Archbishop Hebda: Catholic education needs to be Church priority

The Catholic Spirit asked Archbishop Bernard Hebda to describe the Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education and to explain how he hopes it shapes Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He shared his responses by email.

Q. What is the Roadmap for Catholic education?
A. It is essentially a tool that will guide and coordinate the strategic approach of the archdiocese over the next several years to the important work of Catholic schools.

Q. What is the goal?
A. Mothers and fathers need partners in the education of their children. Through a united effort across the archdiocese, parishes partner with families in making Catholic schools available and accessible. The Roadmap for Catholic Education will help the archdiocese sequence steps over the next several years in an effort to ensure that parents and parishes have support that they can count on in Catholic schools now and in the years ahead.

continue at The Catholic Spirit

Related: St. Paul Seminary launches new Institute for Catholic School Leadership

CapTimes Op-Ed: Catholic education may hold key to school discipline

In the last several months, WILL has argued that currently popular systems of discipline in American public schools are problematic from the standpoint of promoting a good learning environment. Perhaps in reaction to the overzealousness of the “Zero Tolerance” policies of the late '90s and early 2000s, many school systems have gone the opposite direction, promoting “feel good” discipline policies that result in worsened academic outcomes and reports of unsafe conditions for teachers and students.

But, like in many other contexts, private schools may offer an alternative solution on school discipline. A new study by the Thomas Fordham Institute examines student behavior in Catholic schools compared to other private and public schools. They argue that Catholic schools, far more so than other schools, focus on the notion of self-discipline. Self-discipline, in general, is an intrinsic motivation to engage in positive behavior. In the context of the classroom, this can be exhibited by properly dealing with anger, or avoiding impulsive behavior without the teacher having to intervene. It is a regular point of emphasis for Catholic schools around the country. Indeed, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee lists “self-discipline” as one of the core meanings of a Catholic education. But does this emphasis manifest in better behavioral outcomes?

continue at The Cap Times

AOTM Smoker: Is Catholic Education Catholic Anymore?

See you there!  Any locals looking to carpool let me know.

Details and Purchase Tickets Online

WisWatchdog: Can a school district decide how Catholic a school is?

St. Augustine School, Hartford, WI

A private school in Richfield, Wisconsin, and the parents of three students are taking Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers and the Friess Lake School District to court over the question of who gets to decide if the school is Catholic or not.

The lawsuit, filed April 8 in Waukesha County Circuit Court by attorneys with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, alleges violations of the Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.

...

St. Augustine is an independent school that, while it teaches Catholic doctrine, is incorporated separately from the archdiocese and has its own board of directors and bylaws. It is not part of the Catholic school system.

continue at Wisconsin Watchdog

Yep, go read.  This affect us all.

FYI, This is Virginia's school.... remember her?

Messmer Catholic schools to raise teacher pay, narrowing pay gap with public schools

Messmer Catholic Schools will spend $500,000 to boost teacher salaries by 10% to 30% over the next two years in a move intended both to sustain recent academic gains and uphold the church's teachings on social justice, its president said.

"If we're going to exhibit Catholic values of justice, that means appropriate compensation and fulfilling our mission," said Jim Piatt, whose system employs about 100 teachers on three campuses.

"Teachers should not be paid at a level that qualifies them for assistance or free and reduced lunch," he said.

The move by Messmer is an attempt to raise its teacher salaries to about 90% of their public school counterparts in and around Milwaukee, said Emily Koczela, its newly hired chief financial officer, who like Piatt had worked in the Brown Deer School District before joining Messmer.

continue at JS

Without religious orders to leverage, this is the reality for Catholic education.

Catholic boys' middle school coming to Sauk City

A new Catholic faith-based boys’ school will open for the 2016 school year in Sauk City, and picks up where St. Aloysius grade school leaves off.

The Shoreless Lake School is for boys in sixth through eighth grades, but will open in September starting with one sixth-grade class.

A seventh-grade class will start in September 2017 and eighth grade will commence in 2018.

