WASHINGTON – In a June 16 report to the U.S. bishops during their virtual spring assembly, the chairman of the National Advisory Council said the group of lay, clergy and religious members provides a “respectful temperature check” on the bishops’ planned agenda and gauges concerns about items to be discussed.
Scott Voynich, the new chairman of the council for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, reiterated what has been said before about the group: that it “attempts to represent the Church in miniature.”
The council’s work is to review, discuss and advise the bishops on their meeting agenda items.
Voynich, who also is chairman of the finance council in the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, said the 43 members of the advisory council met virtually in March to review the bishops’ agenda for the June 16-18 spring meeting.
Like many others, he said, the council’s members struggled with the virtual setting for their meeting, which lacked some of the typical dialogue, he noted, and they hoped to soon return to in-person meetings.
He said the council approved of the bishops being asked to endorse the sainthood causes of two candidates so these could move forward. Both have the title “Servant of God.” They are:
– Father Joseph Verbis Lafleur, a priest of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, and a World War II chaplain who gave his life while saving others on a Japanese prison ship.
– Capt. Leonard LaRue, who with his crew heroically piloted the S.S. Meredith Victory with 14,005 refugees aboard from the port of Hungnam, now part of North Korea, to get them to safety during the Korean War. The mission has been called a “Christmas Miracle.” After the war, La Rue, who also was a World War II veteran, became Benedictine Brother Marinus of St. Paul’s Abbey in Newton, New Jersey.
The advisory group’s members also supported a proposed plan on the agenda for the USCCB to develop a more comprehensive ministry to Native Americans and Alaskan Natives, and three sets of translations from the International Committee on English in the Liturgy, or ICEL, on: the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church; additional intercessions and psalter concluding prayers for the Liturgy of the Hours; and the Order of Penance.
The group was particularly in favor of the bishops’ multiyear National Eucharistic Revival initiative, Voynich said in prerecorded remarks.
Planning for the initiative has been taking place for over a year. The bishops were scheduled to hear an update on the project June 18.
He said the National Advisory Council was concerned about a lack of clarity on the Eucharist among Catholics and felt the bishops should explain this better but that its members also were concerned the plan could be seen as a burden, not an inspiration, for priests.
The overall sentiment, Voynich said, is this is a “chance to turn the tide of unbelief” about the meaning of the Eucharist.
The council’s members approved of but were not fully supportive of a proposed pastoral framework on youth and young adults on the bishops’ agenda, expressing concern about its logistics and timing, he said.
They also expressed concerns on the approach taken in the proposed “National Pastoral Framework for Marriage and Family Life Ministry in the United States: Called to the Joy of Love,” which the bishops were being asked to approve. The plan, in the works since 2017, is meant to strengthen marriage and family ministry in parishes and dioceses.
The advisory body offered its own resolutions, which included concern about an urgency for bishops to demonstrate unity and provide examples of “clarity and consistency of the Catholic faith.”
Members also urged the bishops to provide guidelines in assessing the qualities of seminaries and asked for a study and analysis of the best practices for parishes moving forward from the pandemic.
No questions were presented at the end of Voynich’s message, which he concluded by telling the bishops: “You face many daunting challenges. We support you. You are in our prayers.”