Structure Of The Church East And West

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Structure of the Church East and West

Two-Lung Traditions vs. One-Lung Deviations

William H. Marshner, S.T.D.

Orientale Lumen Conference
Washington DC 2004
San Diego 2005

I begin with this question: what is the right starting point for theological reflection on the structure of the Church? One might think, “Well, the New Testament, of course” But this answer is not enough. As Fr. Raymond Collins pointed out to us, last night, the New Testament evidence is “less than clear.” Fr. Collins indicated three New Testament pictures, as you may recall: the charismatic, the Christian rabbinic, and the household overseer. It is important to add, however, that the New Testament text itself does not tell us whether these are three structures or are three different ways of describing one structure. Continue reading “Structure Of The Church East And West”

Dignitatis Humanae And Traditional Teaching On Church And State

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Faith and Reason (Fall 1983): 222-248.

Vatican II clearly holds that there is a rightful religious liberty which, within “due limits,” even objectively false religions ought to enjoy vis-à-vis the State. In what follows, I shall refer to this claim as the “basic holding” of the Declaration Dignitatis humanae, whose title I shall shorten to DH.[1]
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Annulment Or Divorce

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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.
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Criteria For Doctrinal Development In The Marian Dogmas: An Essay In Metatheology

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CRITERIA FOR DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE MARIAN DOGMAS: AN ESSAY IN METATHEOLOGY

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

MARIAN STUDIES, Vol. 28 (1977)
University of Dallas
Irving, Texas 75061

Synopsis

As a critique of recent proposals by E. J. Yarnold, S.J., and R. E. Brown, S.S., to re-think the “meaning” of certain Marian dogmas, a method is proposed for establishing the sense and reference (hence verifiability conditions, falsifiability conditions, axiomatic connexions, and metalinguistic “properties”) of these and other dogmas. It is shown that such a method forms an integral part of a general criteriology for doctrinal development. At the outset, then, the possibility and necessity of such a criteriology is defended against certain “theological theories” of doctrinal development, especially that of K. Rahner, S.J. Finally, the relevance of Henri Bouillard’s problematic of “reconceptualization” to the here proposed method and general criteriology is evaluated. Several philosophical and theological issues closely related to the main thesis are handled in footnoted discussions.
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Membership In The Church: Fundamental Questions

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Membership in the Church: Fundamental Questions

by WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

FAITH AND REASON
Vol. 2, No. 3
Winter 1976
Christendom College

A pressing question before the Church today is precisely “Who is a member?” The importance of this matter, which seems on the surface to be rather obvious, stems from two scandalous but simple facts. First, the division of Christianity into competing sects has created the difficulty of defining the relationship of these sects to the true Church. Second, modern Catholics who deny even the most basic of Church teachings often confuse the issue by refusing to admit that they have left the Church. It is in this context, then, that F&R publishes the following rigorous, careful and technical treatment of Church membership by William H. Marshner. The argument demands and deserves careful reading and rereading with full attention to the notes. It is true that the casual reader will find certain traditional attitudes toward Church membership reinforced by the author’s conclusions. But the painstaking student of this article will find much more, for presented here are basic distinctions which go far toward ending the confusion about who is a member in good standing of the Catholic Church and who, in fact, is not.
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An Interview With Archbishop Joseph Bernardin

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

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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.”

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Contra Gentiles: Integrism In America II

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Contra Gentiles: Integrism in America II

W. H. Marshner

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 5
May 1973

In the March Triumph, this column argued that “Integrism” in its full, European sense did not and could not exist in America. But it was also argued that there is a narrower sense of the word, a purely ecclesiastical sense, in which there is an American Integrism, perceptibly taking form since Vatican II. Herewith, an attempt to examine this native movement more carefully.

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Ecumenism in Crisis

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Ecumenism in Crisis:

Some Catholic-Political Considerations

W. H. MARSHNER

Triumph
Vol. VIII No. 4
April 1973

The question whether the Catholic Church in this country should join the National Council of Churches is now in the final stages of study. At the same time, all ecumenical undertakings have been given a new cast by the January 22 Supreme Court decision on abortion. These two circumstances define the present moment as uniquely propitious for a careful rethinking of the entire ecumenical engagement.

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Cardinal Cody Declares Wanderer Report “Misleading”

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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

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Hans Küng: Infallible?

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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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