Lake Village priest selected to attend Vatican meeting

Arkansas priest one of five priests from U.S. selected to attend Parish Synod in Rome

Published: April 3, 2024

By Malea Hargett
Editor

Father Joseph Friend, who was ordained a priest in 2020, will join four other parish priests at the Vatican event. He is the pastoral administrator of Holy Cross Church in Crossett, Holy Spirit Church in Hamburg and Our Lady of the Lake Church in Lake Village.

An Arkansas priest will participate in a global gathering of 300 parish priests as part of the Synod on Synodality this spring in Rome.

Father Joseph Friend will attend Parish Priests for the Synod: An International Meeting April 28-May 2 at the Vatican.

Father Friend, who was ordained a priest in 2020, will join four other American parish priests at the Vatican event. He is the pastoral administrator of Holy Cross Church in Crossett, Holy Spirit Church in Hamburg and Our Lady of the Lake Church in Lake Village.

“My main involvement in the synod was with the Presbyteral Council,” Father Friend said. “All the priests tackled (the diocesan synod report) together. We took the 13 points and spent over a year talking about each point as a clergy. How we thought we could respond to this or that. Bishop Taylor had asked a few of us to attend the National Parish Priest Synod. A hundred guys from across the United States participated in that (on Zoom).”

It was at this national priest event that Father Friend believes he was noticed, especially since he is currently representing rural parishes in southeast Arkansas and lives in a mission diocese.

The Holy See asked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to submit a list of five priests who have been participating in synodality in their local parishes to send to the meeting. Based on the Vatican guidelines, the USCCB selected four Latin Rite priests and one Eastern Catholic priest to represent the United States.

Father Friend said he hopes he can share the joy that priests in Arkansas have for their vocation and the faith with the other synod participants.

“I want to get a good pulse on our diocesan brothers,” he said. “There are so many good priests in our diocese, and the spirit of our diocese is, I just think it's so joyous. And there's just this love for the Church and the people, and there's not a lot of polarization. We're just simply Catholic. And we love the faith, and there's no agendas really. And that's my experience.”

Other priests participating are Father Artur Bubnevych, pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Church in Albuquerque, N.M.; Father Luis Navarro, pastor, St. George Church in Stockton, Calif.; Father Donald Planty, pastor, St. Charles Church in Arlington, Va.; and Father William Swichtenberg, pastor, St. Mary Church in Appleton, Wis.

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