SULLIVAN — Kila and Scott Hagie are a young couple who were married at St. Mary Help of Christians Church on May 6, 2006, with Fr. Eric Nielsen officiating.
Their lives forever changed with the birth and death of their premature daughter. Father Nielsen buried Fiona Ailish in the parish cemetery months into their new marriage.
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Q This may have been asked before, but I need some advice on how to manage holiday gatherings with someone who has dementia.
My mother lives with my sister. Mom has Alzheimer’s disease and my sister wants the entire family, all 25 of us, to gather at her home for Christmas.
I think it will be too hard for mom to be around all of us at the same time. My sister thinks we might not have another Christmas with mom so I don’t know how far to push.
(From a son in Sun Prairie).
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After several days of animated debate over its official midterm report, the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family agreed on a final document more clearly grounded in traditional Catholic teaching. Yet the assembly failed to reach consensus on some controversial issues.
Dear Friends,
Just as the final documents of the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops were being voted upon and final messages released, I was blessed with the opportunity of meeting with our Diocesan Pastoral Council (DPC) this past weekend.
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Talk about good timing: we just watched the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family and this weekend we will observe Catholic Charities Sunday in the Diocese of Madison.
The bishops and Pope Francis — along with a number of married couples and other observers — spent two weeks in Rome discussing pastoral challenges facing the family in the context of evangelization. They talked openly about many issues involving families today.
In their final message at the conclusion of the synod, the bishops said that we must remember to practice charity by being near “to those who are last, marginalized, poor, lonely, sick, strangers, and families in crisis.”
They reminded us of the Lord’s words, “It is more blessed to give them to receive” (Acts 20:35). They mentioned that Christians should give gifts of goods, fellowship, love, and mercy and be witnesses “to the truth, to light, and to the meaning of life.”
To the editor:
In his article in the October 16 issue, Father Barron writes that unbelieving scientists don’t seem to know what we mean by “God.” He states that a universe of contingent entities requires a non-contingent source.
Some unbelievers assert that our universe and others derived from space time fluctuations that always existed. This debate, which has been raging for several years, is partly our fault because we leave the impression that God is a solitary individual who arbitrarily created the universe from nothing.
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According to Vatican-speak, a specially scheduled session of the Synod of Bishops is an “Extraordinary Synod,” meaning Not-an-Ordinary Synod, held every three years or so.
In the case of the recently-completed Extraordinary Synod of 2014, extraordinary things did happen, in the “Oh, wow!” sense of the word. And if this year’s Extraordinary Synod was a preview of the synod for which it was to set the agenda, i.e., the Ordinary Synod of 2015, that synod, too, promises to be, well, extraordinary.
How was the Extraordinary Synod of 2014 extraordinary? With apologies to the Bard, let me count the ways:
At my age, it is not too surprising to have a bad health day that keeps me home. But when it happens on Sunday and I must miss Mass, I find myself asking, “Why, God? Why today? Don’t you want me to go to Mass?”
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| Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, talks with Jeff and Alice Heinzen of Menomonie, Wis., as they leave the morning session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican October 13. The couple are auditors at the synod. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) |
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Catholic couples who ignore Church teaching on contraception “don’t know what they are missing,” said a U.S. couple invited to address the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family.
Alice and Jeff Heinzen, family life leaders in the Diocese of La Crosse, spoke at the synod October 7, urging efforts to find new ways to share its teaching about the beauty of family life.
Although the couple has practiced Natural Family Planning (NFP) for 27 years and taught NFP — Alice is a member of the NFP advisory board for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — they did not speak specifically about family planning in their presentation to the synod.
Dear Friends,
Last week I was blessed to be in Rome for the ordination for two of our men (Scott Emerson and Gabriel López-Betanzos) to the Order of Deacon in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was a wonderful event, and I was so pleased to experience it, with so many faithful from our parishes and some brother priests.
I know you’ll all join me in prayer for our two new deacons and the three we saw ordained this spring (Deacons Chahm Gahng, Christopher Gernetzke, and Tafadzwa Kushamba), as they make their way to priestly ordination this coming June 26!