Staggering the classes ensures that entering students have the prerequisite classes, like lower-level Latin, before starting off in the new school.

continue at WiscNews

Archdiocese moving to strengthen Milwaukee's Catholic school system

Alan J. Borsuk in a Commentary on Education column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel starts by saying Milwaukee's Catholic schools haven't fared as badly as some, but goes on to note that isn't saying much.

"Enrollment in all Catholic schools fell from 5.2 million in 1960 to 2 million in 2014, a drop of more than 60%. Hundreds of parish schools have closed. Put it this way: Total Catholic enrollment in 2014 was slightly higher than in 1920."

My usual take is to note how complacent the Church has been, as opposed to a for-profit organization posting similar results.

"until now, if you want to see innovation and high octane education, Catholic schools were not promising places to look. The era of strict nuns at the heart of school life was gone, but many parish schools had stuck with established ways. (The Lutheran LUMIN and HOPE schools and St. Marcus Lutheran elementary school were better places to look for ambitious change.)"

The nuns are gone, so all hail the LCWR; but I digress.

If you've experienced the liturgical consultant or fund-raising consultant, you might anticipate what's next.

"The Archdiocese brought in consultants from Notre Dame University to assess the urban Catholic schools. Their reports criticized the leadership, educational practices and faith-building work of many of the schools."

It's as if it's been no one's job to oversee this.

"Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said, 'A great drumbeat for fundamental change in our program' arose.

"The new effort — officially titled Seton Catholic Schools — is a result."

Here's the elevator explanation.

"Don Drees, project manager for the Seton effort, said the focus will be on three areas: educational improvements, including consistent curriculum among schools; improved religious education; and improved governance.

"Kathleen Cepelka, superintendent of archdiocese schools, said each school will keep its own identity, but there will be a strong centralized push for quality, with principals as a key focus. 'Leadership is everything,' she said."

The obvious questions being where has leadership been, and given that lack, where will it come from.

"The logo of the new initiative includes the line, 'Transforming Urban Education.' That is an appealing goal that the voucher opportunity has not brought Milwaukee Catholic schools so far."

And giving priority to a logo and a slogan has not been a good sign in the past. But at least there's no reference to a New Pentecost, so we'll hope for the best.

The Future of Catholic K-12 Education - Conference video

Alan J. Borsuk posted the Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog on yesterday morning's conference there on 'The Future of Catholic K-12 Education: National and Milwaukee Perspectives'.

"In the opening session, Margaret F. Brinig and Nicole Stelle Garnett, both Notre Dame Law School professors, described what they found in researching their 2014 book, Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America."

Matthew Hennessey reviewed their book at City Journal.

"[Kathleen] Cepelka, the superintendent of schools in the archdiocese, told the full-house audience in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall about the strengths of schools in Milwaukee, about positive developments in enrollment, and about the many praiseworthy people and organizations involved in making the schools as good as they are.

"But, she said, the quality of some of the schools isn’t what it needs to be and there are weak levels of achievement among students in some schools. 'We are not satisfied,' she said."

Video of the conference is here.

New Catholic housing option for UW-Oshkosh students

OSHKOSH – A religious-centered life can be hard to lead without support from others, which is why a Roman Catholic ministry now offers University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh students a faith-based housing option.

The off-campus Newman Student House opens this fall and is a six-unit coed apartment building about a half-mile from the university. The new housing option is an extension of the long-standing Newman Center of Oshkosh, a ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay that serves the campus community. The diocese says it will be the first development of its kind at a public university in Wisconsin.

The Rev. Jason Blahnik, ministry director of the Newman Center, said college typically coincides with defining years in a young person's life, making it a pivotal point for their faith. While juggling coursework, students are living away from home for the first time, they may be homesick and facing the temptations of drugs, alcohol and the hook-up culture, he said.

continue at Post Crescent

With seemingly most Catholic colleges in state having no interest in renewing or recovering their Catholic identity, it look like this will be the model of choice for us.  A good write-up, hopefully the housing option is successful.

