behavior – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

Second in a two-part series on a Pew Study about why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity. Part one looked at, first, the relationship between religion and science and, second, the dismissive “psychologizing” of beliefs. In this second part, Bishop Barron examines two more reasons young people offered in the study for “walking away from Christianity.” His analysis of the source of the problem, included in part one, is reprinted here in the first two paragraphs.

For the past 50 years or so, Christian thinkers have largely abandoned the art of apologetics and have failed (here I offer a j’accuse to many in the Catholic universities) to resource the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to hold off critics of the faith. I don’t blame the avatars of secularism for actively attempting to debunk Christianity; that’s their job, after all.

News

On October 31, 2013

Kevin Wondrash

Students learn positive behaviors in Cross Plains

CROSS PLAINS — St. Francis Xavier School students in all grades (K4 through eight) are taking part in a year-long, school-wide program focused on putting positive actions and behaviors into practice.

Each month teachers develop lesson plans and activities around a specific character trait and will create opportunities for students to be living models of Christ.

The program is being organized by second grade teacher Ms. Jennifer Eicher. Eicher explains that the goal behind the school-wide program is to create an environment where all students, faculty, staff, and parents are active participants in the growth and development of each child within school community.

Making Sense of Bioethics

On July 28, 2011May 20, 2021

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Sexual attractions and the call to chastity

People often surmise that same-sex attraction is inborn, and that homosexuals are “naturally gay” or “born that way.” They suppose that if God made them that way, then it must not be a sin to act on their sexual desires.

The possibility of a “gay gene” is sometimes offered as a further defense, suggesting that the condition, and its associated behavior, are inevitable and inescapable.

One commentator summarized it this way: “Asking someone to stop being homosexual would therefore be equivalent to asking an Asian person to stop being Asian or a left-handed person to stop being left-handed.”

Making Sense of Bioethics

On May 26, 2011May 20, 2021

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Natural Family Planning and the telos of sex

Married Catholics today often struggle to understand the moral difference between using contraceptives to avoid a pregnancy and using Natural Family Planning (NFP).

NFP relies on sexual abstinence during fertile periods in a woman’s cycle, as assessed by various indicators like cervical mucus or changes in body temperature.

NFP and the Catholic Church

To many, the Church’s prohibition of contraception seems to be at odds with its acceptance of NFP because in both cases, the couple’s intention is to avoid children. That intention, however, is not the problem, as long as there are, in the words of Pope Paul VI, “serious motives to space out births.”