Milwaukee Forum Calls All To Holiness By CINDY PASLAWSKI MILWAUKEE – "We are all called to holiness," began Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse in his Friday evening address a the Milwaukee Regional Wanderer Forum. And yet, because of the grave scandals given by priests and bishops to the faithful in the last year, he said he finds himself placed in a category of persons viewed with great distrust by those he has given his life to in service of Christ. "What has happened is something I never could have imagined," he said, but "faith leads us to seek a deeper meaning" to all of this "so the suffering is not useless" and instead becomes a "means of growth of holiness." Bishop Burke’s talk, "The Catholic Response to Scandal" was the opening address of the December 6 and 7 conference, which was co-sponsored by Milwaukee’s St. Gregory CUF chapter, the Wanderer Forum Foundation, and Living Catholic Seminars. Nearly 250 people attended Bishop Burke’s evening talk. The Saturday session featured three dynamic talks by Dr. Scott Hahn, an EWTN favorite who is the national chairman of CUF and teaches at Franciscan University. Well over 500 people were in attendance on Saturday. The theme, "A Call To Holiness" was interwoven into all the talks. Christ had the harshest words for those who lead His little ones astray, Bishop Burke said. "The gravity of the scandal is increased by virtue of the authority of those committing the scandal," he went on, adding we were warned about "wolves on the prowl who come to us in sheep’s clothing" and who fail to "accept and hand on the teachings of the Church." Noting that "where there are problems of chastity, there are problems of obedience," Bishop Burke listed several areas of dissent, particularly in sexual morality which have profoundly affected not only the "thinking and acting of the faithful in general, but also on the part of the shepherds….For Satan, the victory is more complete if he can corrupt the thinking of the shepherds themselves….The corruption of the best is the worst." To remedy the situation, Bishop Burke proposed "the highest standard of ordinary Christian living," including acts of charity and mortification. "The response to the sinner should not be guided by an agenda but by the good of the individual and the Church.…In seeking truth, the good of both will be served." In his homily at Saturday morning Mass, Bishop Burke cited St. Ambrose and asked for prayers for priests and bishops. "Pray daily that they may be shepherds after the heart of Christ and after the example of St. Ambrose." There can be "no growth in holiness without worthy shepherds…shepherds after His own heart." Scott Hahn, professor of theology and scripture at Franciscan University in Steubenville, echoed the call for holiness in his two talks devoted to living "Life in the Trinity." Flinging biblical references like arrows, he took the audience through the Old Testament references fulfilled in the coming of Christ and the founding of the Catholic Church. "We have the Catechism" of the Catholic Church, he said. "We are better equipped than anybody to get more out of it" meaning the Bible. It empowers us, he said, yet Catholics have shied away from delving into its depths. "The crisis of modernism can be traced…to faulty biblical scholarship," he said, citing Loisy and some fundamentalist sects with the attitude that "Jesus promised the kingdom and all He left us with is the Catholic Church….They are looking for the kingdom in all the wrong places or are looking for the wrong kingdom," Hahn said. "Wherever the King is, there is the kingdom" and "wherever the Eucharist is, there is the King." Citing the Old Testament, he noted that thanksgiving offerings – without animal sacrifice – pleased God the most and the word for thanksgiving in Hebrew is translated eucharist in Greek. We are being called, he asserted, to one big altar, one living sacrifice in thanksgiving, that is, the eucharistic sacrifice offered to the Lord of lords and King of kings. On this concept we must build our families, this is what makes us one until we go to our true home in Heaven. In part two of the talk later in the afternoon, Hahn said the Trinity is the model of the family. "The Son images the Father. The bond between the Father and Son is Spirit" which is similar to the dynamics in a family. Belief in the Trinity "will transform every area of our lives if we let it," he said. He went on to describe three types of families and how their religious systems define them. Those based on the concept of a sacred trust, with worship at the center, respect for all members of the family both ancestral and yet unborn, and with the father viewed in a priestly and kingly manner, led to long-lasting civilizations. Traditional families struggle, trying to hold on to religious beliefs and values which are fading, while balancing family duties and individual rights. Atomistic families, in which each person is for himself and personal pleasure, are doomed, with no chance of reversal of this future. "The eucharistic God makes us a flesh-and-blood-bonded family," Hahn said. "God wants one and only one family," he went on, "the trustee family of God" preserving the sacred trust. "If this is what the Father sent His Son for," there is "only one applicant for the job" as this family and that is "the Catholic Church….No other God can get us all home." There is "nothing better on the planet than the faith we have been given." Kimberly Hahn, who was originally scheduled to speak was ill and Dr. Hahn spoke in her place on the Virgin Mary, who, he confessed, had been a stumbling block for him as a new Catholic. He said he used to think that "Mary robs Jesus of glory," but finally through Scripture he came to realize that in fact "not to affirm Mary was to rob Jesus of glory." Living Catholic Seminars director David Durand, author of Perpetual Motivation and Time Management for Catholics spoke on time management tricks, commenting that the "greatest time management solution is to pray to God. If He says to ‘come to Me,’ He will make it possible. We can only use time in accordance to His will." The Milwaukee Forum concluded the 2002 regional forum schedule of the Wanderer Forum Foundation, which included ventures in Carmel, California in February and Denver in June, as well as the National Forum in Virginia in November. 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Dr. Scott Hahn makes his point.		Hundreds of people attended morning mass with Bishop Burke at the Milwaukee Forum.
	Bishop Burke greets Milwaukee Forum participants.