Columns – Page 91 – Madison Catholic Herald

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.

Issues in 2015 call us to witness to Catholic principles

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.”

On January 14, 2015

Kevin Wondrash

Ultrasounds provide window to the womb

On January 22, 1973 the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision.

Justice Byron White, who dissented, stated, “The court apparently values the convenience of a pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life she carries.”

Since Roe v. Wade, 58 million abortions have occurred in our country. This is roughly the population of the United States around 1869.

On January 14, 2015

Kevin Wondrash

A ‘smart people’ problem?

Daniel Dennett, one of the “four horsemen” of contemporary atheism, proposed in 2003 that those who espouse a naturalist, atheist worldview should call themselves “the brights,” thereby distinguishing themselves rather clearly from the dim benighted masses who hold on to supernaturalist convictions.

In the wake of Dennett’s suggestion, many atheists have brought forward what they take to be evidence that the smartest people in society do subscribe to anti-theist views. By “smartest” they usually mean practitioners of the physical sciences, and they point to surveys that indicate only small percentages of scientists subscribe to religious belief.

How to cope with the seasonal blues

QUESTION: While everyone else seems joyful, I often feel depressed around the holidays. Could you suggest some ways to cope with the holiday blues?

RESPONSE: By William McKenna, M.S., clinical extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services

We so often hear Christmas songs with lines such as, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” and “Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer!”

On January 7, 2015

Kevin Wondrash

Ridley Scott’s film misses the point

Ridley Scott’s new film Exodus: Gods and Kings features Moses, the Pharaoh, hundreds of thousands of slaves making their way across the floor of the Red Sea, all 10 plagues, the burning bush, and even the angel of Yahweh in the form of a petulant 11-year-old boy with a British accent.

And yet, the movie is spiritually flat, as though its makers had read the biblical story but understood precious little of its theological poetry.

“Grand Mom” writes her last column

A few weeks ago I learned that my lung cancer had crept into my bones and is likely to take my life within six months. That’s the bad news.

On December 24, 2014

George Weigel

Christmas and the humbling of the wise men

It might seem that everything that could be said, has been said, about the shepherds, the wise men, and the Christ Child.

But that’s one of the marvels of Scripture: the unfolding history of the Church draws out of the inspired Word of God allegories and images previously unrecognized.

On December 24, 2014

Kevin Wondrash

A God-haunted film

The great British physicist Stephen Hawking has emerged in recent years as a poster boy for atheism, and his heroic struggles against the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease have made him something of a secular saint.

The new bio-pic A Theory of Everything does indeed engage in a fair amount of Hawking-hagiography, but it is also, curiously, a God-haunted movie.

Religion for atheists

In an opening scene, the young Hawking meets Jane, his future wife, in a bar and tells her that he is a cosmologist. “What’s cosmology?” she asks, and he responds, “Religion for intelligent atheists.”

On December 17, 2014

Fr. Donald Lange

The greatest gift of Christmas

Every time a baby is born, there is new hope for the human race. I learned this as a high school sophomore when my baby brother was born.

What a miracle of grace! As I studied his perfectly formed hands and feet, I was filled with awe and hope. I wondered who he would grow up to be.

I hoped that he would be bigger, stronger, more athletic, and more intelligent than I was. My sister hoped that he would grow up to be a gentleman.