Addenda to “Metaphysical Personhood and the IUD”

W. H. Marshner

October 3, 1974

1. Emergence

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””

Decrees Give Layman More Status In Church

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
SEPTEMBER 28, 1972

Like a lot of things Rome does, the two decrees released last week on the reform of “minor orders” (henceforth to be called “ministries”) made nobody very happy, at least in America. The so-called liberals were furious over the exclusion of women, while the conservatives were angered by yet another series of “changes.” Some were genuinely terrified that the Church might be depriving herself of exorcists, and one knows with moral certainty that somewhere, probably in California, a nut-group is already proclaiming that suppression of the sub-diaconate means extinction of the priesthood.