PRAIRIE DU CHIEN — Fr. Paul Fagan, CP, a native of the Diocese of Madison area, is celebrating 55 years of ordination to the priesthood.
Father Paul was ordained on June 11, 1960, at Maryknoll, N.Y. He was assigned to the Diocese of Shinyanga in what was then Tanganyika Territory, now Tanzania.
After 47 years as a missionary, he was incardinated into the Diocese of Shinyanga, in which he has served all of his 55 years as a priest.
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Conservation International has sponsored a series of videos that have become YouTube sensations, garnering millions of views.
They feature famous actors — Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Robert Redford, and others — voicing different aspects of the natural world, from the ocean, to the rain forest, to redwood trees. The most striking is the one that presents Mother Nature herself, given voice by Julia Roberts.
They all have more or less the same message, namely, that nature finally doesn’t give a fig for human beings, that it is far greater than we, and will outlast us. Here are some highlights from the Mother’s speech:
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Many of you have seen the appalling hidden-camera videos of two Planned Parenthood physicians bantering cheerfully with interlocutors posing as prospective buyers of the body parts of aborted infants.
While they slurp wine in elegant restaurants, the good doctors — both women — blandly talk about what price they would expect for providing valuable inner organs and how the skillful abortionists of Planned Parenthood know just how to murder babies so as not to damage the goods.
BENTON — The annual Fr. Samuel Mazzuchelli Memorial Mass and dinner will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, at St. Patrick Church, 237 E. Main St. The public is invited to attend the day’s events sponsored by the Father Mazzuchelli Assembly 1202 Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus, Lancaster.
Prior to the Mass, the public is invited to visit St. Augustine Church, New Diggings. Tours will be given from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The church was designed and built by Father Mazzuchelli in 1844 and is the only church that remains as he originally designed it. The Knights have restored the church.
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Many of you have seen the appalling hidden-camera videos of two Planned Parenthood physicians bantering cheerfully with interlocutors posing as prospective buyers of the body parts of aborted infants.
While they slurp wine in elegant restaurants, the good doctors — both women — blandly talk about what price they would expect for providing valuable inner organs and how the skillful abortionists of Planned Parenthood know just how to murder babies so as not to damage the goods.
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On August 15, we celebrate Mary’s Assumption into heaven.
In no. 966 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.”
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In 1986, after serving in a variety of capacities in the Jesuit province of Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio commenced doctoral studies in Germany.
The focus of his research was the great 20th century theologian and cultural critic Romano Guardini, who had been a key influence on, among many others, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger.
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In the wake of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and the pope’s recent speeches in Latin America, many supporters of the capitalist economy in the West might be forgiven for thinking that His Holiness has something against them.
Again and again, Pope Francis excoriates an economy based on materialism and greed, and with prophetic urgency, he speaks out against a new colonialism that exploits the labor of those in poorer countries.
In a speech in Bolivia, a country under the command of a socialist president, the pope seemed, almost in a Marxist vein, to be calling on the poor to seize power from the wealthy and take command of their own lives. What do we make of this?
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The famous Olympian Bruce Jenner made headlines recently when he told ABC News, “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman . . . That female side is part of me. That’s who I am.”
He has been receiving hormonal treatments to acquire feminine traits and is not yet sure whether he will undergo surgery to “complete” the process.
His dramatic case raises important ethical and medical concerns about properly understanding our identity and respecting the given order of our bodies.
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Recently, I had the privilege of spending four hours in the Sistine Chapel with my Word on Fire team. Toward the end of our filming, the director of the Vatican Museums, who had accompanied us throughout the process, asked whether I wanted to see the “room of tears.”
This is the little antechamber, just off of the Sistine Chapel, where the newly-elected pope changes into his white cassock. Understandably, tears flow in that room, once the poor man realizes the weight of his office.
Inside, there were documents and other memorabilia, but what got my attention was a row of albs, chasubles, and copes worn by various popes.
