Topping the news on 22 January 1973 was the sudden death of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. The week before found the Miami Dolphins completing their undefeated season with a victory in Super Bowl VII over the Washington Redskins. We were driving our new Chevy Caprice Classic while listening to Carly Simon singing “You’re So Vain” and Elton John jammin’ “Crocodile Rock.” O, yes, another piece of historic data, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a case entitled Roe v. Wade, that some abortions performed during the first two trimesters of pregnancy could be legalized as a part of women’s constitutional right to privacy.

That final stunning bit of history continues to be marked 42 years later as one of the most significant events ever etched into our corporate conscience as human beings.

After 42 years Americans are still struggling with the idea of killing children in their mother’s wombs as a “right” protected by the United States Constitution! No matter how many times we read and re-read the Supreme Court decision for Roe v. Wade, it is simply not a Constitutional license for murder of the unborn.

On January 22, 1974 thousands of pro-lifers participated in the first March for Life to stand up for the unborn. An inspiring rally was held as Members of Congress announced pro-life legislation and expressed their support for the pro-life cause. The program concluded with a “Circle of Life” march around the Capitol, followed by participants lobbying their Members of Congress.

Soon after that first March in 1974, it became apparent that congressional protection for the unborn was not high on the list of legislative priorities. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, the indefatigable Nellie Gray decided that the March for Life, rather than the originally anticipated one-time event, would instead be held every year until Roe v. Wade was overturned. That year, the March for Life became incorporated as an action-oriented non-profit organization, and the “Life Principles” were developed as the underlying guideline of the organization.

With Nellie’s leadership and until her death in 2013, the March continues to grow and develop each year. Nellie was an ever-faithful voice for the most vulnerable in society, working to protect the preborn until her last hours of life. While each March for Life has faced a unique challenge or obstacle, the numbers of participants have continued to grow.

Regrettably, the March for Life is still a necessary part of raising human consciousness and calling attention to the matter of the sin and social evil of abortion. Regrettably, too few, if any, of the major media outlets across our country will take note of the million plus—mostly millennial—people who will participate in the March next Tuesday.

Over two hundred people will represent the Diocese of La Crosse in Washington, D.C.; locally, hundreds more will participate in Prayer Vigils conducted by our Deacons in parishes across the Diocese. Whether you will be on the bus or at your parish, your prayers are needed to stop the murder of children and the misguided and erroneous thinking in the secular society that continues to condone it.

LIFE will prevail. Respect for human life becomes more and more imperative every day, not only in our vigilance for children in the womb, but for the elderly and those who require specialized medical care. Our prayers are necessary for those who are mistakenly being led to consider assisted suicide as a plan for their healthcare advanced directives. There are so many complications in these areas when technology was supposed to help and simplify our lives.

Our prayers and support are with those traveling to Washington and with all people of good will who pray for and support human life.

See you at Sunday Mass!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T3HCyA7AXU

Much discussion is going on in many different places concerning Pope Francis’ official teachings concerning the correct Catholic understanding of the Sacrament of Marriage. The recent secular media reports seemed to indicate that there was ambivalence, even contention, among the Pope, the bishops, and the laity as they met at the historic Extraordinary Synod last month. In an effort to clarify and “set the record straight,” I offer the Pope’s own words concerning the Sacrament of Marriage spoken last month in Rome to the Schoenstatt Movement for their One-Hundredth Anniversary.

“The family is being hit, the family is being struck and the family is being bastardized,” the Pope told those in attendance at the Oct. 25 audience.

He warned against the common view in society that “you can call everything family, right?”

“What is being proposed is not marriage, it’s an association. But it’s not marriage! It’s necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!” Pope Francis stressed. He lamented that there are so many “new forms” of unions which are “totally destructive and limiting the greatness of the love of marriage.”

Noting that there are many who cohabitate, or are separated or divorced, he explained that the “key” to helping is a pastoral care of “close combat” that assists and patiently accompanies the couple.

In his answers to questions regarding marriage, Pope Francis explained that contemporary society has “devalued” the sacrament by turning it into a social rite, removing the most essential element, which is union with God. “So many families are divided, so many marriages broken, (there is) such relativism in the concept of the Sacrament of Marriage,” he said, noting that from a sociological and Christian point of view “there is a crisis in the family because it’s beat up from all sides and left very wounded!”

