---
title: 'F.P. Mullally on the Voice of the Church'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2023-10-04
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2023-f-p-mullally-on-the-voice-of-the-church
---

# F.P. Mullally on the Voice of the Church

“But if the church is the organ of Christ, it should always speak with divine authority and expect to be heard with reverence and submission, not only for the agreement of its utterances with the word, ‘but also for the power whereby they are made as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in his word.’ The voice of the church should always be the voice of God, and this is never so emphatic and solemn as when it comes through it. It is idle to say that the church may declare what it pleases so long as it does not claim to bind the conscience. It always binds the conscience, except when it can be shown that it transgressed its divine rule. So long as it claims to be the church at all, by virtue of this claim it asserts a right to be heard as the prophet of God, and it ought not to issue recommendations to regulate manners or gain the adoption of methods without the warrant, explicit or implied, of the revealed will of God.” — [**F**.**P. Mullally**](/authors/francis-patrick-mullally), *The Limit of the Church*’*s Power to Make Declarations* (1895)