Collected Works Online
Articles written for “The Wanderer”, a national Catholic weekly newspaper founded in 1867.
THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
January 23, 1975
ARLINGTON, Va. – Mobilized through the vigorous and effective leadership of their Bishop, Most Reverend Thomas J. Welsh, the Catholic people of the Diocese of Arlington are preparing a comprehensive and continuing program on behalf of the innocent unborn who are the victims of the abortion plague sweeping the Country.
THE WANDERER
December 12, 1974
In the lengthy interview which Archbishop Bernardin granted to this reporter on Nov. 14th, a number of his answers threw important light on his approach to issues of national importance for the Catholic people: issues such as school aid, abortion, textbooks, the authority of pastors, and parental rights. The interview itself was not pitched to these issues, nor was it intended for publication; largely, it was an exploration of problems local to Cincinnati, a major archdiocese on which I am preparing an in-depth report. However, since Archbishop Bernardin has recently replaced Cardinal Krol as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, it seemed timely to place some excerpts from this before a national readership.
Continue reading “An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin (Part II)”
THE WANDERER
December 12, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tuesday afternoon was almost fully taken up, once again, with debate on capital punishment. Despite minor revisions, the Bishops were still not satisfied with the seven-page statement which they were supposed to promulgate on this subject. (The first drafts of the statement had been written, by the way, by Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw.) As the debate drew to a close, Cardinal Krol ruled that a seven-page document was too long to be considered a “resolution,” and hence would require a two-thirds vote. Thereupon the statement was decisively rejected — 119 opposed to 103 in favor.
Continue reading “The Bishops’ Meeting – Point By Point (Part III)”
THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
December 5, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of HR 15580, the appropriations bill for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, without the anti-abortion language proposed in an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dewey Bartlett (R., Okla ).
Continue reading “Bartlett Amendment Dropped From HEW Bill”
THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974
On Monday, Nov. 18th, at the noon press conference, Bishop James Rausch made an excellent statement which deserves wider reporting than it is likely to receive. As General Secretary of the NCCB-USCC, Bishop Rausch was asked to comment on the concerns which are being expressed by Catholics today and the apparent fact that most of the groups petitioning the Bishops are voicing so-called conservative concerns (dogma, catechetics) rather than liberal ones (social action). Bishop Rausch replied that he rejects the “typecasting of concerns as Right-wing or Left-wing.” From The Wanderer’s point of view, this Bishop, who has received his share of knocks in our pages, could hardly have made a wiser or more timely point.
THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974
The following interview is edited and excerpted from an extraordinary, three-hour interview which Archbishop Joseph Bernardin granted to this reporter in Cincinnati on Nov. 14th, just before he left for Washington, to attend the meeting which elected him NCCB president. Much of our conversation dealt with circumstances or problems peculiar to the Cincinnati Archdiocese and so is omitted here.
Continue reading “An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin”
THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974
WASHINGTON. D.C. – Monday afternoon. Nov. 18th, was devoted to departmental reports from the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC), which is the civil corporation and social action arm of the U.S. Bishops. The most important of these reports was from the Education Department, presented by Archbishop William D. Borders of Baltimore. Borders is chairman of the Bishops’ committee which is supposed to oversee the operation of the Department, but very little overseeing, in any useful sense of the word, has been done for some years. Borders is the hand-picked successor in this job of Auxiliary Bishop William McManus of Chicago, a man who achieved national notoriety in 1971 by publicly identifying himself with the bitter resentment of the USCC educationalists against the General Catechetical Directory issued by Rome.
Continue reading “The Bishops’ Meeting – Point By Point (Part II)”
THE WANDERER
November 28, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), in balloting that lasted the whole of Tuesday morning, Nov. 19th, has elected Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati as president and John Joseph Cardinal Carberry, Archbishop of St. Louis, as vice president. Both terms are for three years.
The new officers replace the outgoing president, John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia and the recently deceased vice president, Archbishop Leo C. Byrne of St. Paul-Minneapolis.
