Episcopal Conferences: A Question Of Purpose

Share

Episcopal Conferences: A Question of Purpose

W. H. Marshner

Episcopal conferences grew up with little or no theory behind them. Invented here and there for local reasons, they were marked off from synods and councils by expensive traits: the bishops had to meet on an annual schedule, with by-laws and elected officers, and with the interim support of a permanent staff. Everything seemed affordable in the golden years of Pius XII and John XXIII, and so the creation of more conferences was strongly recommended at Vatican II (especially in the decree Christus Dominus). Before long about a hundred of them had come into existence throughout the world.

Continue reading “Episcopal Conferences: A Question Of Purpose”

Annulment Or Divorce

Share

Annulment or Divorce?

A CRITIQUE OF CURRENT TRIBUNAL PRACTICE AND THE PROPOSED REVISION OF CANON LAW

WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

© Christendom Educational Corporation 1978
Crossroads Book
Crossroads Books is an imprint of the Christendom College Press designed to offer scholarly insights on current Catholic issues in a format accessible to a broad spectrum of readers.

William H. Marshner brings a unique background to his authorship of the first of the Crossroads booklets. Formerly a contributing editor to The Wanderer and an assistant editor of Triumph magazine, Mr. Marshner has long experience in the apostolate of the Catholic Press.
A Ph.D. candidate in Languages at Yale University and in Theology at the University of Dallas, Mr. Marshner is completing his dissertation on Cardinal Newman’s notion of doctrinal development. He is also professor and acting chairman in Theology at Christendom College.

CONTENTS

Introduction, Rev. Mark A. Pilon
Author’s Preface
Historical Background
Preliminary Remarks
Canonical Perspective
Definition of Marriage
Theologico-Juridical Critique
Conclusion/Summation

Notes
Appendix/Staffa Letter

The incredible increase in the numbers of marriage annulments in the churches of Holland, Canada and our own United States is rapidly becoming one of the greatest scandals in recent Church history, and yet the true proportions of this problem are still relatively unknown to many American Catholics. In 1976 alone over 15,000 annulments were declared in this country, and that number can be expected to greatly increase in the years ahead, given the present orientation of growing numbers of our tribunal officials.
Continue reading “Annulment Or Divorce”

Arlington Diocese Mobilizes For Life

Share

Arlington Diocese Mobilizes For Life

By W. H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
January 23, 1975

ARLINGTON, Va. – Mobilized through the vigorous and effective leadership of their Bishop, Most Reverend Thomas J. Welsh, the Catholic people of the Diocese of Arlington are preparing a comprehensive and continuing program on behalf of the innocent unborn who are the victims of the abortion plague sweeping the Country.

Continue reading “Arlington Diocese Mobilizes For Life”

An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin

Share

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.

Continue reading “An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin”

At the Bishops’ Meeting Meeting… Bishops Elect Bernardin, Carberry

Share

AT THE BISHOPS’ MEETING… Bishops Elect Bernardin, Carberry

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
November 28, 1974

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), in balloting that lasted the whole of Tuesday morning, Nov. 19th, has elected Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati as president and John Joseph Cardinal Carberry, Archbishop of St. Louis, as vice president. Both terms are for three years.

The new officers replace the outgoing president, John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia and the recently deceased vice president, Archbishop Leo C. Byrne of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Continue reading “At the Bishops’ Meeting Meeting… Bishops Elect Bernardin, Carberry”

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part III)

Share

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
September 19, 1974

PART III

Saginaw, Mich., is a place where pastors, parents, children, even teachers (and maybe even the bishop) have to be “managed” to make them accept an utterly unnatural idea, namely, that the diocesan school system does not exist to teach the Catholic Faith but to inculcate “human values.” This amounts to saying that the diocese’s largest bloc of personnel (429 full-time, salaried teachers — almost four times the number of diocesan priests) is paid every year a giant share of the laity’s total contributions in order to do something at best — at best — tangentially related to the Catholic religion. So outlandish, in fact, is this idea that various disguises have had to be invented for it. Such as:

Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part III)”

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part II)

Share

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.

Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Diocese (Part II)”

Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Dioscese

Share

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

Continue reading “Saginaw: Portrait Of A Collapsing Dioscese”

Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part III)

Share

Some Priorities For
The National Catechetical Directory

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
February 21, 1974

Part (III)

The shopping list of things that ought to go into, or be kept out of, the National Catechetical Directory is too long to be contemplated in our short lifetime here below. In happier days, we had religion teachers who could figure out what to do and what not to do, once they had absorbed a few rules. Docility to the tradition of the Church kept them on a sensible path. Today, however, the religion teachers have been convinced that they should “rethink” everything and, while they’re at it, come up with radically new ways of “presenting” what they have “rethought.” The result is a complete chaos in which the teachers cannot be relied upon to respect any tradition, to un- derstand any dogma. or to avoid any idiocy. Hence, you have to tell them everything, like chimpanzees who cannot natively understand that, having put on one shoe, it is wise to put on the other as well.

