Session wrap-up:
Ends some debates, suggests others to come

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

The term "March Madness" generally applies to high school and college basketball tournaments.

But at least in even numbered years, the term also describes the goings-on in the State Capitol as the legislature concludes its two-year regular session.

Like students before final exams, the lawmakers did the usual amount of "cramming" as they neared the end. In the sessions closing weeks, the Senate and Assembly enacted about 200 bills. This total accounts for over two-thirds of the total output of the last 15 months.

This year's bills

Some bills dealt with important and "high profile" concerns such as a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage, the tax-exempt status of elderly housing, parental choice in Milwaukee, the conscience rights of medical health care providers, sexual misconduct by clergy, and the Managed Forest Loan Program.

Others addressed less controversial, but important topics such as bonding requirements for city, village, and county officers, the housing of prisoners from border states in county jails, and the regulation of boxing contests.

The final days of the session also offered us a glimpse ahead to the 2005 legislative session.

For, while lawmakers passed bills right up to the very end of the last floor period, they were also introducing others.

Nearly all of these bills were introduced with no chance of passage and almost none received public hearings. But the bills are "on the record." As such they offer insights as to unmet priorities and future agendas of the state senators and representatives who hope to return in 2005.

Looking ahead

Among the dozens of such bills introduced during the last week of the session were the following:

• A proposal to provide alternatives to prosecution and incarceration of those convicted of non-violent drug offenses.

• A bill to provide health care under Wisconsin's "BadgerCare" program for low-income child care workers.

• A bill to grant the legal status of "civil unions" to relationships between persons of the same sex.

• A proposal to increase funding for local youth apprenticeship grants for programs targeted to train workers in the areas of health care and technology.

• A bill to modify regulation of the funeral industry.

Legislators were not the only ones to offer up new ideas. Governor Doyle proposed a series of changes to the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and linked it to other education reforms in Milwaukee.

Future priorities

It is not a given that all of these ideas and the others put forward at session's end will actually be offered again when the 2005 Legislature convenes. But they are likely to be talked about in the coming campaign as our elected leaders debate each other and talk to the citizens they represent as to what Wisconsin's future priorities should look like.

Despite the hectic pace, there was a method to the "madness" of the final weeks of the legislative session. And the work done in the run to the session finish line offers all of us much to think about as we assess our state's future direction.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

Agony in the Garden:
The place of special prayer

Fifth in a seven-part Lenten series.

		The Garden of Gethsemane  The Place of Transformation Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

Poet Theodore Roethke once wrote: "In a dark time, the edge is what we have." In a dark time we also have prayer.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, as he sweated the blood of loneliness and misunderstanding, Jesus dropped to his knees in prayer: "'Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Let this cup pass; yet not my will, but yours be done.' And coming back and finding his disciples asleep, he returned and prayed even more earnestly." From Jesus' prayer in the garden, we can learn how we, too, should pray in a dark time.

What are the key ingredients in Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane? Among other things, five elements might be highlighted:

• Childlike intimacy with, and reliance upon, God as a great, all-loving, all-powerful parent who can make everything OK:

Jesus begins his prayer with the words: "Abba, Father . . ." Abba is a word which, at the time, a child would use affectionately for his or her father, roughly equivalent to our words "Daddy" or "Papa." Obviously, it connotes a deep connection, an intimacy beyond even friendship, a certain daily familiarity. But it also implies more, namely, the simple, childlike hope that one's father (or mother) can fix what's wrong.

Some years ago, a mother described to me the horror of watching her teen-age son die of a gunshot wound. They were in their house when someone shot her son through a window.

The boy, stunned, muted, and dying from the gunshot, stumbled into the room in which she was sitting. He was unable to speak in words, but his eyes spoke the clear, simple plea of a child: "Mum, make this OK!" Of course she couldn't and he died in her arms.

Jesus' opening words in his prayer in Gethsemane say roughly the same thing - and prayer in a dark time invites us to make this kind of plea.

• Trust in God, despite overpowering darkness and chaos:

"All things are possible for you." Despite his aloneness, his betrayal, the hatred and madness around him, and the fact that darkness, not light, appears to be triumphing, Jesus prays in trust, trusting that the center still holds, trusting that despite every indication to the contrary, God is still solidly Lord of this universe.

In essence, his prayer is saying: "Father, I believe you are still master of this world, still more powerful than all of these forces, and your truth and light are still worth giving everything for, despite the fact that right now everything seems to belie that."

Jesus trusts God not just when truth seems to be prevailing, but also, and especially, when falsehood seems to be triumphing.

• Radical honesty and boldness in expressing fear:

"Let this cup pass." In Gethsemane, Jesus lifts mind and heart to God. He doesn't tell God what he thinks God wants to hear; nor does he tell God where he, Jesus, would like to be at in terms of maturity.

