|
 |
|
|
News Briefs:
Prayer service to conclude Madison's 40 Days for Life
MADISON -- Madison's 40 Days for Life vigil will conclude with a closing prayer service at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 4, at the vigil site, 3706 Orin Rd., outside the Planned Parenthood Clinic.
All are welcome to come to the prayer service or visit the site at any time, 24 hours a day, during the final week of the vigil.
Thousands of people throughout the country are praying for life on the doorstep of Planned Parenthood facilities at 89 different locations in 33 states. The vigils began on September 26 and conclude on November 4.
"This is the largest and longest simultaneous pro-life mobilization in American history," said David Bereit, national director of the campaign.
For more information on the Madison vigil, go to the Web site www.40daysforlife.com/madison
Rural Life issues forum
to be held in Belleville
BELLEVILLE -- Following the Saturday, Nov. 10, 8 p.m. Mass, at St. Mary of Lourdes Church, 221 Frederick St., diocesan Rural Life Representative Tom Nelson will be available for a conversation on issues of farm and parish.
Anyone interested in rural justice and rural community issues is invited to attend and share their thoughts. Coffee, cookies, and Catholic conversation will be served.
Nelson works out of the Office of Justice and Pastoral Outreach at the Bishop O'Connor Catholic Pastoral Center in Madison, but lives just outside Monticello, in beautiful Green County.
For more information, contact Tom Nelson at 608-821-3093 or e-mail him at tom.nelson@straphael.org
Mass marks birthday
of Fr. Mazzuchelli
SINSINAWA -- The public is invited to celebrate the birthday of Dominican Father Samuel Mazzuchelli with the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters Sunday, Nov. 4, at 10:30 a.m. Eucharist in Queen of the Rosary Chapel, Sinsinawa Mound.
Students of Mazzuchelli Catholic Middle School, Dubuque, Iowa, and their families will take part in the liturgy. "Tracing a Journey," a professional self-guided exhibit about Father Mazzuchelli's life, and the Mound gift and bookshop will be open from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Mound bread will also be on sale. A parking shuttle will be available.
Father Mazzuchelli, born in 1806, is known in the tri-state area for establishing more than 35 parish communities, designing and building at least 24 churches, and founding the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. He was declared "Venerable" by Pope John Paul II, the first step to sainthood.
HospiceCare overview
MADISON -- Chaplain Steve Zwettler of Hospice will present an overview of HospiceCare at St. Bernard Parish, 2438 Atwood Ave., Madison, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Zwettler will discuss the gift of HospiceCare for the dying and for their family members.
There will be discussion on spiritual as well as other end of life issues. In addition, he will provide information on the importance of advanced medical directives and the medical benefits provided by Medicare in relation to HospiceCare services.
There is no cost to attend. RSVP to the parish office at 608-249-9256.
Handling the holidays
MONROE -- For adults grieving the loss of a loved one, the holidays can be an especially challenging time of year. To help people get through the season, Monroe Clinic's Hospice is offering "Handling the Holidays."
The program will help participants: identify holiday concerns, explore depression as a part of grieving, develop practical strategies, discuss spiritual comfort, and create ways to remember loved ones. "Handling the Holidays" will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the St. Camillus Center, 2101 Sixth St. in Monroe.
Refreshments will be served at this free program. Register by calling 608-324-1230. Space is limited and early registration is encouraged.
Birth parent group
MADISON -- A Birth Parent Support Group will meet Tuesday, Nov. 13, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 5 Odana Ct. Sponsors are Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services.
This ongoing support group, held the second Tuesday of every month, is for people who have placed their child/ren for adoption. It is free, safe, and confidential.
For registration, contact Alice at 608-270-6635 or apearson@lsswis.org or Trish at 608-833-4800, ext. 109, or pregnancy@tds.net
Retreat: Explores
musical heritage of Sinsinawa Congregation
SINSINAWA -- A retreat will be held at Sinsinawa Mound that focuses on the musical heritage of the Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation. "Heritage Retreat: Music and Musicians of Sinsinawa," will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17.
For more than 150 years, Sinsinawa Dominican composers, performers, teachers, students, and associates have shared and participated in a unique musical charism fostered by their founder, Dominican Father Samuel Mazzuchelli. Experience, learn, listen, sing, and enjoy this cultural heritage under the leadership of Sr. Anita Smisek (Corona), assisted by other community musicians.
The registration deadline is Friday, Nov. 10; cost is $45. For more information, contact guest services at 608-748-4411, ext. 811, or visit www.sinsinawa.org
|
Nominate someone for "Profiles
from the pew"
To nominate someone to be featured in "Profiles from the pew," download a nomination form
 (PDF file, 269 KB).
"Profiles from the pew" runs in the Catholic Herald print edition
NOTE: The nomination form is a Portable Document Format file (PDF), which can be viewed using the freely available Adobe® Reader® software. Many computers already have this software and will automatically open the document when you click the nomination form link, above.
Adobe Reader is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.
|
|
|
Bella movie: Powerful and uplifting - and free!