Continue reading “At the Bishops’ Meeting Meeting… Bishops Elect Bernardin, Carberry”
THE WANDERER
November 28, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. — John Cardinal Krol gave his final address as president of the NCCB on Monday morning, Nov. 18th, with a rather olympian air. He would not fall in, he said, with the “prophets of gloom” because, “from its founding, the Church has undergone the severity of trials, has endured a fury of internal disorders, and has survived violent oppression and persecution. But the Church, ever beset, ever ailing, ever weakened by dissension and defection, ever exhausted and expiring, continues to survive and increase in vigor and in numbers.” In other words, despite appearances, the Church is immortal — a thing of which one likes to remind oneself precisely when the appearances are sorry indeed.
THE WANDERER
October 17, 1974
ST. PAUL — Fr. Frederick McManus, speaking here at the annual convention of the Canon Law Society of America, said that the canon lawyer should see himself both as an interpreter of law and as an advocate of legal “reform,” with a central role to play in the ecclesiastical autodestruction which, in Fr. McManus’s vocabulary, goes under the name of “renewal.”
Continue reading “Fr. McManus Tells How To Change The Church’s Law”
October 3, 1974
Fr. Joseph Donceel’s account of ontogeny might be read as presenting an organism which, without changing genetically, undergoes a series of holistic alterations which can best be described as “emergent shifts,” Such shifts are said to occur (by evolutionary theorists) when life, for example, “emerges” in matter previously non-living, or when sensation “emerges” in living matter previously non-sentient, or when consciousness “emerges” in animals previously non-conscious. Teilhard, indeed, seems to extend this series indefinitely, lumping such phenomena as thought, value, history, community, and even the contemporary Zeitgeist into the general category of emergent qualities. Continue reading “Addenda To “Metaphysical Personhood And The IUD””
THE WANDERER
October 3, 1974
This paper attempts a correlation between biological data and philosophical terminology with respect to the earliest stages of human embryonic development. The purpose is to assist people active in the right-to-life (RTL) movement to meet certain philosophical objections, ancient and modern, to their position. It is not claimed that RTL should incorporate this or any other philosophical correlation into its public argumentation (which is necessarily scientific in character); it is merely argued that the present correlation will protect the movement’s public argumentation from ambush by other philosophical positions, such as those of Dr. James Diamond or Fr. Joseph Donceel.
THE WANDER
September 26, 1974
The recently concluded series by W.H. Marshner on The Church in the Diocese of Saginaw has provoked a storm of reaction. Many priests and laymen have written to thank us for publishing the truth about conditions in Saginaw and express the hope that the publicity may result in some corrective action. As might be expected the reactions from “establishment” sources were not very complimentary.
THE WANDERER
September 19, 1974
Saginaw, Mich., is a place where pastors, parents, children, even teachers (and maybe even the bishop) have to be “managed” to make them accept an utterly unnatural idea, namely, that the diocesan school system does not exist to teach the Catholic Faith but to inculcate “human values.” This amounts to saying that the diocese’s largest bloc of personnel (429 full-time, salaried teachers — almost four times the number of diocesan priests) is paid every year a giant share of the laity’s total contributions in order to do something at best — at best — tangentially related to the Catholic religion. So outlandish, in fact, is this idea that various disguises have had to be invented for it. Such as:
Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part III)”
THE WANDERER
September 12, 1974
On Aug. 21st, 1968, the Saginaw News, a secular paper, carried a lengthy attack on the encyclical Humanae Vitae. That fact in itself was not remarkable, since newspapers all over America that Summer were pouring out a torrent of contempt for the Roman Catholic Church. What made the Saginaw publication special, rather, was the fact that the attack was endorsed and signed by eighteen priests active in the diocese. Perhaps on account of this treachery, their bishop, Stephen S. Woznicki, suffered a heart attack.
Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part II)”
THE WANDERER
September 5, 1974
In the rich farm country of central and eastern Michigan, graced with a vacationer’s paradise on the shores of Lake Huron, the Holy See erected the Diocese of Saginaw in 1938. Under two bishops — William F. Murphy (1938-50) and Stephen S. Woznicki (1950-68) — the young diocese grew and prospered. Then came a third bishop, Francis F. Reh, followed by ruin.
