Month: June 2015

On
Mary Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Jeff Allen is retiring after 40 years spent in Catholic education

Principal Jeff Allen “photobombs” a picture of some students at St. Bernard School in Watertown at the start of the 2014 to 2015 school year. It was the first day of his last year as principal at St. Bernard School, where he has served as principal for 34 years. (Photo by Maria Gracia)

WATERTOWN — You might have seen him doing playground duty . . . or dressed as the Cookie Monster . . . or directing a musical production . . . or working with the Camera Club.

As a Catholic school principal, Jeff Allen hasn’t sat in his office all day. “I spend a lot of time with kids,” said Allen in an interview as he retires from 40 years spent in Catholic education.

For the past 34 years, he has been principal at St. Bernard School in Watertown. Prior to that, he taught at St. Coletta School in Jefferson for six years.

A retirement party will be held on Sunday, June 7, from 12 noon to 3 p.m. in the St. Bernard School gymnasium, 111 S. Montgomery St. All are invited to attend and wish Allen well as he begins a new phase of his life.

Much of Allen’s life has been dedicated to Catholic education. The oldest of seven children born to Shirley and Don Allen, Jeff Allen attended St. Agnes Grade School in Butler.

He graduated from Brookfield East High School and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he majored in special education.

Started at St. Coletta

After graduation, he started teaching at St. Coletta School, which served students with developmental disabilities.

Sr. Sheila Haskett, the school administrator, encouraged Allen to consider a career in school administration. He attended UW-Whitewater while he was teaching and earned a master’s degree in school administration.

 

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On
Abbot Marcel Rooney

Adaptation and renewal of Religious Life: Go back to the sources in the past

Reflections on Religious Life column by Abbot Marcel Rooney

Editor’s note: During this Year of Consecrated Life, this is the fifth in a series based on the Second Vatican Council’s document, Perfectae Caritatis (Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life) written by Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, former abbot primate of the Benedictine order who now resides in Madison.

This commentary on the Second Vatican Council’s Decree On the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life has already examined the council’s basic understanding of the role of Religious Life in the Church.

If this special vocation within the Church is to be renewed, just how would one go about that?

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

Experiences in Hospitalland

Recently, I spent six days at a place only about a 10-minute drive from my home, but I had entered a country as “foreign'”to my experience as Botswana or Katmandu.

I had taken up residence in Hospitalland. I was brought in for an emergency appendectomy and had to undergo a second surgery, due to complications.

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On
Tony Magliano

The courageous witness of Blessed Oscar Romero

Who would have predicted it? Who would have imagined on February 23, 1977, the day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador, that the highly conservative Oscar Romero — who was suspicious of the Catholic Church’s involvement in political activism — would die a martyr’s death.

And that he would die for courageously defending his people against the murderous assaults of the Salvadoran government, military, and right-wing death squads.

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On
Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Protect pain-capable unborn children

Our society today seems to be obsessed with controlling pain. Most people experiencing pain of any kind run for the nearest bottle of pain-relieving pills to stop their discomfort.

There are also people who protest the supposed pain felt by animals in scientific research (there is disagreement over how much pain animals actually feel during experiments). And there are those who don’t like farm animals to be raised in environments which cause them pain and distress.

Unborn babies’ pain

But where is the outcry about the pain experienced by unborn babies during an abortion procedure? We don’t hear much about their pain.

Yet, there is growing medical evidence that unborn children do feel pain at 20 weeks or more of gestation. It’s not surprising that a child dismembered in the womb would feel pain.

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