Just very quickly, as I am about to head into the Cathedral for the Chrism Mass, I would like to join my voice to the chorus congratulating Archbishop Mark Coleridge on his appointment to the See of Brisbane. Full links to the stories and documents here.
Next boot to fall then will be Canberra-Goulburn.
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.
Yet another appointment that the dogs had been barking for months comes to fruition.
This of course does not detract from the fact that Arch.Coleridge is probably the right man for the job.Congratulations and good luck to him!
This now means that the Sees of Brisbane,Sydney,Melbourne and Perth are all run by
Victorians.This can only be good for the Church going forward.
One could ask why Melbourne is supplying the rest of the nation with bishops. Of course, not all of these are native Melbournians or even Victorians. It might be because Melbourne has the most auxiliaries of any diocese (four is the usual number).
Melbourne is, by a large measure, the largest Australian diocese, with more than one million Catholics. (Brisbane and Sydney are both a little bit north of 600,000, and nobody else even reaches 400,000.) I’ve suggested before that in general particular churches should produce their own pastors and it’s probably not profitable to revive that discussion, but if that’s not what’s happening then Melbourne is well-positioned to act as a “bishop school”, because it can support a fair number of auxiliaries. Currently there are 13 living Australian bishops who are or have been incardinated in Melbourne. Sydney used to fill a similar role, but much less so nowadays since it was divided into three dioceses.
Talking about large Diocese did anyone watch Compass last sunday -yes Doogue’s usual jibe at all things Gospel included – about the plight of the Wilcania-Forbes diocese.
Yes, I watched it. And so did my parents, and some other folk close to me. I had a diggens of a time explaining to them the reasons for the translation “many” instead of “all” (someting which they found quite natural and unalarming once explained) and the situatin in Willcannia-Forbes. This sort of TV reporting is less than helpful for our people.
Alas,”this sort of TV reporting”is typical of Compass.