Category: “Triumph” Magazine

Articles written for the Catholic magazine, “Triumph.”

Effectus Odit Quorum Amat Causas

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Effectus Odit Quorum Amat Causas

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol XI, No. 1
January 1976

Three things I take for granted. J. Fitzpatrick is 1) intelligent, 2) educated in Catholic matters, and 3) playing around with Hegel. Therefore, the following judgments seem in order.

  1. The idea that Triumph magazine has deserted a country called America, like Tokyo Rose, shall we say, is too unreal to be taken seriously; and Fitzpatrick qua intelligent must know that.
  2. Duty, honor and country are natural pieties not rejected but presupposed by Catholic politics, whether as conceived by Constantine, Philip II or L. Brent Bozell; and Fitzpatrick qua educated in Catholic matters must know that. Continue reading “Effectus Odit Quorum Amat Causas”

Contra Gentiles: Integrism-As-Slur

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Contra Gentiles: Integrism-as-Slur

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII, No. 8
October 1973

Having argued for something that can be defended, hopefully, as a just semantics of “integrism” in two recent columns, one turns to the complementary task of resisting a widespread but unjust semantics of the same, slippery term.

Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Integrism-As-Slur”

Contra Gentiles: Integrism In America II

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Contra Gentiles: Integrism in America II

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 5
May 1973

In the March Triumph, this column argued that “Integrism” in its full, European sense did not and could not exist in America. But it was also argued that there is a narrower sense of the word, a purely ecclesiastical sense, in which there is an American Integrism, perceptibly taking form since Vatican II. Herewith, an attempt to examine this native movement more carefully.

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Ecumenism in Crisis

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Ecumenism in Crisis:

Some Catholic-Political Considerations

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 4
April 1973

The question whether the Catholic Church in this country should join the National Council of Churches is now in the final stages of study. At the same time, all ecumenical undertakings have been given a new cast by the January 22 Supreme Court decision on abortion. These two circumstances define the present moment as uniquely propitious for a careful rethinking of the entire ecumenical engagement.

Continue reading “Ecumenism in Crisis”

Contra Gentiles: Integrism In America I

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Contra Gentiles: Integrism in America I

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 3
March 1973

If a French clergyman starts talking to you about integrism, you had best discover a pressing engagement elsewhere or at least take two aspirins, because in France the subject is vast and about as tractable as the rights and wrongs of the Dreyfus case. In America, on the other hand (and thank God), the word “integrism” is still but little used, for we seem to be able to smite our theological foemen without the aid of that particular slur. Yet there are cases where even tainted words have a use; and I contend, therefore, that a few moments spent on establishing a clear and just American semantics for “integrism” will not be time wasted. Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Integrism In America I”

Contra Gentiles: Turning On The Right

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Contra Gentiles: Turning on the Right

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 2
February 1973

National Review is consistently right about conservatives, as it is right about few things else. It is interesting, therefore, that on December 8 that magazine judged its readership to be ready, at long last, for some advice: soften up on marijuana, and get behind efforts to “decriminalize” its use. Events will soon tell how far the Buckley writ still runs; but if it runs as expected, Catholics will have yet another reason to shuck the “conservative” Movement. Herewith, seven observations. Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Turning On The Right”

Contra Gentiles: Revisiting The Liturgy Question (Reaction)

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Contra Gentiles: Revisiting The Liturgy Question (Reaction)

William F. Gleeson

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 2
February 1973

W. H. Marshner’s “revisitation” of the liturgy (“Contra Gentiles” Dec. ’72) was I believe unfair about the condition of the pro-Latin faithful whom without obvious tongue-in-cheek he dismisses as schismatic. Who are these traditionalists in schism even if the term were used playfully? I can think of only one tiny group here in the East who might just possibly qualify: it is arguable that insofar as Fr. DePauw, the Catholic Traditionalist Movement leader, continues to function in sacris without diocesan faculties, and his lively little congregation on Long Island go along, perhaps he and they, even inside the otherwise largely tolerant confines of the Rockville Centre see, technically are in a kind of rebellion by the old rules. Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Revisiting The Liturgy Question (Reaction)”

Metternich: Un Rocher D’Ordre

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Metternich: Un Rocher d’Ordre