Part two of our interview with Dr. Duke Pesta

Recently, Common Core expert Dr. Duke Pesta sat down to answer some questions with us. If you missed part one, click here to catch up. Given the stakes, you can't afford to not know what the federal government has in store for our children's classrooms.

Some Common Core proponents argue that Common Core isn’t a curriculum. It’s merely a set of basic standards that ensure students develop essential skills and a sufficient knowledge base. How would you response?

Yeah, that’s one of the great lies, one of the great deceptions of Common Core. They say it’s not a curriculum.

Technically, in the most technical sense of the term, that’s true. The standards are just guidelines. The problem is the national tests completely cover those standards. They currucularize them. The textbooks that are available for Common Core completely and utterly are 100 percent curriculum-driven by those standards. So it is a distinction without a difference. You can call them standards however you want, but they have completely become pedagogy and curriculum in the schools that use them, which is to say most public schools right now.

It seems as though Common Core accelerates the focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Does this focus come at the expense of the humanities? And if so, what are the dangers?

It’s ironic. You keep hearing that these standards are more rigorous and that their focus is higher level, but that doesn’t really seem to be true. In English, for instance, they remove 50 percent of the literature content, the classical poetic, fictional accounts, the great Western and American classics. Those books that give kids a sense of our heritage, who we are, our cultural history and require increasing skill in terms of reading comprehension. And 50% of those texts are now replaced with informational texts, most of which are tendentious and political in nature and do nothing to stimulate growth in reading comprehension skills.

The other big problem with it is that every single study we have pretty much shows that kids learn to write after they learn to read very complicated texts. What Common Core does in the English courses is it de-emphasizes reading and elevates writing. So they end up doing more writing than reading, and that’s not a good way to teach kids how to write in a complicated way.

Does Common Core impact public schools only? Or should families with children in private schools be concerned as well? How about homeschooling families?

Private and homeschool [families] should be very worried about Common Core. Before the SAT and ACT went over to Common Core—which they’re in the process of doing—private school and home school kids did very, very well compared to public school kids on all the standardized tests. Those tests were basic knowledge tests. But now the ACT and SAT are moving over to Common Core, which means those kids who have had Common Core learning methods are going to do better on these tests than kids who haven’t been exposed to Common Core methodology, even though the non-Common Core kids may be much more advanced and much smarter ultimately in terms of what they know. And that’s probably going to be the case. The fact is that now the standardized tests are all tailored to Common Core.

This is the beginning of the way the federal government will say “Well look at how private and home school families are failing our kids. For the last 20 years, they’ve had higher scores, but ever since we incorporated this wonderful Common Core curriculum, home school and private schools have gone down by comparison. That’s going to be an excuse and a provocation to try to remove or limit home school or private schools in the future.

Finally, how can parents stand against Common Core?

Parents need to unite. As things stand right now, they are still for the moment the single most important voice in their kids’ education. The federal government is trying to change that. The federal government is trying to make the state responsible for your kids’ education in ways it’s never been before. So if parents are concerned about what and how their kids learn, this is a hill they need to take a stand on because Common Core will effectively succeed in separating parents from their kids when it comes to what and how your kids are taught.

An Interview with Common Core expert, Dr. Duke Pesta

Common Core continues to be a controversial subject in Wisconsin and throughout the nation so I wanted to get a better sense of what it is and why it's a threat to Catholic families. Fortunately, Dr. Duke Pesta, expert on Common Core and the academic director of Freedom Project Education, was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule to talk with us.

The debate over Common Core is heating up in both public and private schools. For those who aren’t familiar, could you tell us what, exactly, is Common Core?

Common Core is a set of curriculum guidelines, standards for curriculum. Right now we have English and math standards that have been implemented in the schools, and they were put together by a small cadre of activists and lobbyists. These standards were written largely behind closed doors with very little educator input and funded to the tune of $150 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The reason 45 states in the union adopted Common Core standards without ever have seen them is because of the Race to the Top program…which gave states a waiver from No Child Left Behind—previous bad education legislation. And it offered hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to the states provided that they took Common Core, that once the Common Core was released—it hadn’t even been written yet—[Common Core standards] would be adopted by the states. So that’s how 45 states came to be under the onus of Common Core without having voted on it or seen what the standards were.

