Vietnamese.
The Great Archdiocese of Melbourne was once almost entirely Irish. Our greatest Archbishop was as Irish as they come (Mannix). After the War, there was a great influx of Italians (I don’t think we ever had an Italian bishop in Melbourne). But today, the trend is most definitely Vietnamese – and we do have a Vietnamese Bishop. See this good news story here.
I propose that
1) We replace the absentee monarch of Australia (who is also the Monarch of Great Britain) with an elected Australian monarchy.
2) The elected monarch exactly replaces the current monarch in the current constition.
3) The elected monarch has exactly the same powers, duties and responsibilities as those of the current absentee monarch. All the monarch's functions are carried out by his/her personal representatives (as is currently the case): federally by the Governor General, and in the states by the State Governors.
4) The Governor General and the Governors continue to be selected and appointed as they currently are, that is, by the premier with the approval of the monarch.
5) The monarch is elected to sovereignty over Australia for life, but his/her sovereignty is strictly non-hereditary.
6) The elective body is the "college of electors" comprised of the state governors and federal governor general.
7) The election of the monarch must be a unanimous decision on the part of the college of electors.
I note that St Johns in Victoria parade has all Masses in Vietnamese . I walked into a coffee shop after Mass one Sunday ,which was run by a Vietnamese couple. On the wall was a photo of their daughter dressed ready for First Communion.Incidentally she attends the Catholic school that is part of your old Boronia Parish. i found out that they went to the Cathlolic Parish opposite their shop. So i posed the question when did they do this they said when they shut up shop at 4.30 and went over to 5pm Mass. they seemed very touched when i said God Bless their daughter and thanked me very much. I go in there when i can- they make great almond cakes.
Two points on this David.
1. You say Mannix was the greatest archbishop of Melbourne. I beg to differ and say Cardinal Knox, a man of great humility, holiness and simplicity. Although only in melbourne for a short time he is Melbourne’s one and only member of the College of cardinals (Pell was made cardinal in Sydney). Knox came in after Simmonds who had waited decades and was a lost man. Mannix was 99 when he died and ought have gone 25 years earlier when Simmonds could have been a great archbishop. What was great about Mannix? I am not sure there is anything spiritually great about the man. He was an imported bishop who had a huge political agenda which made him famous and which an older generation of priests thought made him a God-like man. But his Irishness was not Australian and it is in Australia that he was a bishop not th divisive Irish island. No, Knox, the quiet, the holy bishop whom Paul VI moved to Rome where he died finally, too young.
2. You rightly say no ‘Italian’ bishop. Well, not that many Italian priests so that does not matter. what matters is bishops who have been outstanding priests who can lead and teach for the Church. Many have squandered that and now we have a new generation of bishops, some or many of whom will be Vietnamese.
The coming months will see a number of Sees filled as bishops retire. Australia needs a new dynamic episcopacy for a new era, a new time as + Mark Coleridge has pointed out. Times demand holy bishops. Lets see if the next 3-9 months provides those new bishops in Hobart, Brisbane, Ballarat and elsewhere.
I am sceptical.