Author: Gordon Govier

Christmas?  Hanukkah?  Or Winter Solstice?  They are all represented at your very own State Capitol. In the rotunda of the Capitol, surrounding the state’s forty-foot, decorated “Holiday Tree,” five displays stand sentinel for the month of December, as they have for a number of years now.  A giant, lit Menorah, three signs celebrating Christmas and a gloomy brass display condemning religion and promoting the Winter Solstice engage in a silent, but epic, battle yet again.

When George Wirz, the retired auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Madison, died last week at age 81, his passing got only brief notice in the local news. He had been retired for six years, after all, and even before that, he had a pretty low profile in the public arena. An auxiliary bishop is essentially a helper to the main bishop. And Wirz was not given to plunging into the public debates that tend to get one’s name in the headlines. Yet his impact on Catholics in the southwestern Wisconsin area that comprises the 11-county Madison Diocese was…

Los Angeles is a more religious city than Madison. No, really, it’s true; you can look it up.

For the past 10 years, 280 low-income families living on Madison’s north side have filled out a Christmas wish list for $25 gifts. Fulfilled anonymously by city churchgoers, the list produces $11,000 in Christmas cheer for households in the Northport and Packers Apartments whose incomes average $10,600-$11,700.

Mad City Church, a small church plant that began meeting in Emerson School 14 years ago, grew and moved to East High School, grew some more and moved to LaFollette High School, exists no more. Members of the church held their last service yesterday, November 28, 2010, and then marched or drove to Lake City Church at 4909 E. Buckeye Road. The two churches have united into a new congregation that will be called City Church.

madisonchristians.com invites Christian ministries in the Madison area to promote community-wide events with a banner advertisement on madisonchristians.com. Events that qualify will reflect MC’s scripture focus, Romans 12:5: “In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all of the others.”

MADISON — Bishop Robert C. Morlino invites all to join him, in communion with Pope Benedict XVI, for a worldwide vigil on Saturday, Nov. 27, for all nascent human life. Pope Benedict called for Catholics around the world to participate in the vigil for unborn babies, which coincides with first vespers on the eve of the first Sunday of Advent. In response to this call, Bishop Morlino will celebrate a prayer vigil, beginning at 7 p.m., at St. Patrick Church, 404 E. Main St., Madison.

Barbara Vaughan helped wake up Madison for four years as one of the two news anchors on WKOW-TV’s morning news show. She left the program last August and by next August hopes to be living in Budapest, Hungary, with her husband Brian and their two daughters. Right now the family still lives in Janesville, where they’ve made their home for the past five years. As is the case for many who feel the call to the mission field, they’re focusing first on putting together a team of people who will stand behind them with prayer and financial support.

MADISON (WKOW) — Operation Christmas Child in Madison is collecting shoe box donations Nov. 15th through Nov. 22nd. Individuals, churches and community groups can help by packing shoe boxes with toys, candy, school supplies, hygiene items, etc. 

It’s only 40 miles from UW-Madison, but the rules by which its students must abide to avoid discipline or expulsion are quite different than those you’d find at nearly every other college or university.