Why should parents be concerned, and what are some of the big problems with Common Core?

Parents should be concerned because first and foremost it’s a radical encroachment on parents’ rights, local school board rights, teacher rights. It’s a huge encroachment in that…more than ever before, these standards run technically through the federal government.

All the testing…that Common Core will do, is all nationalized. All of the textbooks have gone Common Core, which means that even though standards are standards, they actually are a curriculum as well. All these standards have been put together into all these textbooks—that are the only Common Core textbooks you can buy. The standards themselves…have been curricularized. The tests themselves require conformity to a certain pedagogy and a certain approach to be able to pass those tests or to even take them. That’s a huge problem for parents.

Also you have issues with data mining in conjunction with the federal government and with Obamacare in particular. The schools become gathering houses for all sorts of information on your kids, radical and often times sensitive information.

Parents should be concerned also because [with] the continuing federalization of the standards, you’re going to have very little opportunity to make any changes in your local school—a bad lesson, a bad book, bad subject matter. Right now you can go to the school, complain and opt out. Once this all runs through the federal government, you’re not going to be able to do that anymore.

Given these problems, why is Comon Core being pushed so hard? If not the students, who stands to gain from its implementation?

Common Core is being pushed so hard because—as with everything else in the federal government right now—the government is in a very expansive mood in terms of growth. Big government all across the country. If you think about how much control the federal government has over your body now because it runs health care, think about how much control the federal gov’t is going to have over your families and over your kids once they ultimately control education from the top down. So that’s the end game.

And in terms of who benefits from it, well, there’s all sorts of crony capitalists—people like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The big donors to common core are going to reap windfall profits. The textbook companies, many who are aligned behind Common Core. All these textbook companies are making millions and millions of dollars providing these textbooks. The testing consortia are going to be responsible for writing these tests. Big money for these groups. Crony capitalism and special interests: that’s who [are] going to profit immediately.

Tomorrow we'll be back with part two of our interview with Dr. Duke Pesta--including a chilling explanation of what Common Core means for Catholic schools and homeschooling families.

Minnesota School Finds Success in Catholic Identity, Classical Roots

Saint Agnes School hasn’t been exempt from challenges in its 125-year history, but the journey has made the Catholic school that much stronger.

This year’s Catholic Schools Week is especially joyous for Saint Agnes—the coed, K-12 school in St. Paul, Minn., marked the feast of its patron, St. Agnes, last Tuesday and welcomed home alumni to kick off its celebration of 125 years of excellence, with a renewed commitment to strong Catholic identity, according to the school’s new website.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has designated January 26^th-February 1^st as Catholic Schools Week with the theme, “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service,” according to the bishops’ website.

Saint Agnes’ history as a community of Faith began in 1888, when it was founded in a small Austro-Hungarian neighborhood by a congregation of religious sisters.  By the 1970s, the school had grown into a large, regional k-12 institution, and the faculty began to switch precipitously to nearly all laypeople.  Financial difficulties and low student enrollment in the late 1990s and 2000s forced the school leaders to consider possibly closing in the spring of 2007 if issues were not addressed.

“It was a real crossroad,” Saint Agnes Principal James Morehead told St. Paul Pioneer Press about the school’s desperate situation.  “There were a couple benefactors who stood up at the last minute and saved the school.”

continue at Cardinal Newman Society

Pres. Obama on Catholic schools

Speaking in Ireland this week, President Obama stated that Catholic schools were divisive: “If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.” On Thursday, the American Catholics for Religious Freedom fired back on President Obama’s words to 2,000 young people at the G8 Summit, stating, “President Obama’s anti-faith, secular agenda was shamefully on full display yesterday when he told the young people of Northern Ireland that Catholic education and other faith-based schools were divisive and an obstacle to peace. All Americans of faith should be outraged by these comments which clearly telegraph the President’s belief system and are in fact at their core even anti-American.”

continue at Breitbart

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Wisconsin JFC approves new test protocols, limits adoption of Common Core in the future

Has the Dharma Initiative really been shut down?

