Was I Never In Cincinnati?

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
June 12, 1975

EDITOR’S NOTE: We publish herein a commentary by contributing editor W.H. Marshner in which he reviews the recent series published in THE WANDERER (2-20, 2-27, and 3-6, 1975, issues) about the Archdiocese of Cincinnati with respect to the state of religious education and catechetics in that See. Mr. Marshner also responds to the criticism made of the articles by Most Reverend Joseph L. Bernardin, Archbishop of Cincinnati, who asserted the reports were “unfair” and constituted unjust criticism and ridicule of “innocent people.” We discussed our intention to publish Mr. Marshner’s response with Archbishop Bernardin and invited his Excellency to submit whatever commentary he might wish to make for concurrent publication. Elsewhere on this page we publish Archbishop Bernardin’s reply.
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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

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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An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin (Part II)

The New President Of The NCCB … An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 12, 1974

(Conclusion)

In the lengthy interview which Archbishop Bernardin granted to this reporter on Nov. 14th, a number of his answers threw important light on his approach to issues of national importance for the Catholic people: issues such as school aid, abortion, textbooks, the authority of pastors, and parental rights. The interview itself was not pitched to these issues, nor was it intended for publication; largely, it was an exploration of problems local to Cincinnati, a major archdiocese on which I am preparing an in-depth report. However, since Archbishop Bernardin has recently replaced Cardinal Krol as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, it seemed timely to place some excerpts from this before a national readership.

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The Bishops’ Meeting – Point By Point (Part III)

The Bishops’ Meeting — Point By Point

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 12, 1974

Part III

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tuesday afternoon was almost fully taken up, once again, with debate on capital punishment. Despite minor revisions, the Bishops were still not satisfied with the seven-page statement which they were supposed to promulgate on this subject. (The first drafts of the statement had been written, by the way, by Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw.) As the debate drew to a close, Cardinal Krol ruled that a seven-page document was too long to be considered a “resolution,” and hence would require a two-thirds vote. Thereupon the statement was decisively rejected — 119 opposed to 103 in favor.
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An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974

The following interview is edited and excerpted from an extraordinary, three-hour interview which Archbishop Joseph Bernardin granted to this reporter in Cincinnati on Nov. 14th, just before he left for Washington, to attend the meeting which elected him NCCB president. Much of our conversation dealt with circumstances or problems peculiar to the Cincinnati Archdiocese and so is omitted here.

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The Bishops’ Meeting – Point By Point (Part II)

The Bishops’ Meeting — Point By Point

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974

Part II (Continued from last week)

WASHINGTON. D.C. – Monday afternoon. Nov. 18th, was devoted to departmental reports from the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC), which is the civil corporation and social action arm of the U.S. Bishops. The most important of these reports was from the Education Department, presented by Archbishop William D. Borders of Baltimore. Borders is chairman of the Bishops’ committee which is supposed to oversee the operation of the Department, but very little overseeing, in any useful sense of the word, has been done for some years. Borders is the hand-picked successor in this job of Auxiliary Bishop William McManus of Chicago, a man who achieved national notoriety in 1971 by publicly identifying himself with the bitter resentment of the USCC educationalists against the General Catechetical Directory issued by Rome.

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The Bishops’ Meeting – Point By Point

The Bishops’ Meeting — Point By Point

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
November 28, 1974

WASHINGTON, D.C. — John Cardinal Krol gave his final address as president of the NCCB on Monday morning, Nov. 18th, with a rather olympian air. He would not fall in, he said, with the “prophets of gloom” because, “from its founding, the Church has undergone the severity of trials, has endured a fury of internal disorders, and has survived violent oppression and persecution. But the Church, ever beset, ever ailing, ever weakened by dissension and defection, ever exhausted and expiring, continues to survive and increase in vigor and in numbers.” In other words, despite appearances, the Church is immortal — a thing of which one likes to remind oneself precisely when the appearances are sorry indeed.

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Business As Usual… Fr. Rausch Succeeds Bishop Bernardin

Business As Usual. . .

Fr. Rausch Succeeds Bishop Bernardin At USCC

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
DECEMBER 14, 1972
Our Second Century of Lay Apostolate

WASHINGTON – In a move that strongly indicates continuity rather than change of direction, Fr. James S. Rausch has been elected unanimously to succeed Archbishop Joseph Bernardin as General Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the United States Catholic Conference (USCC).

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The Bishops’ Strange Love

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VII No. 6
June 1972

As a journalist, I dedicate this report to His Eminence John Cardinal Krol, in gratitude for honest answers to honest questions.

—WM

This is a discussion of the spring meeting of the American bishops in Atlanta. It appears at least a month after other commentators have finished their slight remarks upon the subject, which evidently bored them immensely, and in a magazine which seldom publishes lengthy discussions of bishops’ meetings. These two circumstances seem to make an explanation desirable, if one is to avoid the charge of talking very late about very little. Continue reading “The Bishops’ Strange Love”