No, he tells God where in fact he really is at, namely, cringing, frightened, and reluctant before bitter duty. There's no denial or pretense in his prayer. His humanity expresses itself with childlike clarity. He cringes before duty and is not ashamed to express that to his Father.

Iris Murdoch once wrote: "A common soldier dies without fear, Jesus died afraid." His Gethsemane prayer reflects that.

• The willingness to give God the space within which to be God:

"Yet not my will, but yours be done." Despite everything in him that cringes before the implications of saying yes, Jesus still consents to give God the space within which to be God.

He accepts that God's bigger plan necessitates that sometimes real life, real blood, and real dreams (and in this case his own) have to be sacrificed in the short run. He accepts that there's no other way and, because there isn't, he surrenders to duty, pain, misunderstanding, and death, without demanding in turn that God keep everyone fully briefed and satisfied at each stage of the process. His prayer gives God a blank check, along with the time and space to fulfill his purposes, even if, for a time, that purpose is grossly misunderstood.

• Repetition, repeated prayer:

"He returned and prayed even more earnestly." Scripture promises that faith and prayer will move mountains, but it doesn't promise that they will move them immediately. Sometimes for prayer to be effective, it has to be prayed many times, over and over. Jesus does this in Gethsemane. Only after repeated efforts does an angel finally come and strengthen him.

St. Monica prayed for her wayward son, Augustine, for many years. Eventually he converted and became one of the great saints in history. Gethsemane teaches us this lesson: prayer needs to be repeated.

C.S. Lewis once said that "the harshness of God is kinder than the softness of man, and God's compulsion is our liberation." The prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, the model for all prayer in a dark time, illustrates that great truth.

Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher, and award-winning author of several books on spirituality. He currently serves in Toronto and Rome as the general councilor for Canada for his religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Mission stories: People bring God's love

		Propagation  of the Faith  Msgr. Delbert  Schmelzer

"Our mother was a picture of sorrow." This is how Sudha described the time after her father abandoned their family. Their mother, too sick to care for them, watched helplessly - filled with profound sadness - as her little ones were forced to live on the streets in their native India.

This image, especially during Lent, may call to mind the face of Mary, weeping at the foot of the cross of her son. We can hear the cry of our Lord on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

"Our condition was miserable," says Sudha. "We were left orphans, crying on the road."

God does not abandon us

But just as in our own darkness - maybe as we cope with illness and death, the loss of a job, or just a feeling that all hope is gone - there comes the realization that God did not abandon his beloved son, but raised his from death to glory.

God does not abandon us - and he did not abandon Sudha and her two sisters.

"God sent Sister to pick us up from the road," says Sudha. Sister Anna took the three little girls to her boarding school.

Reflect Christ's love

"Our doors are always open to all in distress, all who feel alone and without hope," explains Sister Anna, adding, "We want our lives to reflect to all the love of Christ."

Says Sudha: "We experience love, care, and warmth from the Sisters. We feel wanted. They are the 'other Christ' in our lives. Our sorrows have vanished and the love of Jesus has transformed us. Each of us here is treated as someone so precious."

Often, God uses people as his "instruments." In the missions, there are numerous examples of just that - stories of men and women who, with Christ's love, are transforming the sadness and suffering of a "Good Friday" into the joy and hope of Easter morning.

Sisters help the poor

In Jimma-Bonga, Ethiopia, in East Africa, the people are especially poor and have suffered almost two decades of persecution under the former government. In one area there, now on the road to recovery, the Daughters of Charity are engaged in health care, education, and social works.

One of the many activities of the Sisters is a feeding program for malnourished children. "They do marvels," writes a priest serving there. "The children are transformed within days. You can see them playing and running about."

Hope for refugees

In the neighboring country of Sudan, a decade-long civil war had brought about two million refugees into the capital city of Khartoum. Several years ago, Khartoum's archbishop, Gabriel Zubeir Wako, says many of them were forced by the government to move out into the desert.

"We did all we could to obtain permission to visit them," he explains. Indeed, one priest disguised himself as a refugee in order to enter a camp where he stayed for years with the people.

"Our priests must be beacons of light in the dark," the archbishop said. "Their vocation, lived with tenacity, love, and dedication, is essential for the church to become a sign of hope."

Efforts in Mongolia

Resurrection news comes from the other mission areas as well. The church renewed her mission in Mongolia in the summer of 1992 with the arrival of a few missionary priests of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM).

Presently there are some 20 Catholic missionaries working in that Asian nation in a number of works: center for street children, English language courses, vocation training center, prison and hospital chaplaincy, and assistance to physically handicapped persons.

