Educators: Spreading light of Christ

Participating at Mass at the recent Central Education Institute are, from left, Sr. Joan Meyer, Susan Leet, and Patti Sensenbrenner of St. Albert the Great Parish, Sun Prairie, and Andrea Loppnow and Jamie Hahn of St. Jerome Parish and School, Columbus. (Catholic Herald photo by Julianne Nornberg)

By Julianne Nornberg
CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF

MADISON -- "The light of Christ must radiate in how we live and work," Msgr. Paul J. Swain, vicar general, Diocese of Madison, told those involved in religious education and Catholic schools during Mass at the recent Central Education Institute at the Marriott Madison West Hotel and Conference Center.

There are three ways we can radiate the light of Christ to children: listening to them, being hopeful people in our own lives with humility and a sense of humor, and being sensitive to them and allowing them to reach out to us in our need, said Monsignor Swain.

"We are privileged to be working in the Catholic Church with young people," he said. "Amidst their noise and hyper activity, or their sullenness and reserve, they long for what you and I long for - to know they count, that someone cares, that they are loved. Let the light of Christ lift the spirits of those whose lives we touch - especially the children."

Keynote speaker Bob McCarty, executive director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry in Washington, D.C., discussed current trends in the millennial generation and how educators can meet the challenges of those trends.

"The U.S. is experiencing a spiritual reawakening unparalleled in history," said McCarty.

The millennial generation, those who graduated high school in 2000 and younger, may be the most spiritual generation our country has seen, he said.   Full story ...

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MADISON -- Under the leadership of Representative Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin), the State Assembly has unanimously passed the strongest state legislation in the nation that recognizes the legal rights of babies born alive after abortion.

Known as the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (AB 372), the Gundrum measure clarifies that every baby born after an abortion has the same legal status and legal rights under Wisconsin law as an infant born alive after a normal delivery resulting from a natural or induced labor or a cesarean section.

"What the Assembly did yesterday is to clearly spell out the legal status of babies who survive abortion so there can no longer be a blurring of the line between abortion and infanticide," said Susan Armacost, legislative director of Wisconsin Right to Life.

"The long accepted principle that all babies who are born alive are entitled to the full protection of the law has too often been ignored when it comes to babies born alive after abortion."

Dramatic testimony at the joint public hearing on the legislation detailed numerous atrocities inflicted on babies who had survived abortion.

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