Michigan Catholic Conference CEO recalls Bishop Murray as ‘a brilliant homilist, a helpful spiritual advisor, and a good friend’

KALAMAZOO (CNS) — Bishop James A. Murray, the third bishop of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, died of natural causes June 5. He was 87.

He served the diocese as bishop from 1998 until his retirement in 2009.

Bishop Paul J. Bradley of Kalamazoo announced his predecessor’s passing, saying he had visited Bishop Murray on June 4.

“I was grateful to be able to visit him yesterday and relay how grateful we all are to him for his leadership as the third bishop of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, and since his retirement, for his wonderful priestly example of providing pastoral assistance wherever and whenever he could and for being such an exemplary priest and bishop of Jesus Christ,” Bishop Bradley said in a statement.

A native of Jackson, Mich., Bishop Murray was born to James and Clare Murray on July 5, 1932. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. He held additional degrees in theology from St. John Seminary in Plymouth, and from The Catholic University of America and a licentiate in canon law from that university.

Bishop Murray was ordained a priest in 1958 for the Diocese of Lansing. He served in parishes and other ministries in the diocese until his appointment in 1998 as Kalamazoo’s bishop by St. John Paul II.

Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron said he was “saddened to learn” of Bishop Murray’s death.

“He was an exemplary priest and a good brother to me,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “Let us all join with the Church in Kalamazoo to ask the Lord Jesus, the great High Priest, to give the bishop the rewards of his labors as ‘a faithful and prudent servant.’”

Bishop Murray spent more than 50 years serving the state’s Catholics through the Michigan Catholic Conference, the statewide public policy arm of the Church, first as a liaison officer and priest representative, and later as vice chairman of the board of directors.

Paul A. Long, the conference’s president and CEO, said he personally felt Bishop Murray’s loss, as the late bishop was Long’s pastor before being ordained to the episcopate.

Long said Bishop Murray was “a brilliant homilist, a helpful spiritual advisor, and a good friend to myself and many others. He was small in stature but a giant in the Church and the broader community.”

The Kalamazoo diocese reported that Bishop Murray ordained 15 men as priests and 28 men as permanent deacons, confirmed more than 14,000 young Catholics, and welcomed more than 3,100 new Catholics into the church through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.

A private funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Augustine Cathedral in Kalamazoo. A memorial Mass will be planned in the future after current stay-at-home restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic are lifted.

Detroit Catholic contributed to this report.