Episcopal Conferences: A Question Of Purpose

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.

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Questions Answered

HPR
February, 1989
W. H. MARSHNER

Written by William H. Marshner
Questions answered by Joseph J. Farraher

Can a bishop withdraw from the U.S. Catholic Conference?

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The Orphans Of Jerry Ford

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
May 29, 1975

Mr. Ford’s highly touted rescue of the Mayaguez and its crew from Koh Tang Island contains an element of bitter irony. The operation brought scores of U.S. naval vessels and hundreds of U.S. aircraft within 40 miles of another island, where there is something much more important to rescue.

The other island is Phu Quoc. On it are 42,000 refugees from Communist aggression, two-thirds of them Roman Catholics. Many are orphan children. At least three hundred of them are nuns. Some of the priests there are the very ones who 20 years ago led their congregations in toto, on foot, from Hanoi to the South, seeking safety. This Spring, when Hue and Da Nang fell, the same congregations moved again to Phu Quoc, sometimes with the help of U.S. naval vessels. Now the same vessels steam by and ignore them.

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Senate Defeats Bartlett Amendment

By W. H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
April 17, 1975

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Shortly before The Wanderer went to press (April 10th) we received the report that, after several hours of debate, the U.S. Senate had just voted 54 to 36 to table the Bartlett Amendment to S. 66. (For text and discussion, see The Wanderer, April 3rd, 1975, p. 4).

Earlier, the U.S. Catholic Conference, on April 7th, had advised members of the U.S. Senate that the Conference had decided to support the Bartlett Amendment.

The decision was announced in a letter circulated among the senatorial offices by Mr. James L. Robinson, head of the USCC Office of Government Liaison. The text of the letter follows.

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Senator Jesse Helms… Appeals To President For Massive Evacuation Of S. Vietnamese

Senator Jesse Helms … Appeals To President For Massive Evacuation Of S. Vietnamese

By W. H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
April 17, 1975

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the face of a possible collapse of resistance of South Vietnamese forces against the current Communist onslaught, Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.) has appealed to President Ford to utilize the U.S. Seventh Fleet to evacuate two million or more S. Vietnamese to safe haven. Sen. Helms sent the following telegram to the President on April 3rd:

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An End To Federal Abortion Research?

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
April 10, 1975

As soon as Congress returns from the Easter recess, pro-life forces on Capitol Hill will introduce an amendment to the Family Planning and Population Research Act of 1975 (S. 66 and H.R. 4925). This amendment will bring economic hardship to mad scientists all over America and save the lives of human babies who would otherwise perish in the course of “research.”
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Bartlett Changes His Amendment: A New Action Imperative

By W. H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
April 3, 1975

Sen. Dewey Bartlett (R., Okla.), on March 11th, 1975, introduced an anti-abortion amendment to the Family Planning and Population Research Act of 1975 (a part of S. 66 — see The Wanderer, March 20th, p. 4). As a result of criticism from colleagues, however, Bartlett decided to abandon that amendment in favor of a new, more specific one.

The older amendment has not been withdrawn but will not be called up for a vote. The new amendment was introduced on March 26th, with the cosponsorship of Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.).

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Time To Close An Abortion Loophole

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
March 20, 1975

Did you ever hear of the Dingell Amendment? It prevents Federal funds from being used by HEW to pay for abortions under the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, to which it was attached in 1970. It is still on the books. It says, ‘‘None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

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Bicentennial Alert

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
February 20, 1975

If you, the reader, are in basic agreement with The Wanderer’s understanding of Catholic social doctrine, and if you live within striking distance of one of these five cities: San Antonio, St. Paul, Atlanta, Sacramento, or Newark, then Holy Church needs you badly.

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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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Typecasting

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 5, 1974

On Monday, Nov. 18th, at the noon press conference, Bishop James Rausch made an excellent statement which deserves wider reporting than it is likely to receive. As General Secretary of the NCCB-USCC, Bishop Rausch was asked to comment on the concerns which are being expressed by Catholics today and the apparent fact that most of the groups petitioning the Bishops are voicing so-called conservative concerns (dogma, catechetics) rather than liberal ones (social action). Bishop Rausch replied that he rejects the “typecasting of concerns as Right-wing or Left-wing.” From The Wanderer’s point of view, this Bishop, who has received his share of knocks in our pages, could hardly have made a wiser or more timely point.

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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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Regrets Are Not Enough

By A. J. MATT JR.

THE WANDERER
August 15, 1974
Contributing Editors:William H. Marshner, Frank Morriss, John J. Mulloy, Edith Myers

This week, we conclude William Marshner’s perceptive and informative series on developments in Chile — a report that has great portent for the Church in the United States. There is little doubt that leftist factions in the Church in Chile did much to prepare that nation to accept an Allende as president and who aided and abetted the Marxist class struggle that inflicted such great suffering on the Chilean people during the Allende regime.

