On Thursday, Sept. 5th I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s Pallium Lecture, whose keynote speaker was Timothy Cardinal Dolan. It had been years since I had last heard him speak, and I had forgotten how powerful of a speaker he was, and what presence he can bring to a stage. If you were not able to be at the talk, and are interested in listening to it yourself, I have confirmed with the Archdiocese that they will be putting it up on their website at www.archmil.org within the next several weeks, so please check their website out. They have lots of other great information as well.

The theme of the lecture was “Who do you say that I am?,” which was also the title of the Pastoral Letter that Archbishop Listecki released several months ago (we have several copies still available at the library for people, or while you are at the Archdiocese’s website you would be able to download an online copy). Archbishop Listecki and Cardinal Dolan both tie this phrase of Jesus to the Church. Cardinal Dolan talked about the problems with so many people falling away from the Catholic Church, and talked about the three ways to help bring them back:

  1. To look at the Church as the family you were born into
  2. Apologetics, knowing how to defend your faith against attack
  3. Repentance, owning up that the people in the Church make many mistakes, and we need the Church even more because of this.

Throughout his speech he used quotations from theologians and Catholic leaders from Tertullian to de Lubac, from Dorothy Day to Carlo Carretto. Most of these individual’s works are available here at Salzmann.

We also have many works by Catholic apologetics, both recent and older. Cardinal Dolan took several questions afterwards, and one of them was who he recommended for people to read up on their apologetics. He said that he liked the more recent apologetic authors, not those who get up in the face of their opponents and throw Bible verses all over the place, but those who explain the Catholic position from a sense of tradition and common sense, with biblical references as a back-up. Two authors he mentioned by name were Scott Hahn and Peter Kreeft, and we have many of their works here, while continuing to be on the lookout for more.

It was a great talk and an excellent night. However it was just the start. If you want to follow up on the methods presented by Cardinal Dolan, the Salzmann Library is the resource you need.

As always, if you have any ideas and comments for things I could change, please let me know. If you have any books that you have read or have read the books I mention, please leave a comment. We here at Salzmann also want to know what people are reading. Comments are always appreciated – anything I can do to make this better I will strive my best to accomplish.

Here is some basic information about the library:

  • Our standard hours are Tuesdays, Thursdays, 12 to 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Our address is 3257 S. Lake Dr., St. Francis, WI 53235, right next to Henni Hall, due west of the South Parking Lot.
  • The library’s phone number is (414) 747-6479. If you would like to contact me through email, it is mschrauth@sfs.edu.
  • There is free Wi-Fi available.
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  • The library catalogis available online