-- Updated: 11/08/2007, 5:20 p.m. Central Time, to list both Point Cinema and Eastgate Cinemas as the Madison theaters where Bella will be opening on Nov. 9.
(See also front-page photo.)
MADISON -- Bella, the movie, interweaves the stories of a rising soccer superstar, a pregnant waitress, and his loving, but sometimes volatile, family. You can take your family and friends out to this great movie for free!
In real life, the star of the movie, Eduardo Verástegui, has been acclaimed as an international singer and television actor, yet he longed for something more. Bella is his answer as he uses his talents to raise the standard of offerings from Hollywood. He wanted to do a movie that had a positive message, that would use his God-given talents to bring a message of hope.
|
Related items:
|
|
Having already garnered international awards, this movie with a heart is gaining unprecedented grassroots support, including from the Diocese of Madison and Relevant Radio. Together, they are promoting attendance so that the movie will be shown in even more markets. To boost this effort, Relevant Radio is offering free tickets by going to www.relevantradio.com.
Because details with the distributor are still being worked out, keep checking the Web site until it is live for registrations.
Bella opened in major cities across the United States last week and is set to open in Madison on the weekend of November 9 at Point Cinema and Eastgate Cinemas (see list of showtimes).
The Bishop O'Connor Catholic Pastoral Center will be available to religious education, Confirmation, and youth groups for after-the-movie discussions, complete with popcorn and soda provided by the Office of Justice and Pastoral Outreach. Contact Susanna Herro, director, at Susanna.Herro@straphael.org or 608-821-3087 to make arrangements.
If you would like to see more quality movies, go to www.bellathemovie.com to see how you can spread the word.
Diocesan Leadership Days: Learning to be 'Guided by the Spirit'
By Kat Wagner
CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF
MADISON -- The Diocesan Leadership Days, held at the Bishop O'Connor Catholic Pastoral Center October 23 and 24, offered parish leaders an opportunity to gain skills for and a better understanding of the implementation of the Guided by the Spirit directives.
Two plenary talks were given, one by Fr. Dan Felton, the pastor of a merged parish in the Diocese of Green Bay, and the other by Bishop Robert C. Morlino.
Grit and grace of change
"I'm not here to share any great insight into change that you don't already know or that you haven't already experienced," said Father Felton during the plenary address on Tuesday morning. "In this room . . . in this Diocese of Madison there is a collective wisdom that draws us together in the Spirit that can really account for what's the grit and what's grace of the change in our lives."
|
Audio recordings of the keynote addresses and many breakout
sessions at the Diocesan Leadership Days are posted on the Diocese of Madison's Web site at www.madisondiocese.org under the "Guided by the Spirit" link. |
|
That's why we have Diocesan Leadership Days - to gather together and draw upon that experience, he said.
Father Felton is the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Manitowoc in the Diocese of Green Bay, a parish formed by the merger of six Manitowoc Catholic parishes in 2005 into one parish with three worship sites. He spoke less during his talk about the "nuts and bolts" of that experience than of the "bigger picture" involved.
There is a "grit and grace to change" he said.
For the grit, much like the sand that gets into your eyes when the wind blows, it's irritating, annoying, and our first reaction is to spit it out. There is a sense of brokenness, he said: broken dreams, promises, and relationships.
We often go back to "golden moments," treating them almost like a golden calf - we'll do anything not to change. But nothing gold in our parish can stay forever, Father Felton said.
There is also the grit of loss of memory, the worry that people will not remember the history, the grit of pain and suffering, and the grit of a loss of control.
"Especially when we're going through mergers," he said, "there is no map - we're creating the map. We're the pioneers of the map!"
And inevitably, death is going to be part of the change. "In Manitowoc we are grieving greatly, tremendously the death of what was - but we need to do that in order to bring forth new life and new hope," he said.
The second part of the story is a spirit of grace, Father Felton said.
"As we gather ourselves in this moment . . . we gather ourselves as people of the spirit," he said. "We know there's not only grit to the story of change, but we really do believe there's a grace that even abounds more when it comes to change. That's what we're trusting."
Trusting in the Spirit
During his plenary address on Wednesday morning, Bishop Robert C. Morlino talked about "Trusting in the Spirit: the Comforter, the Counselor, the Advocate."
There are all kinds of "spirits" out there - cars, airlines, the "spirit of Vatican II." And so to talk about being "Guided by the Spirit" means that we must have some idea, concretely, of what that is.
The first thing we have to think about, then, is what does that mean, and where do we find it?
The Holy Spirit is not our own thoughts and feelings that make us feel good, he said. The Holy Spirit is located in the Church.
"Trusting in the Spirit means trusting in the Church," the bishop said. "The Holy Spirit can never be separate from Jesus - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being - and the Holy Spirit can never be separated from the Church, which is his body.
"To trust in the Spirit is to accept the last line of the Creed: I believe the Church, one, holy, and apostolic," he said. "That's very concrete. That doesn't leave it to my private thoughts or feelings or revelations about the Holy Spirit."
Christ took the concrete act of love by being obedient even unto death on a cross. And so the engine that drives the Church is love - which takes the concrete form of obedience, he said.