In our consideration of the Pope’s teachings on these very important and pertinent matters, it is significant that we Catholics do not attempt to box the Pope into a “media friendly” and culturally relative trap. The Pope is not trying to “tickle the ears” of non Catholics or non believers; he’s walking a very delicate narrow ground where Jesus Himself was often found during His days on this earth. For people who know the Gospel and the teachings of the Church—and we certainly like to think of ourselves in that area—we know that the teachings are SOLID, they are based on TRUTH, and the TRUTH is certain.

The Pope certainly has a way of keeping us a little off balance. He says things and does things that are different from St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI—different—not in opposition to.

In answer to questions regarding how he can be defined as “reckless,” the Roman Pontiff admitted that although he can be considered “a little reckless,” he still surrenders himself to prayer, saying that it helps him to place Jesus at the center, rather than himself.

“There is only one center: Jesus Christ – who rather [prefers to] looks at things from the periphery, no? Where he sees things more clearly,” the Pope observed, saying that when closed inside the small worlds of a parish, a community and even the Roman Curia, “then you do not grasp the truth.”

Many Catholics consider their membership in the Church only from the vantage point of their own parishes. The Pope is calling us to a bigger picture and to the bigger Church.

Pope Francis continues to teach the faith. Let us always remember that if we become too “comfortable” with the faith, we may have remade it in our own image and likeness. That reshaping is the temptation of the world—it is what we are upset about in what we heard from the media reports of the Synod. We don’t want the world to remake our faith in Jesus Christ. What we do want is to be ready to listen to the ways that Jesus Himself is speaking to us in and through the Church to make that faith an “uncomfortable” reality in this world that prepares us for bliss in the world to come!

Now that the Extraordinary Synod on the Family is over, allow me to take a few moments to reflect on what impact this important meeting will have on our lives as faithful Catholics living in 2014. This Synod, whose purpose was to study present-day Catholic family life in preparation for the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to be held in October 2015, has caused stirrings among those who have become sentinels at the gates of religion and culture. In particular, the midterm report issued on October 13, 2014, has given rise to stories which attempt to have us believe that the Catholic Church will be “reinvented” or somehow become “new and improved.”

The possibility of the Church—whose task it is to serve the mission of Jesus Christ with charity, mercy, and justice—considering the situations of contemporary humanity in terms of differing cultural ideas regarding such bed-rock Catholic doctrines as marriage, intimate and interpersonal relationships, and family structures, is NOT a clear indicator that the Church seeks to abandon Her teaching in these areas. Quite the contrary. The mission of the Church is precisely to examine the life and times of men and women and speak Truth with love to everyone.

We must remember that the Catholic Church is an organic institution. As such it has survived and even grown stronger through the winds of time and cultural shifts. Its treasured foundation is the Truth of the Gospel and the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit whose complementary interplay of Scripture and Tradition is the mainstay of the Church’s life and leadership.

The Extraordinary Synod opened dialogue on issues that affect the human condition and the daily lives of men and women and the structures that support moral and social structures of our lives. This is the Church’s responsibility in response to human nature, affected by original sin, and redeemed and loved by God.

Clearly the Church refuses to stand idly by and allow current cultural shifts to dictate a major change in society without consideration or without a say in the outcome. To simply say the Church will capitulate—change—or abandon the Truth of the Gospel and the virtues that they embody is to misunderstand the beauty and the strength of the Roman Catholic Church in contemporary society.

Pope Francis, in his concluding address to the assembled Fathers, remarks that “I can happily say that–with a spirit of collegiality and of synodality–we have truly lived the experience of ‘Synod,’ a path of solidarity, a ‘journey together.’

