George V Murry

Life

Murry was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1948. He originally belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal Church but converted to Roman Catholicism when he was a child while attending a parochial school in Baltimore, Maryland. He later attended Camden Catholic High School.

Murry did undergraduate studies at St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia and St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Connecticut before receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. In 1972 he was admitted as a member of the Society of Jesus. After completing his period of novitiate in 1974, he went on to obtain a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and a Masters and Doctorate in American Cultural History from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a Catholic priest on June 9, 1979.

Murry became a professor at the University of Detroit. He also served as the President of Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C., and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Detroit, until Pope John Paul II appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago and titular bishop of Fuerteventura in 1995. He was consecrated on March 20 of that year by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

In May 1998, Pope John Paul appointed Murray Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Upon the resignation of Elliot Griffin Thomas in June 1999, he automatically succeeded to the office of bishop of the diocese. On January 30, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him the fifth Bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown. Later that year, he was elected Secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and he was re-elected to a three-year term the following year.

Murry has served on numerous boards, including those of the University of Detroit, St. Joseph's University, Mount St. Mary's College, Loyola Academy in Detroit, and Loyola University Chicago. He is a member of the boards of Fairfield University and Catholic Relief Services. He has served as the chairman of the Committee on Domestic Policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and on the board of directors for the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, and the Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, Cincinnati, Ohio.

In September 2015, Pope Francis appointed Murray a member of the Synod of Bishops that met the following month to discuss family life. At that meeting, he said he supported the view that church practice toward the divorced and remarried could change without altering doctrine. He said he supported greater participation from theologians, cultural historians, and other experts, and that the Synod needed to find a way to hear the voices of the people who were the subject of its discussions. He also supported the creation of commission to consider allowing women to serve as deacons. He said: "It would be a wise idea to look into it, to learn more about it and then to present a proposal to the pope to say there either are theological problems, or not. And if not, let’s move forward."