Wisconsin State Journal Reports on Bishop Morlino’s Ten Year Anniversary in Madison

The Wisconsin State Journal (WSJ) will be running an article on Bishop Robert C. Morlino on Sunday, July 28th, marking our Bishop’s ten year anniversary in the Diocese of Madison. The article was written by Doug Erickson, a WSJ reporter who specializes in exploring matters of faith, values and ethics in Wisconsin.

The article will include an invitation to a live chat on this subject at Madison.com, at noon on Monday, July 29th.  During the live chat, reporter Doug Erickson will take questions about “Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino’s tenure and the State Journal’s religion coverage.” All are invited by WSJ to participate in the online chat.Slide1

The WSJ and Doug Erickson have been accused of negative and imbalanced coverage of the Catholic Church in Madison frequently in the past.  They seem to favor coverage of dissident Catholics, and of radical splinter groups, which they portray very favorably.

It will be interesting to see whether Doug Erickson’s recent interactions with the Diocese and with local Catholic bloggers have given him a more positive perspective on the Catholic Church.
We remain hopeful.

No doubt many of the usual WSJ forum Catholic-bashers will come out for the live chat on Monday, unless anonymity is not welcomed.
Some will, no doubt, take the opportunity to be nasty.

But faithful Catholics should also make an effort to be part of this conversation.  It offers faithful Catholics the opportunity to show how we are different.

Previous WSJ slanted reporting on Catholics in Madison is described in some of my previous blog articles, for example:

Heckling the Rosary or Renaming the Wisconsin State Journal

Added after publication:

Grading the Wisconsin State Journal Report on Bishop Morlino