Author: Gordon Govier

Two Wisconsinites have had an opportunity to spend time with Pope Francis in Rome this week, one a Milwaukee priest facing a deadly illness, the other a farmer there as part of an agricultural delegation.

The outcry over a Wisconsin Amish family ordered by a court to leave their home is fueling a legislative push for a religious exemption from building codes requiring smoke alarms and other modern devices. Republican state Rep. Kathleen Bernier said Wednesday she plans to insert language in the state budget bill to carve out an exemption for “longheld religious beliefs” in the Urban Dwelling Code’s permitting rules on electrical devices and indoor plumbing.

I spent four days at InterVarsity’s Multiethnic Staff Conference in Orlando, meeting with 320 staff members of all ethnicities and hearing stories of reconciliation from campus. Together, we experienced apologies and forgiveness, listening and lament, celebration and hope. As I was flying from Orlando back to Madison—still processing the conference’s content—a young Black man, Tony Robinson, was shot and killed in my home town.

The day after a white Madison police officer fatally shot an unarmed, biracial 19-year-old after an altercation on Madison’s Near East Side, Michael Johnson was worried. Johnson had been in Ferguson, Missouri, last August in the days after a white police officer killed an unarmed black 18-year-old, and the city broke out in heated protests, some of which turned violent and destructive. Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, said he “kept having these images of Ferguson in my head” on Saturday. “It was the fear of what this city could look like,” Johnson said. But…

RACINE — It was in a dream that Ben Johnston-Krase first received the message that would lead him to redirect his life. In the dream, he was called to set up a new church and when he got to where the church was to be, it was a farm.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, 47, is facing new scrutiny as the flavor of the month in Republican presidential politics. Among various disputes in play, he’s an evangelical Protestant and thus needs to be prepared for skeptical questioning about religion and pesky “social issues.” But actually, we know little about Walker’s religio-moral thinking. A quick Internet search turned up only a couple unsatisfying interviews with him about this. There’s much ground left to explore.

Midway through the Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Dodgeville, the service took a sharp turn toward fundraising. Monsignor Daniel Ganshert, the parish priest, told parishioners that for years, people in the Madison Catholic Diocese had been praying for more men to be called by God to the priesthood. The Holy Spirit has responded, Ganshert announced jubilantly. There are now 33 seminarians, or priests-in-training, up from six in 2003 when Bishop Robert Morlino arrived.

Conversations are the starting point of change. TED Talks are one form of conversational change agents. Another, Q Commons, came to Madison this past week at the Upper House, a new meeting place on the University of Wisconsin campus to talk about issues.”We live and work in a great city, so much great stuff happens here,” said John Terrill, Upper House director, as he opened the evening. “Q is an opportunity to think and dream, how can we achieve more.” The event Thursday evening featured three nationally known speakers on video, interspersed with three live, local speakers.

For 14 weeks last fall, Rhonda Hill and a group of women dug deep into the Book of Acts, Luke’s biblical account of the planting of the early church and of the great suffering — beatings, imprisonment, death — endured by many who spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For a woman like Hill — deeply religious, a believer in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives — the Bible holds great meaning. And looking back, she sees those discussions as a preparation for this time.

MADISON — After consulting with diocesan boards, Bishop Robert C. Morlino has approved going forward with the proposed redevelopment project for the Bishop O’Connor Center (BOC). After these meetings concluded, Bishop Morlino approved proceeding with the project for the Bishop O’Connor Center as a mixed-use project, including 53 market-rate residential apartments and commercial space that includes religious use by the Diocese of Madison, Catholic Charities, Catholic Herald, Relevant Radio, and Catholic Mutual.