Blog - May 2011 RSS Feed

I’m spending this week at the Vatican for the first-ever meeting of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. I’m honored that the Holy Father has appointed me to this new and vital Council, responsible for helping to promote the faith.

A couple of months ago, the bishops of the state of New York enjoyed a working luncheon with our new governor. It was a productive and enlightening visit. At the conclusion, Governor Andrew Cuomo made an observation that has stuck with me.

Today, John Jay College of Criminal Justice released the results of a study on clergy sex abuse. You can view the report presented to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops here . Here is the statement that I released to the press today.

It was one of the more uncomfortable moments in my life. Outside of St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Milwaukee, where I, as archbishop, was celebrating Sunday Mass on an otherwise magnificent Wisconsin autumn day, were a couple dozen very vocal protestors, representing some off-brand denomination, shouting vicious chants and holding hateful signs with words I thought had gone the way of burning-crosses and white hoods.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial written by Micheal Flaherty on Catholic education reform. Here is an excerpt from the editorial: Parent Revolution has made national news in its ongoing attempt to use California’s new “parent trigger” law, which allows parents to transform a failing school by, among other things, replacing it with a charter school.