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Having just returned from a week covering Pope Francis’ triumphant journey to the United States, I can confidently tell you that the news media are in love with the Vicar of Christ.
Time and again, commentators, pundits, anchorpersons, and editorialists opined that Pope Francis is the bomb.
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During the pope’s visit to America, I had the privilege of commenting for NBC News and for MSNBC.
Twice I was on for extended periods with Brian Williams, the former anchor for NBC Nightly News, and twice with Chris Matthews, the host of Hardball. I must say that both men are very good at what they do, namely, keeping a conversation going among several different people with varying points of view and assuring that things stay sufficiently lively and interesting.
The Squires of […]
WATERLOO — Fr. Jorge Miramontes, pastor of Holy Family Parish, is leading a Spiritual Warfare Series called, “Angels and Demons.” It is being held at the school cafeteria, 387 S. Monroe St., on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. The series began Sept. 29 and continues to Nov. 3.
The program is for anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge about angels and demons and understand how to engage in ongoing spiritual battle.
MADISON — A mid-point prayer vigil for 40 Days for Life — the annual campaign of prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil to end abortion — will be held Monday, Oct. 12, at 11:30 a.m. on the sidewalk outside of Planned Parenthood, 3706 Orin Rd., Madison.
Fr. Scott Jablonski, parochial vicar at St. Henry and St. Bernard Parishes in Watertown, will lead the vigil. Immediately following the vigil, Vigil for Life will host its second Defund Planned Parenthood rally.
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Pablo Casals, the great cellist and conductor, gazed at a baby and exclaimed, “You are unique. In the millions of years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. And look at your body; what a wonder it is! Your exquisite legs, your arms, your cunning little fingers. You may become another Shakespeare, Michelangelo, or Beethoven.”
St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, whose feast we celebrated on October 1, believed that people of her time feared God too much. She couldn’t understand how anyone could fear God, who came to us as a tiny helpless baby.
And yet, today there seem to be some who fear babies more than God.
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I had the extraordinary privilege of following the pope’s pilgrimage at very close quarters. I had this access both as a bishop and as a commentator for NBC News.
It was thrilling indeed to witness just how rapturously the American people received the pope and how affected the Holy Father was by this reception. Many images stay vividly in my mind: the pope kissing the forehead of the 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, the rabbi and imam praying together at the September 11th memorial, a little boy from a New York Catholic school showing the pope how to maneuver his way around a Smart Board.
PRINCETON — Pastor Fr. Dale Grubba is planning a Hawaiian shirt/apparel weekend October 3 and 4 to go with the annual St. John Catholic School Gala. Parishioners and visitors are invited to wear Hawaiian apparel to Masses at St. James Church in Neshkoro and St. John Church in Princeton.
The Gala takes place on Saturday, Oct. 3, in St John Catholic School gym, 125 Church St. Dinner reservations may be made by contacting Alyssa Cattanach at 920-295-4275 or Mary Soda at 920-295-3078.
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Every third summer, the Catholic lectionary provides a series of readings for Sunday Mass from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. This is the magnificently crafted chapter in which the evangelist’s Eucharistic theology is most fully presented.
It is a curiosity of John’s Gospel that the Last Supper scene includes no “institution narrative,” which is to say, the account of what Jesus did with the bread and cup the night before he died.
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Recently, Stephen Colbert gave an interview in which the depth of his Catholic faith was on pretty clear display.
Discussing the trauma that he experienced as a young man — the deaths of his father and two of his brothers in a plane crash — he told the interviewer how, through the ministrations of his mother, he had learned not only to accept what had happened but actually to rejoice in it: “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10; that was quite an explosion . . . It’s that I love the thing that I wish most had not happened.”