Review of Alan Palmer Metternich, A Biography (Harper and Row, 1972)

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 1
January 1973

Alan Palmer is not a tyro, as historians of central Europe go. He has a book on Yugoslavia and a history of Eastern Europe to his credit, on the second of which he collaborated with C. A. McCartney, who has probably the best grasp of Austro-Hungarian affairs of anyone writing today. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should turn his hand to a life of Metternich, the man who brought the Danube valley to the zenith of its influence in European affairs. Moreover, Metternich is a popular subject just now. Ever since Henry Kissinger recreated the role of international high- wire artist and claimed Metternich as his hero-prototype, people have been muttering about the architect of European restoration with a new respect.

Continue reading “Metternich: Un Rocher D’Ordre”

Contra Gentiles: Revisiting The Liturgy Question

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Contra Gentiles: Revisiting the Liturgy Question

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 10
December 1972

Since the definitive promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the liturgical situation in America has known several dramatic developments. It may be useful to recall these in concise form.

The first development was an open schism on the “right.” Moving beyond mere contempt for the vernacular, the schismatics refused categorically to accept the New Ordo as valid. Nobody knows how many people have gone this route, but there have been enough to make Tan Books a large profit.

Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Revisiting The Liturgy Question”

Pray for Ezra Pound

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Pray for Ezra Pound

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 10
December 1972

A very brilliant boy with red hair, raised in gentle Philadelphia, died on All Saints Day in Venice. He had reached the age of 87. Born in 1885, Ezra Pound, like William Shakespeare, learned to write English beautifully and finely by writing numberless sonnets. He grew up in an age preoccupied by literary techniques. Cardinal Newman, Walter Pater, Henry James, Oscar Wilde cast their strong and splendid radiance over London and that light was reflected, more than anywhere else in the United States, in elegant Philadelphia in the days of Pound’s pilgrimage there. Continue reading “Pray for Ezra Pound”

Politique d’Abord

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Politique d’Abord

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 9
November 1972

Lest the reader head for his dictionary, let me clarify at once that the title means “politics first.” Then let me qualify the translation by pointing out that politique does not mean to a literate Frenchman exactly what “politics” means to the speakers of Amer-English. But thereby hangs a good part of my tale; so let me postpone further explanation of that point for just a bit.

Continue reading “Politique d’Abord”

Contra Gentiles: Non-Cartesian Sociology

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Contra Gentiles: Non-Cartesian Sociology

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 8
October 1972

One day during TRIUMPH’S summer dormancy, I received the manuscript which is published elsewhere in this issue under the title, “Non-Sociology.” It was a memorable day because the manuscript turned out to be a refutation of the commission which had procured it. As I recall, my commission had asked the redoubtable J. Wisner to assist our readers in their task of making a new Christendom by exposing them to the personalities and doctrines of the great Catholic sociologists of the last century: men like LePlay, Mun, and La Tour du Pin. They were the direct forbears of Christopher Dawson, as who (savor this syntax) they deserve to be as well known. But Wisner’s response was to sweep them all away; in fact — and this is the worst of it — he dismissed them with an argument from which I cannot dissent, though it makes me distinctly uncomfortable. Continue reading “Contra Gentiles: Non-Cartesian Sociology”

The Bishops’ Strange Love

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The Bishops’ Strange Love

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 6
June 1972

As a journalist, I dedicate this report to His Eminence John Cardinal Krol, in gratitude for honest answers to honest questions.

—WM

This is a discussion of the spring meeting of the American bishops in Atlanta. It appears at least a month after other commentators have finished their slight remarks upon the subject, which evidently bored them immensely, and in a magazine which seldom publishes lengthy discussions of bishops’ meetings. These two circumstances seem to make an explanation desirable, if one is to avoid the charge of talking very late about very little. Continue reading “The Bishops’ Strange Love”

Send This Man To School

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Send This Man To School

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 5
May 1972

The USCC Department of Education is “helping” the American bishops to produce a pastoral letter on Catholic education, the provisional text of which I recently had occasion to see. It characterizes the rival, public education, as a “system which does not systematically embrace faith-inspired values. Such a school system,” the pastoral continues, “may seek ‘neutrality’ with regard to religious and moral values; but neutrality is impossible, since all education involves values, and morality is deeply imbedded in all formal education.”