Continue reading “Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part III)”

Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right”

Share

Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right”

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
February 14, 1974

We Americans live in a country where new and unheard-of things are being discovered all the time. This is nowhere more true than in the field of human rights. Thomas Jefferson discovered more rights than most people can remember. In our own century, F. D. Roosevelt discovered the right to be “free from fear.” Then came the Supreme Court, which only a year ago discovered that women have a right, a Constitutional right, to procure abortions. Continue reading “Albany Diocese Proclaims A New “Right””

Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part II)

Share

Some Priorities For The National Catechetical Directory

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
February 7, 1974

(PART II)

Every Catholic priest, parent, and teacher has a special stake in seeing to it that there is a “next generation” of Catholics, by which I mean to suggest that, today, such a generation cannot be taken for granted. Already the decline in Mass attendance (which, admittedly, is only one yardstick, but an informative one) is “catastrophic” by all accounts. Nowhere is it more catastrophic than among young people. You don’t have to be a prophet of doom to see that instead of a “next generation,” we could easily end up with a “remnant.”

Continue reading “Some Priorities For the National Catechetical Directory (Part II)”

Some Priorities For The National Catechetical Directory (Part I)

Share

Some Priorities For The
National Catechetical Directory

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
January 31, 1974

(PART I)

The catechetical battle, which has involved more Catholic laypeople in bruising controversy since Vatican II than any other single issue, save the liturgy, is coming to a head. During the next three months, ordinary Catholics across America will have an opportunity such as never existed before to influence the content of a crucial document which will determine the nature of Catholic religious education in this Country for years to come.

Continue reading “Some Priorities For The National Catechetical Directory (Part I)”

Region V

Share

Region V

Meeting Chairman: Philip M. Hannan, Archbishop of New Orleans, La.

Reporter: William H. Marshner

THE WANDERER (Section Two)
W. H. MARSHNER
May 24, 1973

NEW ORLEANS — The Bishops of Region V met with representatives of priests, religious, lay people, youth, women, and Blacks. Altogether, there were 61 participants in the two-day meeting held April 27th and 28th at the somnolent Jung Hotel in downtown New Orleans.

Continue reading “Region V”

“Basic Teachings” Dismissed At Educationist Workshop

Share

“Basic Teachings” Dismissed At Educationist Workshop

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
Our Second Century of Lay Apostolate
St. Paul, Minn.
March 8, 1973

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The document called “Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education,” which is the American Bishops’ attempt to stabilize catechetical content and to insure the teaching of the whole Faith, is a dead letter, according to religious-education experts in Nashville on February 28th.

Continue reading ““Basic Teachings” Dismissed At Educationist Workshop”

Cardinal Cody Declares Wanderer Report “Misleading”

Share

Cardinal Cody Declares Wanderer Report “Misleading”

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

The WANDERER
128 East Tenth Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
January 19, 1973

A report published in the January 18th, 1973 issue of THE WANDERER headlined “Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution” asserted that a plan for the reorganization of the Chicago Archdiocesan school system would result, if implemented, in the “wholesale secularization” and “de-Catholicization” of Chicago’s Catholic schools. In a letter to THE WANDERER dated January 19th, 1973, the Archbishop of Chicago, John Cardinal Cody, charged that that report was “utterly irresponsible” and “misleading.”

Following is the complete text of Cardinal Cody’s letter with a response by William H. Marshner of THE WANDERER’S staff who authored the original report published on January 18th. The text of Cardinal Cody’s letter to THE WANDERER having appeared on the front page of THE NEW WORLD, official paper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, it is to be expected that Mr. Marshner’s, response, as well as the controverted article, will also be published in that paper to enable its readers to grasp the vital issues involved in this matter.

Editors, THE WANDERER

Continue reading “Cardinal Cody Declares Wanderer Report “Misleading””

Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution

Share

Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution

W. H. Marshner

THE WANDERER
(Special to the Wanderer)
JANUARY 18, 1973

WASHINGTON — The most radical plan ever proposed for the wholesale secularization of Roman Catholic schools is now on the desk of His Eminence John Cardinal Cody of Chicago. Although rejected by the Cardinal once before, the plan has been slightly amended and re-submitted. The amendments do not affect the heart of the proposal, which would have the effect of depriving pastors (including, ultimately, the Cardinal himself) of all real authority over their parish schools. This time, however, the plan is expected to be approved.