“And it has been ‘a journey’—and like every journey there were moments of running fast, as if wanting to conquer time and reach the goal as soon as possible; other moments of fatigue, as if wanting to say ‘enough’; other moments of enthusiasm and ardour. There were moments of profound consolation listening to the testimony of true pastors, who wisely carry in their hearts the joys and the tears of their faithful people. Moments of consolation and grace and comfort hearing the testimonies of the families who have participated in the Synod and have shared with us the beauty and the joy of their married life. A journey where the stronger feel compelled to help the less strong, where the more experienced are led to serve others, even through confrontations. And since it is a journey of human beings, with the consolations there were also moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations …”

As we reflect on what has been reported, listen to commentaries of what is to come including the World Meeting of Families 2015, and consider our own sense of who we are as Church, remember to take time in prayer, with true spiritual discernment, considering how we can find answers to so many difficult challenges that families must confront.

Holy Family, model of holiness, pray for us!

In a reflection on the Cross last Lent Pope Francis said: “God placed all the weight of our sins on the Cross of Jesus, all the injustices perpetrated by every Cain against his brother, all the bitterness of the betrayal of Judas and Peter, all the vanity of tyrants, all the arrogance of false friends. It was a heavy Cross, like the night of abandoned people, as heavy as the death of loved ones, heavy because it carried all the ugliness of evil”.

The mystery of the Cross and the mystery of humanity are once again held in sharp recognition as we celebrate the Exultation of the Holy Cross this Sunday. The cross has always proven to be such a conundrum for us. From the time of Jesus Himself we have pondered the strange circumstances that brought Him to the cruelty and ignominy of the cross and what His death by such torture means for us.

Contemporary society has such a mixed relationship with suffering. As the secularism of our day gradually dehumanizes men and women, we see more mutilations and degradations of people in the arts and in real life. In such a situation as ours the cross has become an ornament or a bauble, an accessory or a piece of costume jewelry. Death and destruction have a dehumanizing effect and leave us content with being subhuman.

The Cross of Christ does just the opposite. In the Cross of Christ humanity is lifted up from depravity and cruelty. By His Cross, Christ overturned the events of the Garden of Eden. Satan deceived humanity in the Garden, seducing our first parents into believing that they could not trust God. In the shadow of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God promised a Savior, One who would correct the vision of humanity and restore a true image of God. The tree of death becomes the Tree of Life on Calvary. Jesus, not Satan, speaks from the Cross. The language is not one of deception, but one of stark reality: in the midst of suffering—abominable, unimaginable suffering, God is with us and God loves us.

One would think that in the middle of a Garden, one would only see beauty and peace and love. That is what God intended. The Devil’s envy and jealousy made us doubtful, and caused us to reject what God intended for us. God, however, did not abandon us to our weakness. God took our weakness and used it to show us His strength and His love. The Cross teaches us that in the midst of all human suffering and all the trials and tribulations that have come upon us by our belief in the lies of the Evil One, God is with us. He triumphs—Love triumphs. The world has been saved and we have a bright future.

Pope Francis offers us a final word: “The one tree has wrought so much evil, the other tree has brought us to salvation, to health. This is the course of the humanity’s story: a journey to find Jesus Christ the Redeemer, who gives His life for love. God, in fact, has not sent the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. This tree of the Cross saves us, all of us, from the consequences of that other tree, where self-sufficiency, arrogance, the pride of us wanting to know all things according to our own mentality, according to our own criteria, and also according to that presumption of being and becoming the only judges of the world. This is the story of mankind: from one tree to the other.”

We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You; because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world!

Come and experience the love of Christ at Sunday Mass!

There are numbers of things these days that DEMAND our attention, all of which deal with the preservation and protection of human life. We are trying our best to resolve the intolerable promotion of contraceptive and abortifacient materials by our own government. These activities give evidence of the widening gap in understanding by our own country and those working for an informed intellectual and spiritual understanding of the sacredness of human life and the escalating measures that are necessary to protect and defend it. Everyday some area of service presents itself for our spiritual and civil attention in these areas.

A new global atrocity, however, presents itself for our consideration in prayerful and financial support at this time. That atrocity is the organized annihilation and planned extinction of our Christian brothers and sisters in the Mid-East. Like the sin of abortion, this abomination feeds on the selfishness and foul greed of people who have abandoned reason and sacrificed their own souls to the darkest side of human depravity.

