Author: Kevin Wondrash

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Kevin Wondrash

ISIS, genocide, and us: West should respond

The Monuments Men was a disappointing movie, but one of its most chilling scenes sticks in my mind as an analogue to the appalling wickedness underway in the Middle East.

In the film, SS Colonel Wegner supervises the destruction of art works plundered by the Nazis: treasures intended for Hitler’s fantasized Fuehrer Museum in Linz, Austria.

Destroying paintings

But as the Allies close in on Germany in 1945, Hitler decides that, if he and his goons can’t have these masterpieces, their rightful owners — and the future — won’t have them, either.

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Kevin Wondrash

Edgewood, St. Ambrose students come together to celebrate Catholic Schools Week

MADISON — While many students may have hoped for a snow day, and extra sleep, on February 2, the day’s less than anticipated snow fall gave them an opportunity to give thanks and give back.

Edgewood High School (EHS) students, along with high school students from St. Ambrose Academy in Madison, arrived at the EHS Wilke Gymnasium this morning for a Mass celebrating Catholic Schools Week.

The annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States ran from January 31 to February 6. Schools across the diocese had a variety of fun and faith-filled events for students, faculty, and parents.

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Kevin Wondrash

Rite of Election, Call to Continuing Conversion, to be held Sunday, Feb. 14

Rite of Election
A catechumen signs the Book of the Elect at the Rite of Election in 2015. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash)

WAUNAKEE — The Rite of Election of Catechumens and Call to Continuing Conversion for Candidates for Full Communion in the Catholic Church will be celebrated by the parishes of the Diocese of Madison on Sunday, Feb. 14, at 3 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Church in Waunakee.

Parishes from throughout the diocese will send those who will celebrate the sacraments of initiation this Easter, as well as their sponsors, family, and friends. About 800 people are expected to attend, with Bishop Robert C. Morlino presiding.

‘Election’ means ‘chosen’

The word “election” is used in this liturgy to mean “chosen.”

In this liturgy, we acknowledge those who seek to be part of the Church have been chosen by God. The celebration comes from an ancient Christian practice of asking those who were to celebrate the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist) to come forward at the beginning of Lent to show their intent.

The people of the Church, in turn, promise their support, guidance, and prayers. The celebration is one part of a long process that is called The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).

The RCIA encompasses many facets of initiation, from the time a person first experiences the call of Christ or wishes to know about the Church, to the celebration of the sacraments of initiation and continued growth as a Christian.

It also includes adaptations for those who were baptized in another Christian denomination and seek to become members of the Catholic Church through the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist.

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Kevin Wondrash

Pope Francis and the evangelicals, part two

Part two of a two-part series.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), displaying his penchant for finding the memorable image, Pope Francis excoriates Christians who have turned “into querulous and disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses,'” and whose lives “seem like Lent without Easter.”

Such people might be smart and they might even be morally upright, but they will never be successful evangelists.

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