Columns – Page 86 – Madison Catholic Herald

Third in a series of reflections by Fr. Robert Barron on the life of Cardinal Francis George.

The second major feature of modernity that Cardinal Francis George identified is an extreme valorization of the physical sciences, or in his own words, “the imposing of scientific method as the point of contact between human beings and the world and society into which they are born.”

The founders of modernity appreciated the sciences not only for their descriptive and predictive powers, but also for their liberating potential. Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Kant, and many others held that the mastery over nature provided by burgeoning physics, chemistry, medicine, etc., would free the human race from its age-old captivity to sickness and the strictures of time and space.

On May 7, 2015

Morgan Smith

Reflections on the dignity of the human person


	Morgan Smith

As I drove home from my friend Andrew’s funeral, I noticed in myself a deep sadness. This sadness was and is a tension that is related to a huge question: Why?

I was so moved. When I stood in line to enter the church, I was looking at all the faces — these faces from my past that I now only see at funerals. A sea of shock, dismay, and disbelief.

Andrew committed suicide recently. This was the furthest thing that anyone would have ever expected him to do, and it feels so strange to type those words.

Thoughts on Cardinal George

Second in a series of reflections by Fr. Robert Barron on the life of Cardinal Francis George.

The one who would proclaim the Gospel in the contemporary American setting must appreciate that the American culture is sown liberally with semina verbi (seeds of the Word).

The first of these, in Cardinal Francis George’s judgment, is the modern sense of freedom and its accompanying rights.

On May 7, 2015

Fr. Donald Lange

Remember all moms on Mother’s Day

Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) is recognized as the “mother of Mother’s Day.” She never married or had children, but as a child she heard her mother wish that there was a day to honor all mothers, living and dead.

She started the custom of wearing carnations on Mother’s Day. White carnations were her mother’s favorite flower because they symbolized a mother’s pure love. Today, red and pink carnations are given to honor a living mother and white carnations to honor a deceased mother.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe, shocked by the Civil War’s bloodshed, organized a mother’s day for peace. This prepared the way for today’s Mother’s Day.

On April 30, 2015

Tony Magliano

Dialogue: an essential ingredient for peaceful relationships

According to the New York Times, during a White House luncheon in 1954 Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw [talk-talk] always is better than to war-war.”

While clearly not a pacifist, the United Kingdom’s World War II prime minister had seen upfront the absolute horror of war and became convinced that tirelessly striving to resolve disputes through respectful dialogue was always preferable to war.

A lion of the American Church

First in a series of reflections by Fr. Robert Barron on the life of Cardinal Francis George.

Cardinal Francis George, who died April 17 at the age of 78, was obviously a man of enormous accomplishment and influence.

He was a cardinal of the Roman Church, a past president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the archbishop of one of the largest and most complicated archdioceses in the world, and the intellectual leader of the American Church.

A number of American bishops have told me that when Cardinal George spoke at the bishops’ meetings, the entire room would fall silent and everyone would listen.

Senior bullying and taking action to prevent it

Q After much debate and even some coercing, my mother who is in her late 70s moved to a senior apartment complex.

We were all so relieved. We thought that she would be happy, make new friends, have more opportunities for social connections, and in general be able to relax and enjoy things without the stress of home ownership and all of the upkeep.

I think we may have made a huge mistake.

On April 23, 2015

Fr. Robert Barron

Problem of Catholics leaving Church

A survey by William J. Byron and Charles Zech appeared in America magazine. It was conducted at the request of David O’Connell, the bishop of Trenton, and its focus was very simple: it endeavored to discover why Catholics have left the Church.

No one denies that a rather substantive number of Catholics have taken their leave during the past 20 years, and Byron and Zech wanted to find out why. They did so in the most direct way possible: they asked those who had quit.

Undoing a chemical abortion

In 1978, Charles E. Rice, a former professor of law at Notre Dame Law School made this prediction in his book Beyond Abortion: The Theory and Practice:

“The abortion of the future will be by pill, suppository, or some other do-it-yourself method. At that point the killing of a baby will be wholly elective and private. We have, finally, caught up with the pagan Romans who endowed the father, the pater familias, with the right to kill his child at his discretion. We give that right to the mother. But it is all the same to the victim.”

Startling news of the resurrection

Just a few weeks before the most significant Christian holy day of the year, British Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on an evangelical radio program, articulated what, for him, is the meaning of Easter.

He explained that the central message of Easter is “kindness, compassion, hard work, and responsibility.” I’m for all of those virtues, but so, I would venture to guess, is any decent person from any background, religious or non-religious. Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, fair-minded agnostics, and atheists would all subscribe to that rather abstract and harmless description of the significance of Easter.

In a sense, we shouldn’t blame the prime minister for his characterization, for the Christian Churches in general, but especially the Anglican Church, have not distinguished themselves for the crispness of their doctrinal formulations.

But if that’s all Easter is about, not to put too fine a point on it, the jig is up.