[Madison, Wisc...] Wisconsin is still on the path to adopting Common Core State Standards in reading and math when new standardized tests are instituted in a few months. However, any other initiatives that would have relied on Common Core will have to wait.

The Joint Committee on Finance approved a motion that would ensure that the state takes a comprehensive look at Common Core based initiatives in the future. Representative Dean Knudson (R-Hudson) called the plan a way to "hit pause" on the adoption of these standards while the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) can fully research how the oft-debated program will effect the state's schools and students.

The motion requires DPI to publish an evaluation of the common core standards, the formation of a legislative study committee and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau to prepare a fiscal impact statement. The study committee would be required to perform a comparison between common core and current standards, analyze best practices in adopting standards and evaluate the costs associated with implementing the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers assessment and the Smarter Balanced assessment by schools.

This evaluation process will also include no fewer than three public hearings that will give residents of Wisconsin their say in the matter.

This motion will not impact the implementation of two new testing programs for Wisconsin's students. The state will adopt SMARTER Balanced testing in grades 3-8 and the ACT testing suite in grades 9-11 to gauge student growth and achievement in reading and math. However, it will delay any move to institute tests or standards in other subjects - namely science and social studies. These new tests, which will replace the outdated WKCE standard assessment, will be introduced in public schools for the 2014-2015 school year.

continue at MacIver

If you want to know what is so terrible about Common Core, check out Crisis Magazine: Saving the Uncommon Core of Catholic Education.

In other news, Wisconsin Catholic Conference supports school voucher program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21, 2013
CATHOLIC CONFERENCE ON STATE BUDGET:
EXPAND SCHOOL CHOICE, PROTECT HEALTH CARE FOR POOR

As the public policy voice of Wisconsin’s Roman Catholic bishops, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference(WCC) supports and affirms many of the measures included in Governor Scott Walker’s 2013-15 state biennial budget proposal. However, the WCC has some concerns that may require further review and revision.

The WCC supports the promotion of innovative and quality education in the budget, including the expansion of parental choice programs and the creation of the Special Needs Scholarship Program. Both proposals area step forward in empowering all parents with the ability to choose a school that best meets their child’s needs.

John Huebscher, Executive Director of the WCC, said that by giving more parents around the state a greater say in the education of their children,the initiatives further a basic tenet of Catholic social teaching.“We support parental choice as a matter of principle,” he noted. “This isn’t about whether a Catholic school exists in a particular community and could participate in the program.  It is about affirming measures that support parents as the primary educators of their children. These programs recognize that those of limited means often have limited options.”

Nor, he added, should support for school choice initiatives be seen as a threat to, or an indictment of, public education. “Catholic schools are not competitors with their public counterparts, but partners,” Huebscher explained. “Indeed, we continue to respect the excellence evident in many public schools. But we maintain that taxpayer support for both public and private institutions is a hallmark of our democracy. For example, Catholic hospitals and Catholic universities have long existed side-by-side with public hospitals and universities. All receive federal and state funds in order to assist low-income individuals. So too, should it be with primary and secondary schools.”

continue at Wisconsin Family Conference

Bravo!

Some other coverage at GBPG

New Catholic High School proposed in Dodgeville

DODGEVILLE -- A group of parents and professionals in the Dodgeville area in Iowa County is undertaking an effort to found an independent high school in the Catholic tradition.

Michael J. Lancaster, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Madison, said the group has received approval from the Diocese of Madison to name the school Holy Family High School (HFHS).

“While the diocese has and will continue to provide guidance, as is the case with all schools, HFHS will receive no financial support from the diocese,” said Lancaster.

The high school would not be connected to any single parish. According to canon law, HFHS may not yet be called a “Catholic school” until it petitions the bishop and he grants this recognition.

