June

  • St. Joseph High and Interparish Junior High, Kenosha, announced the fall addition of a sixth grade after more than 50 years of serving high school students and 21 years of serving seventh and eighth grade students.
  • Whitefish Bay Dominican High School president, Maureen Schuerman, and principal, Edward Kovochich, resigned from their posts, effective June 30.
    P4YearInReview

    With friends and family only able to watch via a live stream Internet feed, St. Lawrence Seminary graduates walk in procession during the May 17 commencement ceremony. Due to two confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza and more than 50 students with flu-like symptoms at the Capuchin-run boarding school for young men, the graduation at Mt. Calvary seminary was made private, no family or friends allowed. (Submitted photo courtesy St. Lawrence Seminary)

  • Archbishop Weakland will continue to reside at Wilson Commons on Milwaukee’s south side as the Benedictines exercised the option in which he offered to “withdraw acceptance of their invitation to live with them,” at St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, N.J. After a May 14 New York Times article talked about the discovery of his homosexual orientation, Benedictine Abbot Giles Hayes addressed the issue in a letter to the archbishop and that it might pose problems for the monastery and Delbarton School, the preparatory school that the Benedictines operate near St. Mary.
  • St. Therese and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel elementary schools in Kenosha will merge in the fall to become Mt. Carmel-St. Therese at St. Therese School, 2020 91st. St., and serve kindergarten through sixth grade and address declining enrollment, escalating operating costs and rising tuition.
  • Holy Trinity Parish, Newburg, celebrated 150 years.
  • The Diocese of Madison froze salaries and cut about 20 jobs because of a downturn in its investment income in the past fiscal year.
  • San Juan Diego Middle School, a 70-student Racine school that offered Catholic education to children living in poverty, closed because of the economy.
  • Robert T. Hall was hired as Catholic Memorial High School principal, succeeding Mark Schmitt, who held the position for two years.
  • The Catholic Community Foundation awarded more than $200,000 in grants to Milwaukee organizations that provide health care services to the medically indigent and to organizations in southeastern Wisconsin that support other priorities of the Foundation.
  • Thirteen deacons celebrated silver jubilees, and 10 were ordained to the diaconate on June 13.
  • Fr. Ken Omernick, pastor of St. Gregory the Great Parish in Milwaukee, ran as Polish during the sausage race at Miller Park, June 18, which was part of the parish’s farewell to their priest of 12 years.
  • Fr. Bryan Massingale was installed as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the principal association of Catholic theologians in North America, during its 64th annual convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in early June. An associate professor of theology at Marquette University, Fr. Massingale also received the Robert and Mary Gettl Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, Marquette University’s highest teaching honor.
  • St. Luke School in Brookfield closed on June 11, because of low enrollment and rising costs.
  • St. Catherine of Alexandria closed its school after 144 years to merge with the schools at St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Good Hope to form Northwest Catholic School in Milwaukee.

July

  • Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), dated June 29, was released July 7, and addressed the economic crisis.
  • Ethel Gintoft, former Catholic Herald associate publisher and executive editor for 20 years, died June 24, at age 83, after she underwent quintuple bypass heart surgery. She worked for the Catholic Herald for more than 35 years first as a reporter and then as associate editor.
  • A devastating Patrick Cudahy meat processing plant fire burned for three days and had people within a one-mile radius evacuate their homes because of the potential lethal fumes that could have been released had the fire reached tanks of ammonia used for refrigeration.
  • The Waukesha Catholic Study Group, begun in 1934 with 36 women who wanted to better understand their faith, celebrated 75 years with 157 members.
  • Chuck Allison, director of schools for the archdiocese, resigned from his post on July 15 after two years of service.
  • Jason Jones, co-executive producer of the motion picture “Bella,” spoke at Blessed Sacrament Parish, Milwaukee, and shared his atheist-to-Catholic conversion story and the movie’s pro-life message.
  • Suzanne Riggio, a member of St. Mary Visitation, made a quilt commemorating the 150 years of St. Mary School, Elm Grove, and its relationship with the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

August

  • Sports Faith International, the Chicago-based media initiative, co-chaired by Chicago Bears co-owner Patrick McCaskey, named Catholic Central Football the Division-A Team of the Year and inducted them into the 2008 Sports Faith International Hall of Fame. Coach Tom Aldrich said their faith on and off the field comes first before their 14-0 record and their win in the WIAA Division 7 Wisconsin state football championship.
  • Six months after seven-year-old Tiffany Dombrowski’s miracle recovery after spending close to 30 minutes underwater when the truck in which she was riding broke through the ice, she undergoes occupational and speech therapy, but shows no physical signs of the incident.
  • Columbia St. Mary Hospital, Milwaukee, celebrated 100 years of service at its historic “East Facility.”
  • St. John the Baptist Parish, Paris, 1501 172nd Ave., celebrated 150 years.
  • Ed Kovochich, former principal of Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, was named principal at St. Joseph High School, Kenosha.
  • A civil lawsuit was filed Aug. 13 against the archdiocese by Dean Weissmuller, 50, a former student of St. John’s School for the Deaf, St. Francis, where the late Fr. Lawrence Murphy served from 1950-1974. Weissmuller alleged that he was molested by Fr. Murphy and dorm supervisor Thomas Tannehill while a student at the residential school between 1970 and 1972.
  • Catholic Knights and Catholic Family Life Insurance, Catholic fraternal benefits organizations, signed a letter of intent to merge, which would result in a combined membership of 120,000, licensed operations in 27 states, total assets exceeding $1.1 billion and about $4.8 billion of insurance in force. Representatives of both will vote in the first quarter of 2010 whether to finalize the merger.
  • Fr. Jeffrey Thielen resigned Aug. 12 as pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish, Burlington, amid allegations of financial non-compliances. Auditing firm Baker Tilly found about $75,000 in poorly documented and allegedly misused church funds. Two church trustees and the parish business administrator also resigned, but were not suspected of misconduct.