Tag: truth

On
Bishop Robert Barron

First thoughts on Amoris Laetitia

On a spring day about five years ago, when I was rector of Mundelein Seminary, Cardinal Francis George spoke to the assembled student body.

He congratulated those proudly orthodox seminarians for their devotion to the dogmatic and moral truths proposed by the Church, but he also offered some pointed pastoral advice.

He said that it is insufficient simply to drop the truth on people and then smugly walk away. Rather, he insisted, you must accompany those you have instructed, committing yourself to helping them integrate the truth that you have shared.

 

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Have faith in the invisible realities

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.

Some say truth found only in science

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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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino

Building culture of mercy, accompaniment

Dear Friends,

Of late it seems that all roads — whether in Rome or at home — lead to one place, to one theme: mercy.

Just a week or two ago, many of us in the diocese were blessed to experience the presence of the major relics of St. Maria Goretti — the Church’s youngest canonized Saint and one of our greatest examples of mercy. If you do not know her story, I highly encourage you to learn about it.

The tour of St. Maria Goretti’s remains around the United States is part of a preparation for the Year of Mercy, which Pope Francis has announced and which will begin on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception — December 8.

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Church needs ‘dynamic’ fraternal correction

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,

Last week in my column I talked a lot about conscience, and I’d like to pick the theme back up, as our Gospel from this past Sunday touches on that very same message.

Conscience should always drive us toward perfection. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48),” is the parting exhortation from our Lord in this past Sunday’s Gospel. A correctly formed conscience never says to you, “How little can I do and still call myself a Catholic?”

Conscience doesn’t make us minimalistic

Conscience does not open the door to be a minimalist. It is not a tool for our saying, “How can I give myself permission to do the minimum?”

Conscience opens the door to perfection, to the heroic, to the maximum, because the well-formed conscience serves as that truth-seeking radar, by which we choose to follow the law of the Lord.

As I said, we very much need to spread the word about conscience, and the readings of this past Sunday really help us with one detail of how to do that.

If we’re going to spread the good word about conscience, that means we’re going to have to correct others, especially our brothers and sisters who are Catholic. We know that this is not easy.

What is easy, when we seek to inform the consciences of others, is to seem as if we are judging the person themselves. We have to avoid that judgment of the individual, but we must not hesitate to help them, by offering the truth about their actions.

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On
Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

BLT still on the menu: Bishop Morlino continues to badger us lovingly with the truth

On August 1, 2003, Bishop Robert C. Morlino was installed as the fourth Bishop of Madison during a Mass at St. Raphael Cathedral.

During his homily at that Mass, Bishop Morlino focused on the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. He called that image “one of the richest in the Gospel.”

Just as a shepherd feeds his flock, he noted that priests and bishops nourish people with spiritual food, most notably Christ himself in the Eucharist.

“To enter into that full communion, we have to listen to the word of truth and respond with a profession of faith that we are ready to be nourished by his Body and Blood in the Eucharist,” said Bishop Morlino in that 2003 homily.

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On
George Weigel

Converts and the symphony of truth

The Catholic Difference by George Weigel

Why do adults become Catholics? There are as many reasons for “converting” as there are converts.

Evelyn Waugh became a Catholic with, by his own admission, “little emotion but clear conviction”: this was the truth; one ought to adhere to it.

Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote that his journey into the Catholic Church began when, as an unbelieving Harvard undergraduate detached from his family’s staunch Presbyterianism, he noticed a leaf shimmering with raindrops while taking a walk along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.; such beauty could not be accidental, he thought — there must be a Creator.

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Baptism: Receiving gift of a clear conscience

Dear Friends,
Even after a few weeks in Rome, where I was able to have some tremendously fruitful meetings and plenty of prayer time with brother bishops and the Holy Father, at the tombs of the Apostles, I simply can’t tell you how happy I am to be back here in the diocese, where indeed I have been sent as a successor to the Apostles, to maintain unity with the Bishop of Rome.

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