Today in Mongolia, there are 200 more converts and a large group preparing to enter the church. One young person from Mongolia who had been in Rome for catechetical studies said: "When I return to my country, I will be able to explain the faith to all those people who are anxious to know about Christ. The important thing is that people meet Christ in the those of us already in the church, especially the missionaries."

You can help

This Lent, the Propagation of the Faith appeals for help for the church in India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mongolia, and throughout the missions, so that those serving there can continue to be instruments of hope and the means by which others meet Christ - and are transformed by his message and his love.

Your sacrifice this Lent - perhaps $40, $1 for each day of Lent - will support the daily work of the church in mission dioceses, for the education and support of seminarians, religious novices and lay catechists, for the building of church-related facilities, for the support of religious communities, and, when needed, for disaster and emergency help.

All who are baptized are missionaries through prayer - a prayer that all in our mission family may come to know the transforming love of Jesus.

Msgr. Delbert Schmelzer is director of the Propagation of the Faith for the Diocese of Madison. Contributions to the Propagation of the Faith may be sent to: P.O. Box 44983, Madison, WI 53744-4983.

Who killed Jesus?
Christians, Jews continue dialogue

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

During Pope John Paul II's Holy Land pilgrimage in 2000, I had breakfast in Jerusalem with an immensely learned and kindly rabbi, an American who had moved to Israel and was the friend of an NBC colleague.

The rabbi, author of a beautiful Jewish defense of natural family planning, admired the pope greatly and asked what I thought John Paul had in mind for the next phase of Catholic-Jewish relations.

Jews in the Gospels

I said that the pope was grateful for the achievements of the post-Vatican II period, which had cleared out the accumulated rubbish of centuries, and now wanted to move the conversation to a new, theological level.

The rabbi seemed uncomfortable. I asked whether I had just heard alarm bells going off in his mind; he smiled and said that I had. Why, I asked. Because, he replied, the kind of theologically enriched dialogue John Paul II envisioned was impossible. When I asked why that was the case, he replied, without rancor, "Because your sacred text is anti-Semitic."

The obvious next question was what that meant, and the rabbi, again without rancor, cited the Gospel of John and its references to "the Jews" in their confrontation with Jesus.

I replied that contemporary biblical scholarship had taught us that parts of the Gospel accounts were formulated in the polemical context of a bitter family quarrel, a deep and passionate disagreement that eventually led to the "parting of the ways" between what became Christianity and what became rabbinic Judaism.

Moreover, I suggested, the phrase "the Jews" in John's Gospel couldn't be read as if this were the minutes of a 1928 blackballing in an upscale New York men's club.

The rabbi seemed struck by this way of putting it, but then said that, while he accepted what I just reported, surely this was not the way the majority of Catholics read the New Testament. I assured him that, when the people of my parish heard "the Jews" during the Good Friday liturgy, they weren't hearing what he feared they heard. The rabbi seemed intrigued, if not completely persuaded, and the conversation moved on to other matters.

Historical fact

I've thought about this exchange a lot recently, because some of the more intemperate reactions to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ suggest that my Jerusalem interlocutor's fears were not idiosyncratic. Were I to meet the Jerusalem rabbi again, I'd suggest that he - and indeed everyone who shares his fears - take the trouble to read a small book by the Anglican biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus.

In The Challenge of Jesus, Wright explains that Jesus conducted his ministry at a time of greatly heightened messianic expectation in the Roman-occupied Holy Land. The expectation was not of an imminent end of the world, but of a liberation of the Jewish people from their bondage. Some expected this liberation to come through a purified Temple cult; others, through a rigorous observance of the Mosaic law.

Jesus' proclamation of a different kind of liberation - one that was breaking into history right now through his message, his gathering of disciples, his distinctive way of living Israel's faith, and, ultimately, himself - was a profoundly disturbing challenge to some among his people.

To recognize that Jesus, a Jew, was perceived as a threat, and in some instances a mortal threat, by some of his people is not to indulge in anti-Semitism; it's to recognize historical fact.

Sinfulness of all

The settled teaching of the Catholic Church - which does not date from the Second Vatican Council but was vigorously expressed by, among others, the 16th century Council of Trent - is that the sinfulness of all humanity was the cause of the death of Christ.

Vatican II made a related, if more specific, point by insisting that the Jewish people could not be held corporately responsible for the death of Christ; that some Christians had held this was a defect of their faith, not an expression of core Christian conviction.

An extraordinary number of people are talking about the meaning of the death of Jesus of Nazareth these days. Jews and Christians alike might read Dr. Wright's book as a primer for continuing the conversation in a way that advances, rather than retards, the Jewish-Christian dialogue.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.