fire left behind at least one miraculously spared relic that — if the slightly murky history is correct — can still be seen today.
Shrine linked with Rome; gain plenary indulgences
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, announced on July 31 that Pope Benedict XVI has affiliated the shrine in La Crosse to his Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome.
Bishop Donald J. Hying pledges service, leadership
MILWAUKEE — Bishop Donald J. Hying couldn’t help but compare the 100-degree temperatures on the day of his ordination as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wednesday, July 20, to the “40 below 0” (more accurately single digit) temperatures in Milwaukee on the day of Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki’s installation as archbishop of Milwaukee.
Perhaps, he reasoned in remarks after he was presented as the newly ordained bishop, “Archbishop Listecki is really cool” or maybe, “God wants me to sweat from the very beginning.”
The day was warm, acknowledged Archbishop Listecki in closing remarks at the nearly two hour and 15 minute afternoon Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, but it was “wonderfully warm, both in terms of temperatures, but also warm in terms of the heart.”
Archbishop Listecki, principal ordaining bishop, was joined by assisting ordaining bishops, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, and Milwaukee auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Sklba in ordaining Bishop Hying, 47, the seventh auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.