Continue reading “Cardinal Cody Ponders School Revolution”

The Bishops’ Agenda… Who Makes It And What Is It Like?

Share

The Bishops’ Agenda …
Who Makes It
And What Is It Like?

THE WANDERER
November 23, 1972
(Special to The Wanderer)

WASHINGTON — For the benefit of readers who have never attended the annual meeting of the American Bishops, it may be useful to say a word about the fat mass of documents, which, taken together, represent the Bishops’ “agenda documentation.” This contains the texts of reports to be approved (each committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) makes a report, as does each office in the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) — though, of course, every one of them does not necessarily report at every meeting) and of statements to be issued by the conference.

Continue reading “The Bishops’ Agenda… Who Makes It And What Is It Like?”

Criticism Abounds At Bishops’ Meeting

Share

Criticism Abounds At Bishops’ Meeting

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

November 23, 1972
THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)

ARLINGTON. Va. – The general meeting of the American Bishops, the second one they have held this year, convened at 9:30 a.m., November 13th, in the Marriott “Twin Bridges” Motor Inn, located in Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. The choice of site was dictated by the desire to escape the affluent image conveyed by meeting in luxurious downtown hotels, according to Mr. Russell Shaw, the chief information officer for the Bishops. At last Spring’s meeting, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton created some notice by staying in the local YMCA for the same motive. This year, Bishop Gumbleton is once again staying elsewhere, perhaps because the Marriott, though surely less grand than the Statler Hilton, is a poshy enough place in its own way.

Continue reading “Criticism Abounds At Bishops’ Meeting”

Permanent Committee On Priestly Life And Ministry: A Case For The Negative

Share

Permanent Committee On Priestly Life And Ministry?:
A Case For The Negative

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
November 9, 1972

At their annual meeting next week, the American Bishops will be asked to vote on a proposal to form a permanent committee and secretariat on priestly life and ministry, to take the place of the present Ad Hoc Committee chaired by Archbishop Hannan of New Orleans. Their Excellencies should approach this decision with extreme care. On paper, an affirmative vote by the Bishops will do nothing more than approve the general idea of having such a committee and staff. Continue reading “Permanent Committee On Priestly Life And Ministry: A Case For The Negative”

The Wright Intervention

Share

THE WRIGHT INTERVENTION

W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER (Section Two)
November 2, 1972

In September of 1971, a “joint assembly” of priests and Bishops met in Madrid to adopt guidelines on pastoral action. When they were finished, a week later, they had approved a gigantic document, divided into seven parts (ponencias — an untranslatable word which means both “theses” and “chapters”). Each part consisted of a long body of texts followed by 50 or so “propositions” or conclusions, each of which had been voted on separately. The finished document was held to be a milestone in Spanish Church history, and its approval by the full hierarchy of the national conference was thought to be a rubber stamp affair. Continue reading “The Wright Intervention”

A Threat To Every American Priest

Share

A Threat To Every American Priest

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
The Hannan Committee Report
November 2, 1972

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Priestly Life and Ministry, organized to implement the results of the half-million-dollar study of the priesthood, and presided over by Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Means, has completed its initial report, or rather, the initial part of its initial report, which has been sent to each of the Bishops.

Continue reading “A Threat To Every American Priest”

Fr. McManus Stunned By Vatican Moves

Share


Fr. McManus Stunned By Vatican Moves

W. H. Marshner

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
October 26, 1972

DETROIT — Fr. Frederick R. McManus, director of the secretariat of the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy, denounced steps taken by the Holy See in recent months to regulate intercommunion, sacramental absolution, and minor orders as “negative indications of retrenchment and misunderstanding.” McManus made the remarks during a “State Of The Liturgy” address to the national meeting of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, held here October 9th through 13th.

Continue reading “Fr. McManus Stunned By Vatican Moves”

Liturgists Badly Split On Key Issues

Share


Liturgists Badly Split On Key Issues

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
October 26, 1972

DETROIT — The 1972 Detroit meeting of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, co-sponsored by the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy and the Archdiocese of Detroit, revealed deep splits and strongly divergent tendencies among the several hundred delegates as well as between the delegates and their federal leadership. Indeed, a hefty minority of American dioceses sent no representatives to this meeting at all, preferring to “vote with their feet,” as several well- informed persons told this reporter.

Continue reading “Liturgists Badly Split On Key Issues”