1993 Christendom College Summer Institute Guest Lecture Series
Copyright 1993 Christendom Educational Corporation
Tag: faith
Structure Of The Church East And West
Structure of the Church East and West
Two-Lung Traditions vs. One-Lung Deviations
William H. Marshner, S.T.D.
Orientale Lumen Conference
Washington DC 2004
San Diego 2005
I begin with this question: what is the right starting point for theological reflection on the structure of the Church? One might think, “Well, the New Testament, of course” But this answer is not enough. As Fr. Raymond Collins pointed out to us, last night, the New Testament evidence is “less than clear.” Fr. Collins indicated three New Testament pictures, as you may recall: the charismatic, the Christian rabbinic, and the household overseer. It is important to add, however, that the New Testament text itself does not tell us whether these are three structures or are three different ways of describing one structure. Continue reading “Structure Of The Church East And West”
Membership In The Church: Fundamental Questions
Membership in the Church: Fundamental Questions
by WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
FAITH AND REASON
Vol. 2, No. 3
Winter 1976
Christendom College
A pressing question before the Church today is precisely “Who is a member?” The importance of this matter, which seems on the surface to be rather obvious, stems from two scandalous but simple facts. First, the division of Christianity into competing sects has created the difficulty of defining the relationship of these sects to the true Church. Second, modern Catholics who deny even the most basic of Church teachings often confuse the issue by refusing to admit that they have left the Church. It is in this context, then, that F&R publishes the following rigorous, careful and technical treatment of Church membership by William H. Marshner. The argument demands and deserves careful reading and rereading with full attention to the notes. It is true that the casual reader will find certain traditional attitudes toward Church membership reinforced by the author’s conclusions. But the painstaking student of this article will find much more, for presented here are basic distinctions which go far toward ending the confusion about who is a member in good standing of the Catholic Church and who, in fact, is not.
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Cincinnati: Archdiocese On The Brink (Part II)
Cincinnati: Archdiocese On The Brink
By W. H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
February 27, 1975
Part II
Despite its extraordinary advantages, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is on the brink of a peculiar kind of trouble. I called it a “crisis of confidence” in the first installment of this report, because it compromises the trust which Cincinnati’s most zealous Catholics have in their Church leadership (which means in the last analysis, their hierarchy).
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Cincinnati: Archdiocese On The Brink
Cincinnati: Archdiocese On The Brink
By W.H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
February 20, 1975
PART I
A pastor nearing sixty, with a history of heart trouble, is transferred; the bishop assigns a younger man to take his place. An ordinary sort of event, which happens every year in every Catholic diocese, uncontroverted and unnoticed. Thus, too, in early October, 1974, Fr. Francis Flanagan is transferred from St. Bartholomew’s Parish in suburban Cincinnati to a smaller, less taxing place in the rural town of Russia, Ohio.
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Chile Firsthand – A Report From Santiago (Part VI)
CHILE FIRST HAND – A REPORT FROM SANTIAGO
By W.H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
(Section Two)
August 8, 1974
PART VI: THE REAL POSITION OF CHILEAN BISHOPS
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.
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Cardinal Danielou On The New Liturgy… A Reform Compromised By Deviant Teachings
Cardinal Danielou On The New Liturgy … A Reform Compromised By Deviant Teachings
By W.H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
April 18, 1974
Writing in the January-February issue of the prestigious, European theological journal Communio, Jean Cardinal Danielou has called in effect for a counter-revolution in the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, which has long been dominated by a titular archbishop named Bugnini. Endorsing Pope Paul VI’s call for return to the use of Latin, at least in certain parts of the Mass, the French Jesuit Cardinal denounces the “radical” tendencies of the Vatican Congregation under Bugnini’s leadership — tendencies which Danielou says have led to “impoverishment” and “cultural debasement.”
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Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part III)
Some Priorities For
The National Catechetical Directory
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
February 21, 1974
Part (III)
The shopping list of things that ought to go into, or be kept out of, the National Catechetical Directory is too long to be contemplated in our short lifetime here below. In happier days, we had religion teachers who could figure out what to do and what not to do, once they had absorbed a few rules. Docility to the tradition of the Church kept them on a sensible path. Today, however, the religion teachers have been convinced that they should “rethink” everything and, while they’re at it, come up with radically new ways of “presenting” what they have “rethought.” The result is a complete chaos in which the teachers cannot be relied upon to respect any tradition, to un- derstand any dogma. or to avoid any idiocy. Hence, you have to tell them everything, like chimpanzees who cannot natively understand that, having put on one shoe, it is wise to put on the other as well.
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Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right”
Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right”
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
February 14, 1974
We Americans live in a country where new and unheard-of things are being discovered all the time. This is nowhere more true than in the field of human rights. Thomas Jefferson discovered more rights than most people can remember. In our own century, F. D. Roosevelt discovered the right to be “free from fear.” Then came the Supreme Court, which only a year ago discovered that women have a right, a Constitutional right, to procure abortions. Continue reading “Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right””
Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part II)
Some Priorities For The National Catechetical Directory
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
February 7, 1974
(PART II)
Every Catholic priest, parent, and teacher has a special stake in seeing to it that there is a “next generation” of Catholics, by which I mean to suggest that, today, such a generation cannot be taken for granted. Already the decline in Mass attendance (which, admittedly, is only one yardstick, but an informative one) is “catastrophic” by all accounts. Nowhere is it more catastrophic than among young people. You don’t have to be a prophet of doom to see that instead of a “next generation,” we could easily end up with a “remnant.”
Continue reading “Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part II)”
Some Priorities For The National Catechetical Directory (Part I)
Some Priorities For The
National Catechetical Directory
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
THE WANDERER
January 31, 1974
(PART I)
The catechetical battle, which has involved more Catholic laypeople in bruising controversy since Vatican II than any other single issue, save the liturgy, is coming to a head. During the next three months, ordinary Catholics across America will have an opportunity such as never existed before to influence the content of a crucial document which will determine the nature of Catholic religious education in this Country for years to come.
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Region V
Region V
Meeting Chairman: Philip M. Hannan, Archbishop of New Orleans, La.
Reporter: William H. Marshner
THE WANDERER (Section Two)
W. H. MARSHNER
May 24, 1973
NEW ORLEANS — The Bishops of Region V met with representatives of priests, religious, lay people, youth, women, and Blacks. Altogether, there were 61 participants in the two-day meeting held April 27th and 28th at the somnolent Jung Hotel in downtown New Orleans.
Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution
Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution
W. H. Marshner
THE WANDERER
(Special to the Wanderer)
JANUARY 18, 1973
WASHINGTON — The most radical plan ever proposed for the wholesale secularization of Roman Catholic schools is now on the desk of His Eminence John Cardinal Cody of Chicago. Although rejected by the Cardinal once before, the plan has been slightly amended and re-submitted. The amendments do not affect the heart of the proposal, which would have the effect of depriving pastors (including, ultimately, the Cardinal himself) of all real authority over their parish schools. This time, however, the plan is expected to be approved.
National Congress on the Word of God: A Two-Edged Sword
National Congress On The Word Of God: A Two-Edged Sword
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
The Wanderer
September 21, 1972
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Rome was informed that a national effort would be made in Washington this September to produce a renewal in preaching, Cardinal Villot dispatched a letter to Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle expressing the Holy Father’s delight at the idea and his blessing upon the enterprise. One sentence in that letter sums up the advice Rome wanted to give to the American sponsors and participants: “In short, preaching must proceed,” Villot said, “from deep conviction, serious learning, and loving compassion.”
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The Scripture Game II
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.
The Scripture Game
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”