Escalating violence in northern and central Iraq has caused devastation and mass displacement of 1.2 million people since January. Fear looms as the Islamic State of Iraq and greater Syria (ISIS) has taken control over large areas of the northern provinces, including Ninewa, Salah Al-Din and Diyala provinces. These areas include cities—like Tekrit, Kirkuk, Mosul—that we heard about in daily reports involving American soldiers. Now, religious minorities including Christians, Shia Muslims, and Turkmen have been singled out for attack.

Catholic Relief Services is providing humanitarian relief to 3,500 displaced families in Ninewa. CRS works in close partnership with Caritas Iraqi and is establishing a new joint office in Erbil and three other new locations in northern Iraq. The President of the United States has authorized US fighter jets to airlift supplies to the people trapped in these areas—including the remnant of American forces also ensnared by ISIS forces.

The lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families are in peril and in need of meaningful interventions to prevent further catastrophe. CRS is seeking support for humanitarian efforts, which are critical to protecting and saving lives immediately, as well as preparing for the needs ahead.

Pope Francis launched an appeal for unity, calling for “security, peace and a future of reconciliation and justice, where all Iraqis, whatever their religion, could build their nation together, creating a model of coexistence.” Iraqi Bishops also issued a statement in July pleading for increased humanitarian assistance and protection of minorities.

Over the next 6 months, CRS will provide support to 30,000 families, along with an initial commitment of $650,000 in private funds. Based on the evolving needs on the ground and our ability to identify additional resources, CRS and Caritas Iraq will expand these critical efforts to more families and communities in dire need.

Specific areas of CRS support include:

Food, Water and Essential Living Supplies: With people on the move and robbed of their belongings, many have no means to purchase the basics. In coordination with the United Nations and peer agencies, CRS/Caritas will provide food, water and living supplies.

Psychosocial Support and Trauma Healing: Emotional trauma is high, especially among minorities who were the target of attacks. CRS/Caritas will carry out puppet methodology for trauma healing and the building of peaceful relations. This will involve training of staff and volunteers on skills and practices proven successful in similar backdrops. Activities will engage children as well as their parents.

Education for Internally Displaced Children: The Ministry of Education requested help to ensure that all children are able to take their end of year exams in mid-August. Many children have missed months of school. CRS/Caritas will provide children with education and exam preparation, as well as support to schools for the influx of children.

Preparation for Longer-Term Resettlement: CRS/Caritas is preparing for the long-term reality facing families: resettling in new locations, the onset of winter, safe and dignified shelter, and livelihood options, such as cash for work and vocational training.

If you would like, you can contribute to this cause or get more information directly from CRS at: http://emergencies.crs.org/iraq-crs-caritas-reach-displaced-families/ Thanks for your interest and your support.

Additionally, on Sunday August 17, the Bishops of the United States are calling all the faithful across our beloved country to join in prayer for those who are being brutalized in the Mid-East—for no other reason than the free profession of their religious faith. We may need to begin to realize how easily religious liberty can be taken away.

Let’s pray together at Sunday Mass—see you there!

I have an undergrad degree in Radio and Television Communication from Loyola University of Chicago. I am happy about that degree for many reasons, one of which is the fact that while I was attending classes at Loyola, Fr. Philip Wozniak, OFM Conv., the Cleric Master and Rector of the Franciscan College House of Studies, would always tell me that if I got the degree I’d be the first. All those before me who attempted Communication Degrees left the seminary. Reflecting back on those days of the early seventies, I can certainly understand why.

Nevertheless, here I am in the 21^st Century! My communication’s degree from 1973 may as well have been written on the back of a shovel for the ways in which the field has expanded and changed over those years.

One thing I find today is how much I don’t really like television. There’s very little that makes me laugh about the highly rated comedies and very little that holds my interest in “high octane” drama. Television programming has too much “agenda” and I find myself uncomfortable with it, contrary to it, and to tell the truth, bored like crazy with it! Quite frankly, I don’t have much time to “watch” TV, so when I do, I am fussy. I do confess to being a “Downton Abbey” fan—but more often than not I simply buy the season DVD and watch the episodes on my own time.