“The process of founding a new high school is complex, and this dedicated group has undertaken an arduous but most noble and appreciated task,” said Lancaster in a February 4 letter to pastors, other priests, and principals in the Diocese of Madison.

continue at Madison Catholic Herald

Classical? 

MacIver: More WI Students Utilize School Choice Here Than Ever Before

Nearly 26 percent of the state's children attended institutions other than their traditional neighborhood public school in the 2011-2012 academic year. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest district, this figure rose to more than 81 percent of students.

An examination of Wisconsin's K-12 student population from the last school year shows that more students are utilizing school choice here than ever before.

In all, more than 262,000 Wisconsin students used some form of school choice. Rather than attending their local classrooms, these pupils chose options like charter schools, virtual charter schools, open enrollment transfers to other public schools, private schools, and homeschooling. Nearly 90,000 of these students came from Milwaukee. In all, there were 1,014,619 K-12 students in Wisconsin.

While the overall enrollment dropped by nine thousand students between the 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 school years, the number of students exercising some form of choice in education rose by more than 2,000 pupils. After statewide school choice saw a 1.1 percent decline in 2010-2011, the 2011-2012 numbers rebounded with an increase of 2 percent across all forms of school choice.

continue at MacIver

School choice champion Br. Bob Smith resigns for health reasons

Br. Bob Smith, OFM Cap

Brother Bob Smith, known as the architect of the rise and success of Messmer Catholic Schools and an icon of the school choice movement in Wisconsin and across the nation, announced his resignation Thursday as Messmer's president and CEO.

In a letter to students and their families, faculty, staff and alumni, Smith, 55, said he has had health complications since undergoing neck and spine surgery three years ago and indicated he now faces further surgery.

"This was a decision that did not come easily," said Smith, leader of the head of the three-campus school.

Smith, a member of the Franciscan Order of Capuchins, was appointed principal of Messmer High School in 1987 and CEO of Messmer Catholic Schools in 1995.

A transition team is being assembled that will include an expanded board of directors, board chairman Shawnee M. Daniels-Sykes said.

Smith was a tireless champion and a positive change agent for Messmer students, families and the community, said attorney and board member Peter Salza.

A nationally outspoken proponent of parental school choice, Smith has been praised by many, including former President George W. Bush, for his success in educating minority students.

He has seen choice's expansion as vital in the struggle to pull children and families out of poverty.

"This is one of the few times in life in which people with little money can go into a store full of school options and pick what is best for their child," he once wrote. "This provides the poor with the same educational choices as the rich."

continue at JS

You may remember Br. Bob Smith getting shouted down by a bunch of liberals(you know, the great supporters of racial minorities) during the Walker recall. Just take a look at this photo and tell me who the racists are. 

Goodman: The problem with bishops' "neutrality" argument

Bl. Von Galen, The Lion of Münster
Patron of Bishops who wont be shut up

Will Goodman of the Servants of Our Lady of Guadalupe sent this on. 

+A response to an article I posted on CNN.com. Pray for those who profess to have faith in Christ the King and helped put the most notoriously pro-abortion president back in the White House.

Recently CNN ran an article entitled: " My Take: Catholic bishops' election behavior threatens their authority" by Vincent Miller who is the Gudorf Chair of Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton.

This article was interesting in some ways, and in other ways– quite sad.

The author makes a very important point when he states:

"Voters must weigh the mix of positions of both candidates, not just the objections against one."

No candidate or party is perfect. Honest critiques of any political party failing on a clear matter of justice are not only fair, but obligatory.

This is another good point:

"(The bishops) must beware the divisiveness that even the appearance of partisanship can bring into the Church."

This is a real consideration to always keep in mind, but it can be quite challenging however, when a particular party or candidate has aligned itself with the promotion of grave evils intrinsically at odds with both the common good and the dignity of individual human persons. In an essentially two-party, bi-cameral political system when one party has taken a radical and dangerous position against the common good- speaking out against such injustice is what is required, even though it may be perceived as 'partisan' by some.

I am thankful Bl. Von Galen, Bishop of Munster Germany, spoke out against Hitler (more than his political rival) because the evil of racist eugenics behind Nazism had to be directly confronted. History looks back upon such acts as heroic, not partisan. This is because the evil being confronted was so great.

