Fr. McManus Tells How To Change The Church’s Law

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
October 17, 1974

ST. PAUL — Fr. Frederick McManus, speaking here at the annual convention of the Canon Law Society of America, said that the canon lawyer should see himself both as an interpreter of law and as an advocate of legal “reform,” with a central role to play in the ecclesiastical autodestruction which, in Fr. McManus’s vocabulary, goes under the name of “renewal.”

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.

Continue reading “Decrees Give Layman More Status In Church”