Tag: religious

On
Cathy Lins, For the Catholic Herald

Nora Durst receives the Jack McBride Leadership in Ministry Award

MADISON — At 90 years, Nora Durst is still going strong in her service to the Church.

She received the Jack McBride Leadership in Ministry Award on September 26. The Madison Diocese Religious Educator’s Organization (MDREO) recognized her for her service at their recent Catechetical Convocation at the Bishop O’Connor Center.

Sharing her faith

For over 60 years, Durst has been involved in faith formation, and a beautiful witness to others in sharing her Catholic faith. When asked about her work for the Church, she replied, “I did what I saw needed to be done.” And that has included a variety of roles and tasks over the years.

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Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Religious freedom on the Fourth of July

Dear Friends,
As I write this column, we are coming quickly upon the Fourth of July, when we as a nation celebrate our independence and freedom. It is this freedom which has provided tremendous room for our flourishing as a human race and as a nation, but it is a delicate freedom, built upon the presupposition that we as a nation will choose to exercise our freedom in a way that moves forward toward what is best.

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Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

The present and future of teaching the faith

MADISON — With another school year coming to a close, educators in the Diocese of Madison are taking a look at the results of their teaching this year, and looking ahead to build on and improve their students’ learning.

This school year was the first time the Diocese of Madison used the National Catholic Educational Association’s Assessment for Catechesis/Religious Education (ACRE) to assess how curriculum is aligned with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and how to improve programs year-by-year. The ACRE is used in 133 dioceses across the country.

Last year, Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison requested all parish catechetical programs join Catholic schools in administering the ACRE.

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On
George Weigel

It’s not just an issue in Pakistan and China

The Catholic Difference by George Weigel

Thirty-some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on religious freedom issues: which meant, in those simpler days, trying to pry Lithuanian priests and nuns out of Perm Camp 36 and other GULAG islands.

Had you told me in 1982 that one of my “clients,” the Jesuit Sigitas Tamkevicius, would be archbishop of Kaunas in a free Lithuania in 2012, I would have thought you a bit optimistic.

If you had also told me, back then, that there would eventually be serious religious freedom problems in the United States, I would have thought you a bit mad.

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On
Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.

President’s ‘compromise’ still infringes upon religious liberty

When President Obama mandated that religiously-based organizations violate core tenets of their faith, Americans were rightly outraged.

The president then announced an “accommodation” policy to these organizations, but the so-called compromise is not a compromise at all because it does not take away the mandate that infringes upon religious liberty.

On January 20, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, affirmed a rule that requires church-affiliated hospitals, agencies, and universities to provide contraception and sterilization in the health insurance for their employees.

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Tom Grenchik

The high cost of conscience

At the end of the liturgical year, the Mass readings tell dramatic stories from the Books of Maccabees of simple folks standing courageously for their faith in the face of torture and death. Their exemplary witness can strengthen us as we defend our conscience rights and religious liberty which are under attack today.

In second century B.C., a conquering king was intent on suppressing Judaism in Palestine. He issued a decree that his whole kingdom should all be one people, each abandoning his particular customs and religious laws and observances. Whoever refused to comply would be killed.

Though large numbers did comply, we’re told that many in Israel “preferred to die rather than be defiled with unclean food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die. Terrible affliction was upon Israel” (Maccabees 1:63).

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George Weigel

The cardinal Down Under

The Catholic Difference by George Weigel

In the Baltimore of the 1960s, my canny pastor devised a neat scheme for getting “Father Visitor” (as the confessional doors read) to fill in during the summer for his vacationing curates: bring over newly-ordained Australians from their studies in Rome.

There were no language issues (save for those of, er, accent); by the standards of student priests fresh from the Urban College of Propaganda Fidei, the young Aussies were recompensed handsomely and got to see something of the United States; it was win-win, all around.

Thus in the summer of 1967 I met Fr. George Pell of Ballarat, who, with the oils of ordination still wet on his forehead, spent several months at my parish before embarking on doctoral studies at Oxford.

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