Author: Kevin Wondrash

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Kevin Wondrash

Issues in 2015 call us to witness to Catholic principles

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

Advocating for the Catholic Conference requires us to articulate the principles of Catholic social teaching in what a lawyer-friend of mine likes to call the “jury English” of everyday conversation.

Relating the Principle of Solidarity to current policy issues is one example of this.

All in this together

The Principle of Solidarity flows from the truth that human beings created in the image of a Triune God are social by nature. As a result, “we are all in this together.”

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Kevin Wondrash

Catholic schools serve society

This year we again celebrate our Catholic schools as “Communities of faith, knowledge, and service.”

It is always edifying to look at our Catholic schools with satisfaction and pride as we recognize the wonderful communities of faith, knowledge, and service created by each school.

During Catholic Schools Week, we acknowledge these communities, extoll their virtues, and invite others to join us as members of these communities that educate children in faith and knowledge that they might serve others and by so doing, serve God.

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Kevin Wondrash

Esteeming our elders

Occasionally we hear disturbing stories in the media about young people who perpetrate abuse against the elderly.

In a widely reported 2009 story, for example, caretakers at the Quadrangle Assisted Living facility outside Philadelphia were charged in connection with the abuse of an elderly patient named Lois McCallister. Three employees, aged 19, 21, and 22 were caught on a surveillance camera as they taunted, mocked, and assaulted the partially naked 78-year-old woman.

She had begun complaining to visiting family members several months prior that someone was hurting her and hitting her. There were also initial signs of bruising on her hand and wrist.

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Kevin Wondrash

Problems with ‘hook-up’ culture

From the 1950s through the late 1970s, Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II) was a professor of moral philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland, specializing in sexual ethics and what we call today “marriage and family life.”

He produced two important books touching on these matters, The Acting Person, a rigorous philosophical exploration of Christian anthropology, and Love and Responsibility, a much more accessible analysis of love, sex, and marriage.

These texts provided the foundation for the richly textured teaching of St. John Paul II that now goes by the name “theology of the body.”

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Kevin Wondrash

Respect Life Retreat held at Durward’s Glen

The Servants of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Vigil for Life held their seventh annual Respect Life Retreat at Durward’s Glen Retreat and Conference Center in Baraboo on December 19 to 20.

The weekend provided an opportunity for participants to encounter Christ in the silence of their heart through prayer, the sacraments, Adoration, and Catholic Advent mediations.

“I was just excited to be at Durward’s Glen again for another Advent retreat,” Will Goodman, director for the Servants of Our Lady of Guadalupe, said as he shared some of his observations from the weekend.

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Kevin Wondrash

Retreats help heal pain of abortion

Jessica* was a sophomore in college. Naïve about sex, she thought she was in love.

But when Jessica became pregnant, her boyfriend coerced her into having an abortion. Jessica went along with a “choice” that seemed largely out of her control.

Shelly’s* pregnancy was unplanned and unwelcome. After her abortion, her immediate reaction was relief — she just wanted to move on.

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