The Dogma Of The Immaculate Conception In Modern Ecclesiology: Prolegomena

THE DOGMA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IN MODERN ECCLESIOLOGY: PROLEGOMENA

WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

Christendom College
Front Royal, Virginia

What does the Immaculate Conception have to do with the mystery of the Church? How can it help us to evaluate some recent directions in ecclesiology?

These initial questions can be taken in two senses. (1) How does the definition of the Immaculate Conception illuminate the Church’s charism of truth? How does the papal deed of 1854 help us to evaluate certain recent theories of dogma, tradition and magisterium? (2) How does the grace itself of the Immaculate Conception clarify the “new being” to which all men are called in the Church of Christ? How does the Marian privilege serve as a criterion for an adequate ecclesiology?

Continue reading “The Dogma Of The Immaculate Conception In Modern Ecclesiology: Prolegomena”

The Vatican’s Declaration On Procured Abortion

The Vatican’s Declaration On Procured Abortion… A Charter For Political Action

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
June 19, 1975

Editor’s Note: With a few notable exceptions, Catholics in this Country have given little attention to the Vatican’s Declaration on Procured Abortion, issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last November. In the following commentary on this landmark document, Mr. Marshner demonstrates that the Declaration is more than a moral exhortation against abortion; it is a call for Catholics and all men of goodwill to take the offensive against all those who seek to institutionalize — in the name of the common good—this most heinous of crimes.

Continue reading “The Vatican’s Declaration On Procured Abortion”

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.

Click here for PDF

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?”