Tag: youth

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Bishop Robert Barron

Three lessons for young Catholics

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking to around 9,000 middle school and high school students from the Catholic schools of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. They were gathered in the cavernous Galen Center at the University of Southern California (UCC), and the atmosphere in the room was electric.

There was a good deal of upbeat music and games, but when Archbishop Gomez processed into the arena carrying the Blessed Sacrament for Benediction, you could hear a pin drop. There is just something uniquely moving about seeing 9,000 energetic kids suddenly falling to their knees in silent adoration.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Christian apologists, wake up! (part two)

Second in a two-part series on a Pew Study about why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity. Part one looked at, first, the relationship between religion and science and, second, the dismissive “psychologizing” of beliefs. In this second part, Bishop Barron examines two more reasons young people offered in the study for “walking away from Christianity.” His analysis of the source of the problem, included in part one, is reprinted here in the first two paragraphs.

For the past 50 years or so, Christian thinkers have largely abandoned the art of apologetics and have failed (here I offer a j’accuse to many in the Catholic universities) to resource the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to hold off critics of the faith. I don’t blame the avatars of secularism for actively attempting to debunk Christianity; that’s their job, after all.

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Bishop Robert Barron

World Youth Day 2016: Source of hope

When I arrived in Kraków for the 2016 World Youth Day, I was pretty exhausted, having left Los Angeles some 15 hours earlier and having had to change planes in Munich.

But I was enthused as I approached my first appointment right in the heart of the Old City. Through the good ministrations of George Weigel, the world’s leading expert on John Paul II, I was one of a group of bishops and priests invited to spend time with the original youth group of Fr. Karol Wojtyła.

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Joan Carey, For the Catholic Herald

Diocesan youth make pilgrimage to Poland

In the first week of August, Pope Francis will meet hundreds of thousands of young people, including nearly 140 from Madison, in Krakow, Poland, to teach the young about the mercy of Christ in this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy.

This year’s World Youth Day theme is: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7).

Youth from diocese

The youth of Madison are travelling in primarily two groups: one from St. Paul University Catholic Center in Madison, led by Fr. Eric Nielsen, and the other led by Fr. Brian Dulli.

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Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

Love Begins Here’s ‘biggest summer yet’

love begins here
Love Begins Here missionaries help to sort items at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in Monroe during a week spent in the area in a previous year (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash)

MADISON — It’s almost time for another summer of hundreds of teens doing small things with great love.

This summer marks the eighth of its kind for Love Begins Here (LBH) — an apostolate of the Diocese of Madison Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.

It provides youth with an opportunity to encounter Jesus Christ in a life-changing way through weeklong, local mission trips where they live in community and continue God’s work on earth.

This year at LBH

On June 12, the first group of a total of 600 LBH teens over the course of the summer will make their way to parish number one – Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Beloit.

It could be a milestone week for LBH, as the program is nearing its 50,000 hours of service to the communities in the diocese.

Leading the teens will be a Core Team of 12, the largest ever for the program — some of whom were LBH teen missionaries themselves in years past.

LBH Mission Director Lindsay Becher calls it “a delight to see that number grow and to watch what they can give back to the missionaries.”

Becher added there is “something nostalgic about having them with us . . . It’s fun to hear the stories that they remember from the earlier days” when the program was smaller and just beginning.

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Kevin Wondrash

Youth Service Council raises money for the poor in Lebanon

MADISON — The Madison Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Youth Service Council (YSC) recently sent more than $1,000 to St. Vincent de Paul-Lebanon to assist the poor, unemployed, and refugees there.

While attending a national St. Vincent de Paul meeting in Providence, R.I., last fall, YSC members Claire Finucane and DC Morris heard Julien Spiewak, the society’s international secretary general, outline the struggles the country of Lebanon currently faces and how the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is trying to help.

Challenges in Lebanon

The SVdP has been active in Lebanon since 1860 but has recently faced greater challenges than usual.

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Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

Teens join together to serve others

MADISON — “This is a place where you’ll make a difference.”

Those are bold words coming from Edgewood High School junior DC Morris, but they are true.

Morris, along with 21 other teens, makes up the St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) Youth Service Council.

Nearly two years ago, the society’s District Council of Madison formed the council consisting of high school students who serve as representatives for their home parishes or schools.

 

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Kevin Wondrash

Remains of St. Maria Goretti coming to Madison

MADISON — Pope Francis and the Holy See have given permission for St. Maria Goretti’s casket containing her remains to come to the United States this fall, ahead of the Year of Mercy — which starts December 8.

Msgr. Mike Burke, pastor of St. Maria Goretti (SMG) Parish in Madison, confirmed her remains will be at the church on Friday, Oct. 16 — the 125th anniversary of the saint’s birth.

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