Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part III)

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
September 19, 1974

PART III

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:

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Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Dioscese

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
September 5, 1974

PART I

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

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CUF Praised At Bishop’s Meeting

CUF Praised In Bishop’s Meeting

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
(Date unknown. Most likely between 1973 and 1980.)

ARLINGTON, Va. – Catholics United for the Faith received high praise in two committee reports presented to the American Bishops during their Fall general meeting here.

On Wednesday afternoon, November 15th, Archbishop Furey of San Antonio presented the report of the Committee on the Lay Apostolate. In a paragraph entitled “Organizational Strength,” the report mentioned that four national organizations are now affiliated with the National Council of Catholic Laity, namely, the National Federation of Catholic Physicians Guilds, the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate, the North American Federation of the Third Order of St. Francis, and Catholics United for the Faith. These four new affiliations bring the total strength of the NCCL to twenty-nine national organizations, twenty State organizations, 120 diocesan groups, and 10,000 local and parish groups.

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