The beginning of the Diocese of Parramatta: reflections.(Speech)

Thank you for the invitation to speak to your Society about the beginning of the Diocese of Parramatta. Although I was named first Bishop of Parramatta I am not really a leading witness to this subject--more like an actor with a minor role. The initiative for the creation of new dioceses in the Sydney area was taken by the Holy See. In preparing this talk I consulted Cardinal Edward Clancy, who told me that it was raised at least from the beginning of Cardinal Freeman's episcopate in Sydney (1971). When Cardinal Clancy succeeded in 1983 he was asked by the Nuncio to submit a proposal, but, he adds, was not given any guidelines about how he should go about doing so. With my brother auxiliary bishops I was consulted about new dioceses, but I was not a party to the negotiations with the Holy See, or to the canonical procedures, which led to the establishment of the diocese in 1986. So what I say is more of a personal memoir than an historical account. To put together something like the latter, one would need to consult the archives of both the Archdiocese of Sydney and the Diocese of Parramatta, a task for which I have not now the freedom or the taste. From the time of the establishment of the diocese my involvement was naturally greater, so that what I say in the latter part of my talk may be of greater historical interest. Nonetheless, even that will be in the nature of personal memories rather than researched record.

A diocese

A diocese is tidily defined in Canon Law, following the Second Vatican Council, as 'a portion of the people of God, which is entrusted to a Bishop to be nurtured by him, with the cooperation of the presbyterium, in such a way that, remaining close to its pastor and gathered by him through the Gospel and the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, it constitutes a particular Church. In this Church, the one, holy catholic and apostolic Church of Christ truly exists and functions' (canon 369). (1) The most distinctive feature of this definition is the last point: in this particular Church, as it is called, the whole Church is present and active. The Second Vatican Council endeavoured to enhance the role of the diocesan bishop in his diocese, and stressed the collegiality of bishops. 'The Roman Pontiff', it said, 'as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of the bishops and of the multitude of the faithful. The individual bishop, however, is the visible principle and foundation of unity in his particular church, fashioned after the model of the universal Church. In and from such individual churches there comes into being the one and only Catholic Church.' (Lumen Gentium n.23). (2) used to try to explain this idea by saying that in Parramatta we had everything the Church as a whole had except universality: the faith of the whole Church, its gift of unity, its catholicity and its apostolic roots. But we were united collegially with other dioceses, and with the Bishop of Rome as the foundation of unity in the universal Church. It was a way of saying what was our status, but also what were our limits and our responsibilities beyond ourselves. As a Church we were the presence of the Spirit in word and sacrament in that place. It is a challenging piece of theology from the Second Vatican Council.

This theological subtlety apart, the definition seems to be straightforward, but is in fact quite general. Deliberately no doubt, it makes no effort to define the number of that 'portion of the people of God' that might desirably make up a diocese. There are only underlying assumptions. If the bishop is to be the sacramental, and particularly the Eucharistic leader, of the diocese, then the number of the people should be such that they have a reasonable chance of offering the Eucharist together with the bishop from time to time. Similarly, if he is to be the principal among the pastors who serve their needs they should be able to see him and hear him personally on at least some occasions. This suggests some outer limits to the numerical size of a diocese.

In practice, outcomes have been very different, depending on factors of history and geography. In Italy one can usually drive through two or three dioceses in a couple of hours. In Germany dioceses are fewer and have much greater populations. In the New World dioceses were established as centres of population sprang up. After Sydney, the first in Australia were Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane, dating broadly from the 1840s and 1850s. Only a little later in the mother colony came the dioceses of Goulburn, Maitland and Bathurst. The establishment of new dioceses in Australia has not been common. Prior to the division of Sydney Archdiocese in 1986, the most recently established were Wollongong (1951) and Bunbury (1954).

The Archdiocese of Sydney

Sydney is not a megapolis, like Milan, Paris, London or Los Angeles. But it is a very extensive city. I heard recently that a person who did the circuit of the recently completed ring road traveled over 100 kilometres, and many great centres of population lie far outside that ring--Hornsby, Richmond, Penrith, Liverpool and Sutherland. I remember being on a small advisory committee assembled in the early 1970s to look at the plan for the development of greater Sydney. We learned, incredibly as it seemed to us, that there were to be great corridors of residential and industrial development in the north-west, the west and the south-west of Sydney. When in the 1950s I travelled from Springwood to Sydney everything as far as Blacktown was semi-rural; St Marys, Penrith and Richmond were like large country towns. According to the plan before us that was all to change. I don't recall that in our committee's report we said anything about new dioceses, but we did have recommendations to make about the diversion of more personnel and more resources to the projected growth areas.