Catholic laypeople bombarded this reporter with invitations to come to Saginaw, to their living rooms and club basements, to hear the tales of
Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Dioscese”
THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
Our Second Century of Lay Apostolate
AUGUST 29, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (NRLC), which began a campaign against Nelson Rockefeller’s selection as Vice President as soon as President Nixon resigned, has pledged to continue the campaign by lobbying Congress throughout the confirmation process.
THE WANDERER
August 15, 1974
Contributing Editors:William H. Marshner, Frank Morriss, John J. Mulloy, Edith Myers
This week, we conclude William Marshner’s perceptive and informative series on developments in Chile — a report that has great portent for the Church in the United States. There is little doubt that leftist factions in the Church in Chile did much to prepare that nation to accept an Allende as president and who aided and abetted the Marxist class struggle that inflicted such great suffering on the Chilean people during the Allende regime.
THE WANDERER
Editor, THE WANDERER:
Thank you very much for publishing the brilliant and stunning series on Allende’s program for programmed misery in Chile by William Marshner. This type of report by America’s finest Catholic weekly has been long overdue. Only someone like Marshner, with his cultured appreciation for Catholic Hispanic culture, could have gathered and put forth the truth so courageously.
Continue reading “Thanks To Marshner”
THE WANDERER
(Section Two)
August 8, 1974
It isn’t only Salvador Allende and General Pinochet whose views and policies are misrepresented in this Country. That is bad enough, but it is only politics. When the Chilean bishops, however, successors to the Apostles, are subjected to the same treatment, then a far more profound mischief is done, to the hurt of God’s people throughout the world.
Continue reading “Chile Firsthand – A Report From Santiago (Part VI)”
THE WANDERER
August 1, 1974
In Wisconsin’s eighth district, Cong. Harold Froehlich (R.) faces a stiff battle to retain his seat this Fall. Wanderer readers will remember that Froehlich was the sponsor of the successful anti-abortion amendment which was adopted onto the omnibus Community Services Act (HR 14449). Froehlich has been active on the right to life issue since he arrived in Congress two years ago and has sponsored and co-sponsored and amended appropriate legislation to represent the pro-life point of view.
THE WANDERER
July 11, 1974
From the very beginning of the anti-abortion movement, long before there was a Supreme Court decision, two camps vied for leadership. One stressed the need for national action (include here The Wanderer Gang); the other preferred to work primarily at the State level (include here Msgr. James T. McHugh).
Then came Black Monday, Jan. 22nd, 1973. The two camps changed focus to some extent, but essentially the same leadership struggle went on. The same quarrel — over effective national action — remained central. It is still central.
THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
June 20, 1974
WASHINGTON — The second annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), held at the Shoreham Hotel, June 7th through 9th, produced a slight but possibly crucial shift in the balance between hard-line and not-so-hard-line forces within this sprawling and at times chaotic organization. The shift was in favor of the hard-liners.
The difference of opinion between the two sides concerns the language which, they say, ought to be used in a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion.
Continue reading “Balance Improves In National Right To Life Committee”
THE WANDERER
June 13, 1974
People in the United States have no conception of how people in Chile feel about their former President, Salvador Allende. We Yankees, with our tame politics, have never felt that way about one of our Chief Executives. We have historical memories which give us some basis for comparison; for instance, we remember how Americans in the millions turned against Herbert Hoover, and the older Republicans among us can remember the peculiar hatred that blazed in some quarters against Franklin Roosevelt. But these comparisons do not bring us very far. We have never had the firm conviction, in the majority of the electorate, that one of our duly elected Presidents was using the full power of his office not only to enrich himself and to pervert justice but to change even the basic rules of the game: to bend and break the Constitution itself.
But maybe we are getting there. What if it’s all true, what they say about Richard Nixon?
Continue reading “Chile Firsthand – A Report From Santiago (Part II)”
THE WANDERER
June 13, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Fr. Frederick McGuire, C.M., head of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Latin American Division, has challenged William H. Marshner’s report “Chile First Hand — A Report From Santiago,” which was published in the May 23rd issue (and subsequent issues) of The Wanderer, describing the story as “propagandizing for the bloodstained Chilean junta.” Marshner has responded to the charges, calling them libelous, and he demanded an immediate retraction.
Continue reading “USCC’s Fr. McGuire Challenges Truth Of Wanderer’s Chile Report”