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Thanks To Marshner

THANKS TO MARSHNER

Raoul de la Torre Valenzuela

THE WANDERER

Editor, THE WANDERER:

Thank you very much for publishing the brilliant and stunning series on Allende’s program for programmed misery in Chile by William Marshner. This type of report by America’s finest Catholic weekly has been long overdue. Only someone like Marshner, with his cultured appreciation for Catholic Hispanic culture, could have gathered and put forth the truth so courageously.
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Abortion: The Chickens Come Home

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
July 11, 1974

From the very beginning of the anti-abortion movement, long before there was a Supreme Court decision, two camps vied for leadership. One stressed the need for national action (include here The Wanderer Gang); the other preferred to work primarily at the State level (include here Msgr. James T. McHugh).

Then came Black Monday, Jan. 22nd, 1973. The two camps changed focus to some extent, but essentially the same leadership struggle went on. The same quarrel — over effective national action — remained central. It is still central.

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USCC’s Fr. McGuire Challenges Truth Of Wanderer’s Chile Report

USCC’s Fr. McGuire Challenges Truth of Wanderer’s Chile Report

W. H. Marshner

THE WANDERER
June 13, 1974

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Fr. Frederick McGuire, C.M., head of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Latin American Division, has challenged William H. Marshner’s report “Chile First Hand — A Report From Santiago,” which was published in the May 23rd issue (and subsequent issues) of The Wanderer, describing the story as “propagandizing for the bloodstained Chilean junta.” Marshner has responded to the charges, calling them libelous, and he demanded an immediate retraction.

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Froelich Amends Community Services Act

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
June 6, 1974

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Harold Froelich (R., Wis.) has succeeded in attaching an anti-abortion amendment to the mammoth Community Services Act of 1974 (HR 14449). This act, passed by the House on May 29th, by a margin of 331 to 53, would resuscitate all of the old OEO anti-poverty programs, including Family Planning and Legal Services, by transferring them to a new agency to be created in HEW and to be called the Community Action Administration.

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Fr. Carl Pfeiffer, S.J. – Heretics And Buffoons Meet In Washington

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
March 29, 1973

(PART III)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The annual Religious Education Institute of the Archdiocese of Washington, held this year on February 24th, was a spiritual- intellectual disaster of the sorriest sort. In previous parts of this report, we have looked at the vulgar and hideous “liturgies” that were “celebrated” there and at the remarks of the featured speaker, Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S., a considerably over-rated New Testament scholar. In this final installment, we look in on one of the afternoon workshops, specifically, the one called “Celebrating Change Within Continuity.”

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“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.

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U.S. Supreme Court Approves Death Penalty For The Unborn

U.S. SUPREME COURT APPROVES DEATH PENALTY FOR THE UNBORN

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
February 1, 1973

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a sweeping 7 to 2 decision, the Supreme Court struck down on January 22nd the abortion laws of Texas, Georgia, and all but four of the other 50 States. On the basis of a “right to privacy” allegedly guaranteed by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, the Court majority ruled that during the first three months of pregnancy, a woman and her doctor have the unconditional right to decide whether she will bear or abort her unborn child.

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Bishops Approve “Basic Teachings”

By W.H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
Our Second Century of Lay Apostolate
January 25, 1973
St. Paul, Minn.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – By an undisclosed but reportedly “overwhelming” vote, the Bishops of the United States have approved the document called “Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education.” Designed to set guidelines for the doctrinal content of catechesis, the document was prepared by an ad hoc committee consisting of Archbishop John F. Whealon of Hartford (chairman), Bishop Clarence Elwell of Columbus, Auxiliary Bishop John J. Graham of Philadelphia, Auxiliary Bishop John B. McDowell of Pittsburgh and Auxiliary Bishop William E. McManus of Chicago. The final draft was approved by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy in Rome and then submitted to all the U.S. Bishops by the NCCB administrative committee. The Bishops were asked to vote on the document by mail, a procedure which caused unexpected delay in its final ratification because the balloting coincided with the Christmas mail rush. A two-thirds majority was required.

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Tobin Forsakes Church, “Marries” In Washington

By W. H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
(Special to The Wanderer)
January 25, 1973

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Fr. William J. Tobin, formerly acting director of National Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) and a powerful figure in the U.S. catechetical establishment has abandoned his priesthood and the Church.

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Msgr. Bordelon Quits: Pressure Rumored

Msgr. Bordelon Quits:
Pressure Rumored

W. H. Marshner

THE WANDERER
December 2, 1972
(Special to the Wanderer)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Msgr. Marvin Bordelon has resigned from the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). He was director of the Division of World Justice and Peace (which was part of the larger department of Social Development and World Peace), and his resignation becomes effective December 31st.

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Importing Allende’s Line

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

THE WANDERER
December 21, 1972

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the end of last month the Latin American Bureau of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) set up shop as America’s foremost importers of Chilean- Marxist propaganda. But the Chilean supplier was not the foundering Allende government; it was a committee of eighty American missionaries of various denominations working in Chile.

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