Tag: china

On
Denise Schroeckenthaler

Pray for underground bishops in China

To the editor:

In the September 27 edition of the Catholic Herald, you printed an article entitled, “Vatican signs agreement with China on naming bishops.” However, the article failed to mention some relevant information.

Beijing will acknowledge the pope as head of the Catholic Church in China, yet they will have the final say in the appointment of bishops. The Vatican has agreed to recognize, and consecrate, seven illegitimate “bishops” (previously rejected by the Holy See), installed by the communist-controlled Catholic Patriotic Church. The Vatican has requested that two bishops from the persecuted underground church step down in order to make room instead for the “bishops” from the Patriotic Church.

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Julie Zenz, Principal, St. Mary School, Bloomington

Bloomington school exchanges teachers with Chinese school

Bloomington Teacher with Chinese Students
Miss Margie Duwe, a teacher at St. Mary School in Bloomington, is pictured with some of the students she taught at Shijiazhuang No. 40 Middle School in China as part of an exchange program. (Contributed photo)

BLOOMINGTON — People might forget many things about you, but they rarely forget how you make them feel.

St. Mary School in Bloomington — located in Grant County in the Diocese of Madison — has completed our first teaching exchange with Shijiazhuang No. 40 Middle School in China.

Exchange program

St. Mary’s teacher Miss Margie Duwe spent four weeks in China teaching science to almost 1,000 students a week, and Mr. Mark Ma, Mr. Peter Cao, and Miss Susan Wang taught science and reading at St. Mary’s.

The experience has had a profound effect on both teachers and students, who embraced culture beyond the classrooms.

Since 2012, St. Mary’s and Shijiazhuang No. 40 Middle School have been strengthened by an exchange program in which students and teachers live with host families.

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George Weigel

China’s population crisis: an evangelical opportunity?

State-sponsored cruelty has been a staple of the human condition for millennia.

But has there ever been a more wicked policy, with more disastrous social consequences, than the “one-child policy” China began to implement in the early 1980s ­ a state-decreed population-control measure that resulted in, among other horrors, untold tens of millions of coerced abortions?

In her new book, One Child (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), veteran China-watcher Mei Fong describes both the impact of the policy on the destruction of China’s traditional social fabric and its draconian effects on China’s medium- and long-term future.

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Julie Zenz, For the Catholic Herald

Bloomington students visit China

BLOOMINGTON — This summer, students from St. Mary School in Bloomington and others traveled to China as part of a school exchange with Shijiazhuang Middle School Number 40.

The goal of this program was to create unique friendships and positive connections with others and to bring a global experience to students in a positive setting.

First group to visit China

Laura Tolle and her daughters Anna and Carolyn, Margie Duwe, Katelyn Zenz, Mel Mergen, and Julie Zenz lived with families and traveled with students in China as the first group from St. Mary School to visit China.

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Mary C. Uhler

Birth of Baby Seven Billion: Is it cause for celebration or concern?

Editor's View by Mary C. Uhler

A baby born on October 30 in the Philippines has been welcomed as one of the world’s symbolic “seven billionth” babies.

The Associated Press admitted that with all the babies born in the world on that day, it is impossible to pinpoint the arrival of the actual Baby Seven Billion. But the United Nations chose to mark Filipino Danica May Camacho as the symbolic seventh billion child. The parents and the baby were met by top United Nations officials in the Philippines, who presented the child with a small cake.

The birth of any child should be a happy occasion. However, the birth of Baby Seven Billion is being looked at as a cause for celebration by some and a reason for concern and even fear by others.

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