One program, however, that has caught my attention for several reasons—not the least of which being the fact that it has remained on the air for four seasons—is a program airing on Friday nights called “Blue Bloods.” The show is a crime-action drama centering around Tom Selleck, the Police Commissioner of New York, his two sons, both police officers for the NYPD, his daughter, who works in the District Attorney’s Office and their families. The drama unfolds in their Irish, “law and order” family whose values and lifestyles are unmistakably mixed up with their unabashed practice and knowledge of their Catholic faith. For that reason alone I’m surprised it made it four seasons! Mind you, this is not some faith driven messenger series; but rather portrays the faith being served very well, better than I have seen on network television in many a year.

This family struggles with issues—personal, familial, and civil. Priests, Sisters, and the Church, Herself, are presented in a positive and balanced way. Catholic teaching is often considered in the middle of some fairly difficult human dilemmas and pondered as a part of the resolution of conflicts. Most episodes conclude with the family gathered around the dining room table—saying the traditional meal prayer—and offering a very positive view of putting Catholic faith into daily action. The program shows saints and sinners, but it is nice to know that the producers seem to think we are part of the winning team.

Newton Minow, who was born in Milwaukee in 1926, is the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. In 1961 he offered a speech wherein he called television a “vast wasteland.” http://youtu.be/9dGRgLfaGwo Today he considers it a “toxic dump.”

It is very important, especially for parents, to monitor the media to which we and our children are exposed. With so many choices and so many devices delivering programming it becomes even more difficult. Some things still remain tried and true:

• Choose your friends wisely.
• Know your children’s friends.
• Choose your entertainment and that of your children with positive values in mind.
• Create your own (non-electronic) entertainment.
• Spend time at home—with family—especially family meals.
• Make time for one another and create a home environment where everyone will feel included and comfortable.
• Have safe boundaries and a reasonable structure.
• Offer positive signs of affection.
• Talk intelligently—meaningfully—with one another.
• Listen.
• Pray together.

And, of course, remember Sunday Mass!

So many of my friends still give me a razzing over the fact that I maintain some “home town” allegiance to the Chicago Bears football team even though I have been living in Wisconsin for almost half of my life. Now, if you didn’t already know that, please bear in mind (no pun intended) that my “allegiance” –as it is in most competitive sports—is purely cosmetic. I really don’t follow sports teams quite the way I used to when I was younger. I do, however, try to avoid various “conflicts of opinion” with more serious sport fans when asked about my team loyalties. I simply respond that I am a soccer fan. In most cases that terminates the investigation and I am free to go about whatever business is at hand. I know, now that I have “outed” myself, my subterfuge may no longer prove possible. Time will tell; and now you know. But that’s not the point of this writing. It was merely a not-so-subtle way of writing about the World Cup and soccer madness in America.

Most of us Americans find it very difficult to follow soccer—much less to allow it to substitute for American football—which is for us what soccer is in Europe. But we did allow ourselves a few moments to revel in the international moment of soccer fever as the USA team made their way to near-glory at the World Cup Games in Brazil. The indomitable swagger of the United States raised its mighty prowess once again on the world stage in spite of so many set-backs in other more political arenas. There was once again a glimmer of the fact: “I believe—USA!”

One great personality seemed to rise from the Brazilian sports’ fields—Tim Howard, the indefatigable goalie of Team USA. His popularity has risen to such an extent that he is even considered for possible future political candidacy of one sort or another. Be that as it may, one thing did rise in his popular ascendency—he is a Christian! CNN led off with Howard’s Christian faith in its recent report on 10 little known things about the athlete. “Faith, the CNN story relates, is a key part of Howard’s life and shapes who he is.” Howard, himself, reported in a 2006 interview, that: “The most important thing in my life is Christ. He is more important to me than winning or losing or whether I am playing or not. Everything else is just a bonus.”

Howard, who was born in North Brunswick, New Jersey, played his first professional soccer match at age of 19 for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. He suffers from a neurological disorder known as Tourette’s syndrome, further characterized by physical and verbal tics. His life with the disease has often been chaotic and difficult. His grandmother was a source of strength and stability. Her sense of peace was so powerful, Tim relates, because it came from the Lord.

Tim Howard, like so many other public personalities, is affecting the world for good. He has played soccer for the world famous Manchester United Red Devils—the world’s most popular sports franchise boasting more than fifty million fans (larger than the entire population of England), for Everton in the Premier League, and the United States National Team at the 2010 and, of course, 2014 World Cup games.

