Category: Columns

On
Fr. Steve Grunow

Religious Life reveals real possibilities for all lives

Word on Fire
Fr. Steve Grunow

Thomas Hobbes considered human civilization as an endless war of all against all with the only viable solution being the power of the state to regulate, order, and control.

Georg Frederich Hegel postulated that existence was an experience of inescapeable dialectics, a violent collision of opposites and it was only in this state of affairs that new growth and development was possible.

Friedrich Nietzsche insisted that all is “will to power” and that it is the master of power alone that escapes the heavy hand of fate.

These ideas have all had great weight. Whether we know about them or recognize their validity or not, these ideas have shaped, formed, and defined our culture.

Read More
On
Bishop Robert Barron

Hunkering down with Benedict

Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has certainly emerged as the most talked-about religious book of 2017. Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds, and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.

The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely-felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.

Read More
On
Bishop Robert Barron

Hunkering down with Benedict

Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has certainly emerged as the most talked-about religious book of 2017. Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds, and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.

The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely-felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.

Read More
On
Bishop Robert Barron

The Case for Christ and evangelization

The Case for Christ is a film adaptation of Lee Strobel’s best-selling book of the same name, one that has made an enormous splash in Evangelical circles and beyond. It is the story of a young, ambitious (and atheist) reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who fell into a psychological and spiritual crisis when his wife became a Christian.

The scenes involving Lee and his spouse, which play out over many months of their married life, struck me as poignant and believable — and I say this with some authority, having worked with a number of couples in a similar situation.

Read More
On
Fr. Donald Lange

Let’s make every day an Earth Day

We in Wisconsin should especially appreciate Earth Day because it was started by Gaylord Nelson when he was a U.S. senator from Wisconsin.

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans crowded streets, parks, and auditoriums to celebrate the first Earth Day. They called for a healthy, sustainable environment. Earth Day’s time had come.

Read More
On
Fr. Donald Lange

Jesus’ resurrection is at the heart of our faith

On Easter, we celebrate the feast of Jesus’ resurrection. His resurrection is the heart of our faith.

In 1 Corinthians 15:14, St. Paul teaches, “If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our preaching is in vain and our faith empty.”

Jesus’ kingdom

Like many Jews who suffered from messiah fever, on Holy Thursday, deep down, the apostles may still have had lingering hopes that Christ was a political messiah who would conquer the hated Roman occupiers and establish his earthly kingdom.

Despite three years of on-the-job training, the apostles often failed to fully understand that Christ’s kingdom was a kingdom of justice, love, and peace and not of power and violence.

Read More
On
Robert Enright and Msgr. John Hebl

Forgiveness — the heart of mercy
Robert Enright and Msgr. John Hebl

Seventh in a series of seven articles on forgiveness.

This final forgiveness essay is a collaboration of both writers. Previously we discussed what it means and what it does not mean to forgive others; how one goes about forgiving; how forgiveness is viewed within the Catholic faith; and how it appears within schools and families.

Today, in conclusion, we will examine how forgiving might be planted for good in our communities.

Read More
On
Bishop Robert Barron

Jackie and the priest in conversation

Somehow I managed to miss the film Jackie during the Christmas season, but I watched it, twice, on recent long flights to and from the east coast.

Like many others, I was struck by its moody, more “European” style, the high quality of the acting, especially on the part of Natalie Portman, and its historical verisimilitude, but what particularly impressed (and surprised) me were the scenes between Mrs. Kennedy and a sympathetic priest.

Read More