Continue reading “Send This Man To School”

The Americanization Of J. Christ

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The Americanization Of J. Christ

New Mass for Independence Day

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 4
April 1972

It was only a matter of time before we should be given this new Mass for civic occasions, because by now the liturgy club is really interested only in politics. Recall, for example, that the last meeting of the Liturgical Conference was devoted to the topic of revolution, the rationale for which was an elaborate business about liturgy expressing the needs of contemporary men in concrete situations of injustice. But the reason for it, of course, was the simple fact that politics is the ersatz religion of our time, and those who lose supernatural faith most commonly turn to the going ersatz. Continue reading “The Americanization Of J. Christ”

Hans Küng: Infallible? (Reaction)

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Hans Küng: Infallible? (Reaction)

M. J. Harsy

Triumph
Vol. VI. No. 7
JULY 1971

W. H. Marshner’s article on Hans Küng in your June issue (“Hans Küng: Infallible?”) is, in my opinion, the finest piece of writing and thinking you have ever published.

You introduce the author merely as a “Yale linguist.” Perhaps your readers would be glad to have him identified more fully in a succeeding issue.

M. J. Harsy
Washington, D.C.

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On Igor Stravinsky

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On Igor Stravinsky

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VI. No. 6
June 1971

Stravinsky was talking once about the forms of sacred music — the Masses, Passions, motets, the cantatas — and the particular glory of them. His interlocutor asked whether one must be a believer to compose these forms. Stravinsky’s answer was a thing of trumpets. “Certainly,” he said, “and not merely a believer in ‘symbolic figures,’ but in the Person of the Lord, the Person of the Devil, and the Miracles of the Church.” Continue reading “On Igor Stravinsky”

Hans Küng: Infallible?

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Hans Küng: Infallible?

An Inquiry

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VI. No. 6
June 1971

Hans Küng calls the preface to his new book “candid,” a word whose ambiguity is the key to this deeply equivocal volume. In “candid confession” it implies a full disclosure of one’s subjective state; in “candid camera” it implies unvarnished portrayal of the objectively real. Küng wants it both ways: his own growing sense of isolation since the Council is simultaneously predicated of the vast majority of the whole Church. Küng claims to know of no one who “really” believes in the birth control ban; Ignaz Döllinger said the same a century ago about infallibility.

Continue reading “Hans Küng: Infallible?”

A Mass At The Valley Of The Fallen

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A MASS AT THE VALLEY OF THE FALLEN

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VI. No. 3
March 1971

Sensible, modern governments work democratically for the betterment of all citizens by bringing the resources of science to bear upon the ancient woes of mankind and by waging occasional wars which are not really wars but wars against wars. When the wars are over, they build sensible memorials for the war dead. Continue reading “A Mass At The Valley Of The Fallen”

Biblical Theology in Crisis

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Biblical Theology in Crisis (Review)

Review of Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (The Westminster Press, 1970).

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. V. No. 9
November 1970

“The strain of using orthodox Biblical language for the constructive part of theology, but at the same time approaching the Bible with all the assumptions of Liberalism, proved in the end to cause an impossible tension” (p. 103). B. S. Childs, professor of Old Testament at Yale and a major figure in Protestant biblical scholarship, has exploded a theological bomb in this work. Continue reading “Biblical Theology in Crisis”

The Scripture Game II

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The Scripture Game II

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. V. No. 5
May 1970

The first part of this commentary on modem biblical scholarship argued that the Catholic biblical revival is producing suspicious fruits because the philological-critical method of exegesis has been misapplied to the task of Christian exegesis. It remains to show what Christian exegesis is, why it is theologically inevitable and how it can be defended against the charge of obscurantism.

Continue reading “The Scripture Game II”

The Scripture Game

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The Scripture Game

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. V. No. 4
April 1970

No Christian can object to increasing the knowledge or the influence of Sacred Scripture. Yet the wide diversity of benefits that are expected to flow from the current “progress” in biblical studies suggests anything but unanimity as to how the subject ought to be approached. Continue reading “The Scripture Game”