Bishop Jenky, cited in the article, is cut of this same cloth, in my opinion, speaking out– not against policy– but against moral evil.

The article does not seem to recognize that certain intrinsic evils can never, ever be promoted by any candidate or political party: the taking of innocent life (viz., euthanasia, abortion, human embryonic research, cloning research, etc.), attempts to re-define marriage, and removing the protections of religious liberty and the rights of conscience on the very subjects of life, death and faith. Why was this omitted? The author reduces the concern of the HHS mandate to a mere trifle of defining a "religious exemption". Much more is at stake! For example- the involvement of the Church and all people of good will in early chemical abortions– because they are being _forced_ by the Federal Government. This is outrageous! And it won't be settled by a broader exemption.

The author points out concerns about Ryan's policy and that is fine (...although I am not sure if he accurately portrayed Ryan's view on Medicare). Catholics are free to debate policy, and this is a welcome opportunity for dialogue and appreciation for differences in opinion in how to handle certain social and governmental problems. My experience has been that bishops encourage the laity to be informed and make their personal decisions as best as they can. This isn't the issue though.

The central point the US Bishops were making in this election is that there are some evils so great that they cannot be considered "policy" upon which good people may disagree.

Bishop Morlino in Madison thus taught that no Catholic with a well-formed conscience can ever vote for a candidate who supports abortion, the redefinition of marriage, and assaults on religious liberty/rights of conscience. This is because such evils are not merely "political policy"- but violations of the natural moral law upon which all of society must be based. (Read- "self-evident truths".) Bl. Von Galen could not tell faithful Catholics in the late 1930s that they can "bracket" Nazi eugenics and still support Nazi candidates because of their other policies– and still be "good Catholics". Some evils are just too big to set to the side when considering a candidate. Some evils are so great that a good bishop must warn the faithful not to participate in such evil– even by a simple vote. (Note- Hitler was elected by democratic vote. Were those Catholics who helped put him in office honoring Christ by such a vote?! It seems impossible.)

There is a hierarchy of justice. Care for the poor is an essential element of justice. But it will always be a concern beneath the killing of the poor. The order of justice is as important as accessing the elements of justice that are related to political realities. The most fundamental rights of the human person are always at the top of such a hierarchy- and hence, first in the order of justice. The right to life is the most fundamental human right and therefore on the up-most rung of the hierarchy of justice. The bishops are trying to teach this crucial lesson and our author does not seem to recognize this was at issue.

In the final analysis, I am very troubled and saddened that one who heads a department of theology at a Catholic university would have written this piece on how members of the Church may be perceived without mentioning what the bishops were actually doing to serve Christ and His flock and those threatened by the greatest injustices in our nation.

It is for these and other reasons that we pray for Catholics who supported Obama/Biden, as well as those who, (perhaps like this author?), would prefer the bishops to be more silent to the gravity of certain moral evils in order to be perceived as more politically "neutral".

Milwaukee area Catholic school enrollment up for 1st time in 13 years

Legislation passed late in the summer has allowed the Milwaukee Parental School Choice program to expand to more schools in southeast Wisconsin and already five schools have jumped at the opportunity.

St. Thomas More High School, Milwaukee; St. Martin of Tours, Franklin; and in Racine Our Lady of Grace Academy, St. Joseph Elementary School and John Paul II Academy are welcoming choice students.

Kathleen Cepelka, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said parents have a right to choose a Catholic education for their children.

“I am supportive of all Catholic social teachings, including the ways in which our schools serve the needs of the disadvantaged,” Cepelka said.

Catholic schools have shown an increase in enrollment in the choice program from 7,502 students last year to 8,831 this year; about 27 percent of all Catholic students are school choice.

“We’re up, enrollment-wise, by about 1 percent,” Cepelka said. “It’s the first time in 13 years that we’ve seen an enrollment increase.”

continue at Mil Cath Herald

They have a nice chart there of total enrollment numbers.