To the editor:
As the state opens up, and I look around seeing bigger gatherings, I am tempted to join in. Staying physically apart is difficult even when the science is there to tell me it is important. It’s human nature that I don’t like someone telling me what to do, especially if it’s extra work in a difficult situation.
In his speech to Catholic health care professionals and gynecologists on September 20, 2013, Pope Francis said, “Every child who is condemned unjustly to being aborted bears the face of Christ, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.
Being pro-life is not in opposition to science, as some people may think. It is quite the opposite, in fact.
That’s what organizers of the annual March for Life being held in Washington, D.C., assert on their website (https://marchforlife.org) in discussing the theme of this year’s event, “Unique from Day One.”
MADISON — Edgewood College will welcome young minds to its annual Family Science Night.
This community event features numerous hands-on science exploration stations where curious people of all ages can dig into science discovery and phenomenon.
There is no charge, and all are invited to attend from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, in the Sonderegger Science Center, 1000 Edgewood College Dr.
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First in a two-part series on a Pew Study about why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity.
After perusing the latest Pew Study on why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity, I confess that I just sighed in exasperation. I don’t doubt for a moment the sincerity of those who responded to the survey, but the reasons they offer for abandoning Christianity are just so uncompelling.
That is to say, any theologian, apologist, or evangelist worth his salt should be able easily to answer them. And this led me (hence the sigh) to the conclusion that “we have met the enemy and it is us.”
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Arguments in favor of research on human embryos typically play off our unfamiliarity with the way that we ourselves once appeared and existed as embryos.
Humans in their tiniest stages are indeed unfamiliar to us, and they hardly look anything like “one of us.” Yet the undeniable conclusion, that every one of us was once an embryo, remains an indisputable scientific dogma, causing a “fingernails on the chalkboard” phenomenon for researchers every time they choose to experiment on embryos or destroy them for research.
To enable scientists to get beyond the knowledge that they’re experimenting on or destroying fellow humans, clever stratagems and justifications have had to be devised.
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Reliable sources have informed me that for the millennial generation, Bill Nye is a figure of great importance, due to his widely-watched program from the 1990s called Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Evidently, he taught a large swath of American youth the fundamentals of experimental science and became for them a sort of paragon of reason. Well, I’ll take their word for it.
But judging from a recent video in which Bill Nye discussed the relation between science and philosophy, I can only tell you that he sure is not the “philosophy guy.”
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I experienced a miracle! A few days ago, I held in my arms my first grandbaby — newly born Faith Annmarie.
Thank God she’s healthy and perfectly formed. And as I was looking at her, I reflected how wonderfully she is made: arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, as well as what I couldn’t see but was just as real — hundreds of different tissues, dozens of organs including the remarkable brain, and trillions of cells.
And then I reflected on her divinely infused eternal soul.
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
This past weekend we celebrated our Second Sunday of Easter — Divine Mercy Sunday — and the readings point in a particular way to the way we as a Christian people are called to respond, when acting simply in faith.
In the Gospel, we saw our Lord appear in His resurrected body, and we heard him speak to Thomas and the Apostles saying, “Blessed are they who have not seen but have believed (Jn 20:29).” These are words which are terribly important for our country and for our culture and for our day and age.
Our country and our culture and our day and age have tried to convince us that the only truth is to be found in science, that is, seeing what is visible by some method of physical observation, by some scientific method. If there is some kind of physical seeing possible, then we have truth. I see it with my own eyes!
Our strides in science are wonderful and our knowledge impressive, but what does Jesus say to us? “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The Gospel tells us that knowledge by grace, knowledge from God’s point of view, gives us far more certainty than science, which is limited to picturing how things go in the physical world. We continue to have a greater and greater understanding of how things work in our physical world, but there is far more to understand.
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Ridley Scott’s The Martian is a splendidly told tale of survival and pluck, reminiscent of the novel Robinson Crusoe and the films Life of Pi and Castaway.
In this case, the hero is Mark Watney, an astronaut on a mission to Mars who is left behind by his crewmates when he is presumed dead after being lost during a devastating storm.
