Mike Sweitzer-Beckman's blog

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago spoke Feb 23 at a gathering on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He became the first Catholic cardinal to speak at the Church of Latter-day Saints university, speaking on "Catholics and Latter-day Saints: Partners in the Defense of Religious Freedom" as part of the Mormon school's forum series. The aim of the talk, of course, was to highlight the commonality of each religious institution's stance that marriage can only be between a man and a woman -- and to deny that gays and lesbians have a right to wed.

It's that time of year in the Midwest that I dread. The beauty of the first snow is behind us. Now it's gray, muddy and hard to walk anywhere in a car-oriented town. Our city needs to figure out how it can afford to plow if another blizzard comes. Some say we are already over budget from the 17 inches we got one early December day. The excitement of family reunions from the holiday season is over. Now it'll be a miracle if we see our loved ones for a few months while everyone holes up and hibernates during the next couple of cold months.

It hasn't even been a year since Barack Obama took office as President of the United States, but he already has 24/7 analysis on what he's done (or not done). Liberals are craning their necks wondering when he is going to do something that earns him the Nobel Peace Prize he received today, and conservatives are pouncing on him for spending so much money. Last week, Obama made his first big move in terms of the war in Afghanistan, deciding to raise the troop levels by deploying 30,000 more troops in the middle of 2010. What does this mean for Catholics who voted for Obama on the basis that he was the anti-war alternative to George W. Bush and John McCain?

Tom Roberts, NCR editor at large, recently wrote about an upcoming document from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on marriage, and the threats to marriage . The threats ranged from cohabitation to same-sex partnerships, to birth control pills, condoms and other forms of artificial contraception. There is a lot to question here given what sociology, biology and 21st century experience contribute to the dialogue. The threat to marriage that I would like to think more about is divorce.

I know that many Chicagoans felt bitter disappointment when Chicago was nixed from the 2016 Olympic bid. In the end, Rio de Janeiro out shone Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago and will become the first South American city to host the Summer Olympic Games. However, I think there are many Chicagoans who are quite relieved that their city will not play the host. They would not have welcomed the crushing impact on an already congested public transit system, the massive budget that Mayor Daley wanted taxpayers to shoulder, and the deportation of the least of our people in order to "clean up" the city for its few weeks in the international spotlight.

In this column last month, I wrote about the idea that Jesus is not welcome in his hometown. Jesus expresses this sentiment in all four Gospels: Luke 4, Matthew 13, Mark 6, and John 4. It's a common reference made in theology school when someone is returning home for a couple weeks or a couple months before transitioning to some new career or mission adventure.

I've never met anyone who enjoys paying for gasoline or traveling on airplanes. It seems to be an inevitable incurred cost when taking a vacation from the grind of life that people who want to get out of town just have to deal with.

I had been planning a vacation to visit some long-lost friends and family on the East Coast. However, the cost of flying and renting a car in order to see everyone became prohibitive. Madison is a small enough place where there aren't a lot of options for flying inexpensively. My wife and I started looking into driving out east, with the prospect of quality time with each other when we weren't visiting with friends or relatives. We'd have all the flexibility needed to see Niagara Falls and do some camping on the way.

In the end, much to our dismay, we realized that we just couldn't afford to travel this year. So we broke off plans with our friends - the hardest part about canceling the trip - and started getting into the idea of a 'staycation' - a word that has become so common that it is now in Merriam-Webster's dictionary and on Wikipedia .

This past weekend, my dad and I made our annual pilgrimage to St. Louis. It was to visit the temple there, of sorts. We've gone nearly every year since 1991, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes our spouses have come along for the journey. We went to cheer on those we thought had god-like qualities and to reject those demons who try to bring us down. This past weekend, we saw the Arizona Diamondbacks take on our beloved St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

Last month, the supporters of Ruth Kolpack (who was fired earlier this year from St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Beloit, Wis., for reasons her supporters have termed unjust) urged members of the Madison diocese to withhold funds from the annual diocesan appeal. The diocese is engaged in a massive capital campaign to help rebuild the downtown cathedral, among other efforts. The diocese raised only $1 million of its $3.7 million goal, according to the June 6, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal article, citing the vicar general Msgr. Daniel Ganshert.

It is a challenging time for anyone facing retirement in the current economy. Some are finding that they can't retire as early as they wanted because of tanking 401ks and pension plans. Others are being laid off as plants close, and they aren't finding many job opportunities in the communities they have lived in for decades. This time we live in has a sore need for spiritual creativity about how to cope with the need to change plans and visions for retirement -- possibly keep working a few more years, or take on part-time work.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal in March, Fr. Michael Crosby has been fighting the tobacco industry since about 1980. Fr. Crosby, a Capuchin Franciscan based in Milwaukee, filed a shareholder resolution against tobacco giant Phillip Morris in late 2008, the goal being to help the company realize that it should not be building its profits on the backs of the most marginalized workers in the tobacco fields.

The firing of Ruth Kolpack from St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Beloit, Wis., has caused an uproar within the Madison, Wis., diocese as well across the country. It is hard to pinpoint why Kolpack was terminated -- she herself doesn't even know the exact reason.

It is striking to think about how the digital divide affects the church. I think of the launch of the new NCR web site last week, and wonder how many people even have a shot at accessing my column here.

Let's rule out language as a variable and just pretend that everyone in the world who has the Internet would want to visit the NCR web site and read my article. Who would that be?

In July, I started working at a nonprofit in town called Forward Community Investments (www.forwardci.org). I had never heard of a community development financial institution before, but quickly caught the gist of what Forward Community Investments does: We make low-interest loans to nonprofits that serve low-income people throughout the state of Wisconsin.

Other than learning some basic lingo from my new home mortgage, I came into this job not knowing much about the world of finance. My mom is a certified public accountant and my dad is a chief executive officer, so maybe it should be in my genes to appreciate principal balances, interest rates, and amortization schedules. I'm not sure I've tapped into those genes, unless they are also the ones that make my eyes glaze over.

There are many arguments about the comparison of sports and religion, and whether sports in the United States can be constituted as religious practice. Some would argue that sports could never serve the same purposes as religion. However, there are comparisons to be made. The sociologist Harry Edwards and the theologian Michael Novak sum up the comparison between religion and sports quite well:

It’s taken about six months since moving back home to Madison, Wis., but I’ve finally found a worshipping community to which I’ve gone back to multiple times. It’s been a relief after spending so long looking for a church in Oakland, and then having to leave and start the process all over again. It’s been tough to find time to be involved other days of the week with the worship services that the Benedictine women in Madison run, but the 20-25 minute commute each way on Sundays has been worth it (that’s a long commute by Madison standards).

Of course, I never was too far away from a church community during this search. With the explosion of the Internet and social networking sites such as Facebook, it hasn’t been too difficult to keep tabs on theological thought. The best part, it’s all coming to me without me having to search hard for it.

A friend describes Web 2.0 tools like this: Ten years ago the average user was only able to download media; now we are able to upload media. Then, it was cool to “surf the Web” and find a video to watch. Now, it’s cooler to upload our own.

In today’s postmodern world, there are old and new worries that go into the celebration of marriage. The timeless worry seems to be whether one’s parents will like one’s new spouse or partner. However, a new debate that more couples are having than they did two or three generations ago is what to do about last names. I just got married this past summer, and we had long periods of discussion, prayer and reflection in order to make the decision about our family name. I would like to propose that Thomas Aquinas’ development of virtue ethics helped us to come to our decision about what to do with our last names.