Tim Howard uses his popularity as a soccer player to bring glory to God, not as a self-promotion of his own talents. In an interview with “Athletes in Action” Tim noted that his life with Tourette’s has not been easy. “But God,” he said, “has blessed me with the gift of athleticism as well. He has done some powerful things in my life through the combination of these two gifts. … He also has shown me ways to use my position as a professional athlete to encourage others with Tourette’s syndrome. Today, I am blessed to be living a dream. And yet, if it all went away tomorrow, I know I would still have peace. That probably sounds crazy to most people, but that’s the kind of peace Christ gives. It is rooted in His love, and it surpasses all understanding.”

Tim Howard has shown himself to be a valuable player in international soccer and a valuable model of Christian sportsmanship on the field of life. He chooses to make a difference in preference for helping others and specifically doing so by giving honor and glory to God. This is the message of the New Evangelization and the way every true believer scores the goal and gives God the glory!

Bring your best to Mass on Sunday!

One of my favorite prayers is still the Stations of the Cross. As a prayer it is so engaging to “walk” with Jesus and to enter into the mayhem that surrounded the final moments of His earthly life. Brutality fueled by ignorance and “mob-rules” certainly should remind us of the seriously flawed choices we human beings can make given the right conditions. Of course, my favorite meditation point is the twelfth station: the Death of Jesus on the Cross. It is the centerpiece and the ultimate entry into the most tragic moment of human history.

During these days of the Fortnight for Freedom, I am reminded of the eighth station where Jesus Speaks to the Women of Jerusalem. It is a poignant moment where truth is spoken to a situation so filled with pathos and incongruity. I’m sure you remember the scene. Jesus stops at the sight of the women—perhaps some holding their small children—who are overwhelmed with sorrow for what is happening to Him. They are crying and filled with emotion. Jesus tells them not to weep for Him, but for themselves and for their children. Filled with dire prophecy, the Savior says: “If they do these things in the greenwood, what will they do in the dry?”

Well, they murdered the Prince of Peace, the innocent Lamb of God, in the sweetness of His youth and the height of His public ministry—the greenwood of His presence on earth. Now, of course, so many years later, can we expect that the prophecy will not be fulfilled in these arid days of unbelief?

The soul of humanity has been purchased by the shedding of the Savior’s precious blood on the Cross. The image of the cross itself has become a bauble, a piece of jewelry, a trinket. The sign of the cross—What Jesus has done for us—has been replaced with “What have you done for me lately?”

Delivering comfort and assistance to the poor as Jesus did with the weeping women, is part and parcel of what Jesus told His followers to do in His Name. Throughout the ages, the Church has been seen as the guarantor of healing, comfort, and care for the poor and marginalized. We have been recognized over the centuries, in hostile situations and difficult times, as those who bring consolation to the afflicted and moments of peace in all kinds of conflict.

People of faith, who follow the basic rule of life for peace and justice, have delivered on that rule, secure in the knowledge that they functioned with the basic freedom to do so in a free land. These people of faith, with a common sense rooted deeply in their hearts that made their service some of the best examples of compassionate and benevolent human kindness, now desire to be free to continue to serve while exercising their faith according to the dictates of their consciences.

The Federal government, through various restrictions limiting fundamental legal rights, guaranteed by the Constitution and established traditions of our country, now tries to limit the works of charity that can be done by people of faith. The Federal government, by forcing odious and morally objectionable laws upon citizens who have functioned freely and responsibly in charitable and caring institutions, some since the very founding of our beloved country, is forcing people of good will to rise up as patriots of old against a new tyranny and injustice.

Please stand with the Bishops of the United States of America and reclaim the freedom to serve the poor, house the homeless, care for the sick, support parents and families, and educate all ages, according to the teachings of Jesus and the foundations of our faith and the support of traditional social structures.

Find out how you can get involved by logging on to www.diolc.org/freedom orwww.Fortnight4Freedom.org where you will find more information and a calendar of events. Thank you and Happy Independence Day!

Celebrate religious freedom by coming to Sunday Mass and giving thanks!