Tag: cardinal

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Bishop Robert Barron

Silence and the meaning of the Mass

Robert Cardinal Sarah’s recent book The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise explores a number of themes both theological and spiritual, all centering around the unhappy role that noise has come to play in our culture and more specifically in the Church.

His observations are most trenchant in regard to the liturgy, which should come as no great surprise, given his role as head of the Vatican Congregation devoted to liturgy and sacraments. As I read the sections of his book dealing with the importance of silence during Mass, I often found myself nodding vigorously.

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Kevin Wondrash

Andrew Showers ordained transitional deacon at St. Peter’s Basilica

ROME — Andrew Showers, a seminarian from the Diocese of Madison, was one of 30 seminarians from the Pontifical North American College in Rome who were ordained to the transitional diaconate during a celebration of the Eucharist on Thursday, Sept. 29.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM. Cap., archbishop of Boston, was the ordaining prelate at the Ordination Mass, celebrated at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter, in the Papal Basilica of St. Peter, in the Vatican.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Daniel Berrigan and nonviolence

Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, passed away April 30 at the age of 94. Though many younger Catholics might not remember him, Father Berrigan was one of the most provocative and controversial religious figures of his time.

Standing in the tradition of principled non-violence proposed by Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and others, Berrigan led the charge against America’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict and its on-going participation in the Cold War and the nuclear arms race.

He was most famous, of course, for his leadership of the “Catonsville Nine,” a group of protestors who, in the spring of 1968, broke into a building and burned draft records with homemade napalm. To say that he was, during that tumultuous time in American history, a polarizing figure would be an understatement.

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Fr. Robert Barron

Cardinal George and Catholicism

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

The other principal sign of the exhaustion of the liberal project is its hyper-stress on freedom as self-assertion and self-definition.

In Cardinal Francis George’s words, “The cultural fault line lies in a willingness to sacrifice even the Gospel truth in order to safeguard personal freedom construed as choice.”

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Fr. Robert Barron

Thoughts on Cardinal George

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

The one who would proclaim the Gospel in the contemporary American setting must appreciate that the American culture is sown liberally with semina verbi (seeds of the Word).

The first of these, in Cardinal Francis George’s judgment, is the modern sense of freedom and its accompanying rights.

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Fr. Robert Barron

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.

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Kevin Wondrash

Pilgrimage to shrine in La Crosse offered

LA CROSSE — The Servants of Our Lady of Guadalupe wish to invite all Catholics to make a pilgrimage on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse.

The pilgrimage will also include a special prayer vigil remembering the victims of abortion at 10:30 a.m. outside the Memorial to the Unborn at the shrine. It will also be coordinating events with the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and concluding with a pro-life prayer vigil at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, where abortions are performed.

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Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

Teens from four parishes come together to experience ‘virtue’ in Middleton

MIDDLETON — There’s a welcome sight once a week at the 8:15 a.m. daily Mass at St. Bernard Church in Middleton.

About 15 to 20 Middleton High School students take advantage of a late-start day to go to Mass and have breakfast together.

It’s one of many activities in the Cardinal Virtue youth apostolate for high school students in the Middleton area. It’s a joint effort by four parishes: St. Bernard in Middleton, St. Francis Xavier in Cross Plains, St. Peter in Ashton, and St. Martin of Tours in Martinsville.

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Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

Bishop Morlino comments on Pope Francis

MADISON — Less than an hour after Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was announced as the new pope, taking the name Francis, Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison addressed reporters on the selection.

Bishop Morlino recalled being familiar with Cardinal Bergoglio from eight years ago, when Pope Benedict XVI was elected pope. Bergoglio was reportedly in heavy consideration to replace Pope John Paul II. Bishop Morlino said the new pope can be a leader who could “raise the Church out of mediocrity” around like world like he did in his native Argentina.

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