Dear Friends,
Last week I was quite surprised to learn that the Wisconsin State Journal would be running a major, front-page article on the future of St. Paul’s University Catholic Center and their facilities. I had already scheduled a meeting with my brother priests from the Madison area, to take place this Thursday, April 15, for a discussion about the future of campus ministry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON — “In 1985, we plan to open a Christian Action Council Crisis Pregnancy Center. The Pregnancy Information Center, as it will be called, will provide Madison with a needed service and give Christians an opportunity to serve the Lord in our own community.”
MADISON — Pregnancy Helpline volunteers and staff find joy in creating new possibilities for people.
On March 20, in the early hours before dawn, with two of our faithful daughters at his side, my husband Bob entered into eternal life.
Within moments the remaining eight of us arrived at Countryside Home and joined our pastor, Father Jay, to offer a final prayer over a body that seemed chiseled out of marble. We were all enveloped in a spiritual embrace of peace that can only come after a long and difficult battle.
As the public becomes more concerned over the health of our environment, Catholics and Church leadership at multiple levels have engaged environmental issues.
In recent years, Catholics in the U.S. have participated in environmental advocacy through the efforts of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, Catholic Relief Services, and other groups.
During the preparation of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul VI proposed that the constitution’s discussion of papal primacy include the affirmation that the pope is “accountable to the Lord alone.”
This suggestion was rejected by the council’s Theological Commission, which wrote that “the Roman Pontiff is also bound to revelation itself, to the fundamental structure of the Church, to the sacraments, to the definitions of earlier councils, and other obligations too numerous to mention.”
Pope Paul quietly dropped his proposal.
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| Esta columna está dirigida a los fieles de la Diócesis de Madison. Cualquier circulación más amplia transgrede la intención del Obispo. |
En nombre de todos los sacerdotes de la Diócesis de Madison, y en nombre de todo mi personal, quiero ofrecerles mis sinceras y continuas oraciones en Pascua, en este tiempo de Resurrección.
Cada uno de ustedes cuenta con nuestras oraciones por su salud, seguridad, y por encima de todo, por una unión más profunda con Cristo. Les ruego, también, ofrecer sus oraciones de Pascua por nosotros, porque cada uno de nosotros y nuestra Iglesia ciertamente se basa en la necesidad de la oración. Quería compartir con ustedes unos cuantos pensamientos que ofrecí en la Vigilia Pascual este año.
Celebramos el Domingo de Pascua este año el 4 de abril, el día en el que Cristo fue resucitado de entre los muertos, el día en que cambió la historia para siempre. De alguna forma había esperado ver algunos grandes letreros y avisos en el Domingo de Pascua sobre cómo había sucedido la Resurrección de Jesucristo y cómo celebramos nuestra nueva vida el 4 de abril. ¡En vez de eso, todos los avisos me hablaban del lanzamiento del iPad el 3 de abril! Eso me dice –y les debe decir– algo significativo sobre la misión que Jesucristo pone en nuestras manos en esta Pascua y todos los días.
In the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum,” issued in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI declared that the Mass currently celebrated throughout the Catholic Church is the normal form of the Mass.
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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. |
On behalf of all the priests of the Diocese of Madison, and behalf of all my staff, I want to promise our sincere and continued Easter prayers, in this Resurrection season. Each one of you has our prayers for health, safety, and above all, deeper union with Christ. I beg you, too, to offer your Easter prayers for us, because each of us and our Church certainly always stand in need of prayer. I wanted to share with you here a few of the thoughts I offered at the Easter Vigil this year.
We celebrated Easter Sunday this year on April 4th — that day on which Christ was raised from the dead, the day which changed history forever. In some ways I had hoped to see some large signs and advertisements on Easter Sunday about how the Resurrection of Jesus Christ had happened and how we celebrated our new life on April 4. Instead, all the signs told me that April 3 was the launch of iPad! That tells me — and it should tell you — something significant about the mission that Jesus Christ places in our hands this Easter and everyday.
To the editor:
In 1917, Jacinta Marto, one of three seers of Fatima, saw in a vision “the Holy Father in a very big house, kneeling by a table, with his head buried in his hands, and he was weeping. Outside the house, there were many people. Some of them were throwing stones, others were cursinghim and using bad language.”
“Poor Holy Father” she said, “we must pray very much for him.”
