Connecting The Diocese

This week on Connecting the Diocese, Father Sam Martin talks with Christopher Carstens (Director of the Office for Sacred Worship) and Ann Lankford (Director of the Office for Catechesis and Evangelization) about OCIA (formerly RCIA), emphasizing it as a non–cookie-cutter process of conversion into Christ and the Church through catechesis, liturgical rites, prayer, and communal […]

On Connecting the Diocese, Father Sam Martin interviews Voyage Comics founders Phil Kosloski and Mike LaVoy about using comic books to evangelize through truth, beauty, and goodness. Phil shares his path from seminary discernment to marriage, parish work, and discovering a writing charism that led to Catholic publishing and comics; Mike recounts his childhood art dream, […]

Father Sam Martin hosts Connecting the Diocese with guest Father Woody Pace, Director of the Diocese of La Crosse Office of Missions and pastor in Wausau, to discuss missionary discipleship, how mission trips shape faith, and diocesan mission connections around the world. Father Pace recounts formative experiences in Botswana, Zambia, and a pastoral year in […]

Father Sam Martin hosts Bishop Gerard Battersby on Connecting the Diocese to highlight the Diocese of La Crosse’s Rural Life Day on September 23 in Bangor, with Mass at 10:00 AM and an invitation to all. They reflect on rural stewardship, animals, creation, gratitude, and the farmer’s “dying and rising” rhythm as a Eucharistic pattern, […]

Father Sam Martin hosts Dr. Rick Trietley, president of Viterbo University, who shares his path from a first-generation student at St. Bonaventure and 22 years as an Army infantry officer to leadership in Catholic higher education, influenced by Sister Margaret Carney and a veterans’ pilgrimage to Assisi with Father Conrad Targonski. Trietley reflects on St. […]

This week on Connecting the Diocese, Father Sam Martin of the Diocese of La Crosse welcomes Jeff and Alice Heinzen and Brian and Karen Kostka to discuss the Domestic Church Movement as a couple-centered movement to deepen sacramental marriage through prayer and family spirituality. They share their own marriages, how the movement began locally, and […]

On Connecting the Diocese with Father Sam Martin and Deacon Patrick Connelly, the conversation focuses on admonishing the sinner and fraternal correction as a spiritual work of mercy, stressing charity, prayer, prudence, and face-to-face dialogue, along with the need to receive correction with humility and gratitude. They discuss challenges in families, parishes, leadership, and social […]

On Connecting the Diocese this week, Fr. Martin welcomes diocesan priest Fr. Jesse Burish, ordained in 2009, who shares his vocation story, parish assignments, and current service in Rome at the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, including how dicasteries function and what his office work entails, along with reflections on living in Rome, language challenges, […]

In this episode of Connecting the Diocese, Father Sam Martin talks with newly ordained Deacon Patrick Conley about his June 6 ordination for the Diocese of La Crosse at the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman, what those first weeks of preaching, hospital visits, and assisting at Mass have been like, and how formation built […]

Father Sam Martin hosts Connecting the Diocese with guest Natalie Elskamp, newly hired as Coordinator of Healing Ministry for the Diocese of La Crosse. Natalie shares her Catholic upbringing, homeschooling and homesteading family life, and her path into healing ministry. She explains her role supporting parish offerings of Healing the Whole Person, forming and mentoring […]