Is 'Voice of the Faithful' Unfaithful to Catholic Principles?

MassNews Staff
July 22, 2002

The largest story on the front page of yesterday's Boston Globe was about the lay reform group known as "Voice of the Faithful" which met on Saturday at the Hynes Auditorium with 4,000 people from across the country in attendance.

The group started in Wellesley in the basement of St. John the Evangelist Church just five months ago, after the sexual scandals appeared. It was begun by a well known activist, cardiologist James E. Muller, who was a member of a group which won the Nobel peace prize in 1985 for its work against U.S. policy on the nuclear bomb,

The Globe reported that at Dr. Muller's insistence, the Voice of the People has "refused to take a position on controversial issues such as priestly celibacy." Muller's goal is to "demand that lay people have a voice on key issues," the newspaper said.

The Cardinal has made no comment on the group but a chief aide has been assigned to meet with the group's leaders.

But C. J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League has criticized the group for "unfaithfulness to Catholic principles."

It is clear to all observers that Dr. Muller will have a difficult time controlling all the different factions that attended yesterday's meeting and there will be a struggle for power.

Although the Globe reported that the group has "refused to take a position on controversial issues such as priestly celibacy," a much more controversial issue than married priests was quietly slipped in the homily delivered at the meeting by the Rev, William Kremmell, the chaplain at Regis and Framingham State Colleges. He made a call for married, women priests when he said that "hopefully" a married woman might be presiding at a Mass in twenty-five years.

Prominent Catholic Dissenters

C. J. Doyle noted that the list of invited speakers was comprised of prominent Catholic dissenters, including proponents of women's ordination, opponents of Catholic sexual ethics, and Debra Haffner, former Director of Counseling, Education, and Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.

He characterized the conference's program as "the clearest signal yet received of the organization's lack of Catholic integrity and radical infidelity to Church teaching."

"What we are witnessing here today," said Doyle, is the cynical exploitation of a tragedy by dissidents with an agenda. When an organization which purports to be Catholic has a speaker affiliated with Planned Parenthood, it tells us all we need to know about its alleged Catholic credentials. The presence of Debra Haffner, along with representatives of the Women's Ordination Conference, CORPUS, and Call to Action makes a mockery of its pretensions to be Catholic.

"It is grotesque hypocrisy for an organization which claims to be Catholic to promote the views of those who reject Catholic doctrine and repudiate Christian morality. These adversaries of the Papacy and Catholic tradition are seeking the admission of women, married men and active homosexuals to the priesthood, the repeal of Catholic moral prohibitions against abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and divorce, and in some cases, the separation of the Catholic Church in America from Rome. As an organization marketing itself as Catholic, Voice of the Faithful is engaged in consumer fraud."

Dr. Muller Is Well Known

Dr. Muller has been well known as an international activist for years. He was one of three co-founders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

He is also active with the Physicians for Social Responsibility.