Category: Opinion

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

A dozen reasons to choose Catholic schools

This time of year always brings me a feeling of excitement, because school is starting again.

Even though I haven’t attended school for years, I still remember my own 12 years as a student in Catholic elementary and high schools in La Crosse, Wis. Those were happy years for me in so many ways.

Likewise, I enjoyed participating as a parent with our own children when they attended Our Lady Queen of Peace Elementary School and Edgewood High School in Madison. I know that they, too, appreciated their time at those schools.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Words can indeed hurt us

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is an old adage many of us have heard. It means that someone can hurt another by physical force, but not by insults.

In the Bible, we find Jesus encouraged his followers to “turn the other cheek.” In the Sermon on the Mount, he urged them to respond to injury without revenge and allowing more injury to occur.

Still, I don’t agree with the “sticks and stones” adage, because words can indeed hurt people. These days, many use words to bully others.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Continue to explore space

When I was in sixth grade, I remember writing a paper about why space exploration was important. I felt that it was essential to explore outer space, since it is part of God’s creation.

That’s why on July 20, 1969, while I was in college, my friend Ginny and I were glued to the television to watch Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong step onto the surface of the moon. He famously said, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

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Elizabeth Durack

Speak up for public morality; teach virtues

To the editor:

We have in my neighborhood in Madison annually a kind of reenactment of the tornado of human bodies witnessed by Dante in the Inferno’s scene about sins against chastity: a nude swarm swirling around busy downtown on bicycles, eliciting a wave of stares, grins, whoops, glee, and photo taking by bystanders, as perhaps the demons enjoy seeing tormented souls, and certainly a vignette of post-sexual-revolution social sin.

Madison’s “World Naked Bike Ride” either opposes fossil fuels or celebrates the immunity of moral chaos to correction by authority. Not everyone experiences it as altogether benign: a local woman who had been sexually assaulted in early life recently told a journalist that “seeing dozens, often hundreds of naked bodies unexpectedly is a trigger for her.”

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

We did it! Diocese puts it all together

The windows at St. Maria Goretti Church in Madison sparkled, the church was immaculate, and smiling faces at the entrance greeted people who came for Evening Prayer to begin the installation events for Bishop Donald J. Hying on June 24.

Parishioners and staff at St. Maria Goretti Church had pitched in to get their church ready for the installation of Madison’s new bishop. Fr. Scott Emerson, parochial administrator of St. Maria Goretti, was justifiably proud.

The St. Maria Goretti crew were part of many people who worked behind the scenes to prepare for the installation. It was wonderful to see how people  throughout the diocese joined together to welcome our new bishop.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Vatican official: protection of minors is goal

Clergy sexual abuse has impacted many people in society and the Church, including those working in the Church’s “Supreme Court” at the Vatican.

“This work has changed me,” the priest who heads Vatican Disciplinary Action in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith told Catholic journalists June 19.

“When I read the facts of the cases, I feel repulsed,” said Msgr. John Kennedy. However, he and the 16 others working in his office carry on with the work. “For victims and for their parents, it is far worse,” he said. “We’re doing this because it needs to be done to restore what has been damaged.”

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Fatherhood is an important vocation

Fathers play such an important role in the lives of their children.

My own father died when I was only 16 years old, but he had a profound impact on my life.

Thomas Joseph McDonald (better known as Mac) was married later in life. He actually stayed with his own father until his death.

I’m sure my father received many of his values from my grandparents and great-grandparents, who are buried in the cemetery at Holy Rosary Parish in Darlington.

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