Bishop Explains Concerns about Voice of the Faithful

By Liz O’Connor
Long Island Catholic (NY)
September 18, 2002

http://www.licatholic.org/diocese/faithful.htm

Rockville Centre, NY – Bishop William Murphy said that it was after prayer and reflection that he determined not to allow the group “Voice of the Faithful” to meet on Church property in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

“If people want to meet, everybody’s free to meet in whatever way they want. However when they start to meet on Church property,” he said, that by implication gives the group a kind of official standing which he does not believe it has.

“I have a solemn obligation which is mine from God through the appointment of the Holy Father to care for this Church, to shepherd this Church. One of the things I must be concerned about is the unity of the Church, and I must protect the Church. I make no negative judgments about anybody in Voice of the Faithful. I presume that everybody involved in it is doing so with good intentions, and I presume that they’re doing it with the best of motives.”

However, the bishop said last week that he did not see any need for a free-standing group like Voice of the Faithful on Long Island, especially since he has already announced plans for a diocesan synod which will be designed to allow everyone to be heard.

The process of preparing and experiencing the synod, Bishop Murphy said, is the way the Church has set out “for us to walk together, to listen together, to grow together, and to do this as one.”

In addition, he said, he has problems with the three stated goals of Voice of the Faithful and with the group’s invitation to leaders from outside the diocese to gather with them on Long Island.

“I do not know how a group of lay persons or any group can announce that they are going to care for the victims of sexual abuse,” he said. “I know, because I’ve spent time with victims, that this is something that is so delicate that a group of people with the best intentions might place the victim in a difficult position again.”

Secondly, he said, “I don’t understand what the people mean by ‘supporting priests of integrity.’

“All my priests are priests of integrity,” he said forcefully, “and I know that. All my priests are priests of integrity, and any member of the lay faithful has to presume that a priest is a priest of integrity. So to raise that implies that in some how or another there’s a winnowing or a judging going on” setting up “good priests versus bad priests. I don’t accept that.”

With regard to the group’s intent to challenge or change Church structures, he said, “Keeping the faith, for us as Catholics, means keeping the faith in the Church as Christ has willed it to be. And so to put together ‘Keep the faith’ and ‘change the Church’ – I don’t know what that means. But because it is so vague it leaves the door open for any number of interpretations.

“And we know— we’re not naïve — we know that in the Church today there are people who disagree with things that the Holy Father teaches and which it’s necessary for a person to believe. We know that the Church is structured in a way that is in accordance with the word of Christ and I in faithfulness must maintain that.

“We know that the Church is hierarchical; it’s not only hierarchical, but Chapter 3 of ‘Lumen Gentium’ (‘Light of All Nations,’ Vatican Council II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) says the Church is hierarchical. Chapter 5 tells us that the Church is called, everyone is called to holiness.”

In light of those things, Bishop Murphy said, “I made a judgment,” that this group which began in another diocese “should not be setting the agenda for the good people in the Diocese of Rockville Centre — when I as the bishop, the responsible shepherd, have set an agenda through the synodal process that allows everyone to be able to have their voices heard.”