The bishop promises to obey the pope. The priest promises to obey the bishop. Every deacon promises to obey the bishop. And the lay faithful make their contribution in loving obedience to the priest, the bishop, and the pope.
That's how the Church works, he said.
"If there's an absence of obedience, then the Church can't be the Church. And if the Church can't be the Church, then the Holy Spirit can't do his work," said Bishop Morlino. "He's the comforter, the counselor, the advocate."
If the Church is really the Church, the Holy Spirit comforts us through the Church. And as we look to change, we need to be comforted, he said, so we must be the Church.
We, as baptized and confirmed Catholics, have been involved in this planning process from the very beginning.
"This plan has been the counsel of the Holy Spirit, insofar as we are really the Church," Bishop Morlino said.
As we go forth into our implementation, he said, "We've got to have that humble spirit of obedience in a Church that is apostolic, and so one, holy, and Catholic."
Coverage of breakout sessions and homilies at the Diocesan Leadership Days are only in the print edition.
Auxiliary bishop named
for Milwaukee Archdiocese
Conventual Franciscan Fr. William P. Callahan appointed
By Cheri Mantz
MILWAUKEE CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF
ST. FRANCIS -- Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Conventual Franciscan William P. Callahan Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. He is currently the spiritual director at the Pontifical North American College, an American seminary in Rome. A native of Chicago, Bishop-elect Callahan, 57, was ordained a priest by Milwaukee Archbishop William E. Cousins in 1977. In Milwaukee, he served as associate pastor of the Basilica of St. Josaphat from 1977-1978, and then as rector and pastor of the Basilica of St. Josaphat from 1994-2005.
Bishop-elect William Callahan was introduced to archdiocesan staff at a 10 a.m. prayer service Oct. 30 at Saint Francis Seminary. During the prayer service, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan called him a "successful pastor at one of our most legendary parishes" in reference to his years of service as pastor and rector of the Basilica of St. Josaphat.
"Pope Benedict has chosen well," said the archbishop. "This is a boy from the upper Midwest. Although from the wrong side of the tracks - Chicago."
During the prayer service with diocesan staff, Bishop-elect Callahan shared the story of when he was asked to be Milwaukee's auxiliary bishop.
"My life took a dramatic change, obviously, a week ago yesterday," he told the crowd. He was taken into the cardinals' living area, so he said he knew something big was happening, and was told, "The Holy Father has decided to name you the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, what do you say to the Holy Father?
"What does one say," he said with a laugh. "First and foremost what shot through my head at that moment was the second sentence of the rule of St. Francis - 'Friar Francis promises obedience to the pope and his elected successors.' There was no doubt in my mind of my response to the Holy Father. It is with a great deal of respect and thanksgiving that I remember him and say 'thank you' to Pope Benedict XVI."
Bishop-elect Callahan remarked that his new role is a "homecoming" and said he is happy to serve Archbishop Dolan.
"Archbishop Dolan continues, for me, to be a preeminent leader of the church in the United States and someone I call a friend," he said.
"To conclude, I offer my complete and loyal fidelity to Archbishop Dolan, Bishop Sklba, Archbishop Weakland and to stress to see the importance of what Christ calls us to as members of his holy church," said Bishop-elect Callahan.
Following a meet and greet with diocesan staff, Archbishop Dolan introduced Bishop-elect Callahan to members of the local news media.
Conventual Franciscan Fr. William Callahan was asked what adjustments he foresees coming from his religious order to a diocesan auxiliary bishop.
"The internal aspects of my life will change by virtues of my vows and practical living," he said. "I will stay faithful and true to my vows of chastity and obedience and poverty and to remain simple in my life."
He described his religious order as stressing the importance of community life, work in urban, city settings and education ministries.
Archbishop Dolan remarked that the need for Bishop-elect Callahan to live in community will be fulfilled since he will live at Saint Francis Seminary.
"This will provide community and structure," said the archbishop.
The archbishop also applauded Bishop-elect Callahan's fund-raising work at the Basilica of St. Josaphat during his time as pastor, but stopped short of saying his gift for fundraising was the reason he was selected by the pope.
"I don't think those skills were in the pope's mind, but (Callahan) has major fund-raising skills, so yeah, that's going to be one of his duties," said Archbishop Dolan.
The archbishop said that when meeting with Pope John Paul II in October 2002, the late pontiff recommended a second auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
"But at that time I had only been here two months," said the archbishop.
Archbishop Dolan said that it wasn't until recently that he asked if he could ask Pope
Benedict XVI for another auxiliary bishop. When he was granted permission, the archbishop was also asked to make recommendations to the pope for this position. Without listing any other names he may have recommended, Archbishop Dolan simply said, "I was not surprised" at Bishop-elect Callahan being named auxiliary bishop.
Bishop-elect Callahan said he already has ideas for what he hopes to accomplish in Milwaukee.
"I expect to be responsive to the needs of the archdiocese as expressed by the archbishop," he said. "To be responsive to the ways the church asks me to be faithful, have a generous heart, and be open to the promptings of grace as it manifests and be confident that God is provident."
Bishop-elect Callahan will be installed Dec. 21 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
|
