Can A Couple Practicing NFP Be Practicing Contraception?

W.H. MARSHNER

GREGORIANUM
PONTIFICIA UNIVERSITAS GREGORIANA ROMA
Vol. 77, Fasc. 4, 1996

Among Catholics who follow the Church’s teaching, it is well accepted that a couple practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP) with an intention of a certain kind is doing a morally good act, quite different from contracepting. It is also accepted that a couple practicing NFP with an intention of a different kind is doing a morally wrong act, similar to contracepting.^[1] These two intentions — how exactly do they differ?
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Veritatis Splendor Outshines Dissenters

W. H. Marshner

Human Life International
Volume II, Number 12
December 1993

Superlatives are rash, but I am going to risk two: Veritatis splendor is the most comprehensive teaching on morality in the entire history of the Holy See, and it is the most important papal encyclical since Vatican II.

My first superlative can be proved. The second is trickier. Richard McCormick, S.J., has told the readers of America that he is betting on the future. History will bury this encyclical, he thinks, as it has long since buried the warnings of Pius XII against “new theology.” Well, this writer is prepared to bet on the other side, and I’ll match any sum Fr. McCormick is prepared to put up. I’ll bet that in ten years the doctrine of John Paul II will be triumphant in the Church, and the “proportionalism” of McCormick will be well on its way to oblivion.

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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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Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part II)

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
September 12, 1974

PART II

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.

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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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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.

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