Category: Bishop

On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino

A time to be grateful, to examine our conscience

Dear Friends,

It seems that Labor Day was just yesterday and here we find ourselves at Thanksgiving and the beginning of the “holiday season.” In the first place, I am grateful for all of you at Thanksgiving — you who are my brothers and sisters in the diocesan family. We are indeed a family, and the members of a family do not always get along perfectly. But, we are still family in Christ, and no one of us, myself especially, should ever forget that. And so we live and move forward together in gratitude, precisely the way every family does and must.

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino

Questions to ask before voting

Editor’s note: This column is based on Bishop Morlino’s homily at the Red Mass on October 26.

Dear Friends,

under the gospel book

It is most interesting that, when asked which commandments are the greatest, Jesus doesn’t offer something new. When Our Lord is asked which commandments are the greatest, Jesus doesn’t say we need “change” — which is, of course, the watchword of both our political parties today. Instead, Jesus goes back to the Old Testament, basically to the Book of Exodus, and Jesus offers the summary that was very common in the early Jewish community about what we now call the natural law. Jesus points to those two great commandments: “love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself.” And in so doing Jesus is a teacher of the natural law that was written in the hearts of the people of His time, just as it was written in the hearts of the earlier Jewish community, just as it is written in every human heart.

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Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Examining our consciences about working in the Vineyard

Dear Friends,

under the gospel bookContinuing the theme of last week’s column, in terms of the spiritual exercise of examining our consciences, the readings of this past Sunday have prompted me to proceed along the same line.

The Gospel story tells us of those who are called to work in the master’s vineyard only at the last hour and they still receive a full-day’s pay. Those who have worked for longer periods in the master’s vineyard complain and find fault with the master for his generosity to the late arrivals.

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Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Setting the record straight

Dear Friends,

under the gospel book

It is important that I set the record straight in response to the multitude of requests I have received to do so.

On Sunday, September 7, while in prayer before Mass, I had a sense that I needed to set aside the homily that I had prepared in order to address the confusion perpetuated by two of our public officials with regard to a most basic conviction of our Catholic and human reason with regard to abortion.

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On
Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison

Reflections on Peter walking among us

Dear Friends,

under the gospel bookIn the first place, let me thank so many of you for your expression of prayerful and loving support as I celebrated five years as your bishop, on August 1. St. Alphonsus Ligouri, whom we celebrate on August 1, is the great patron of moral theologians, and I am very devoted to him. He had a strong and unique devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, to whom I’m also very devoted. I hope that all in the diocese will ask the intercession of St. Alphonsus and Our Lady of Perpetual Help, so that we can continue to move forward in union with our Holy Father and in loving obedience to him, to be that faithful local Church whom we are called to be, today and tomorrow.

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