Catholic Religious Australia

pathways, APRIL 09

Jesuit Bishop Gregory O'Kelly has been appointed the Bishop of Port Pirie, in South Australia.

Fr Michael McKenna has been appointed the Bishop of Bathurst.

The appointments were made public in Rome on the night of Wednesday, April 15, and announced in Australia by the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto.

Bishop O'Kelly has been the Auxiliary Bishop of Adelaide since September 2006.

He was ordained a Jesuit priest in Adelaide in 1972 and has a long background in Catholic education, having been headmaster both of St Ignatius College, Adelaide, and St Ignatius College, Riverview, in Sydney.

In 1989 Bishop O'Kelly was elected as Chairman of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia and in 1994 he was awarded the Order of Australia for services to education.

Bishop O'Kelly is a member of the Bishops Commission for Catholic Education and of the National Catholic Education Commission and has been involved with various refugee communities in Adelaide.

Bishop O'Kelly succeeds Bishop Eugene Hurley as the Bishop of Port Pirie, following Bishop Hurley's appointment as the Bishop of Darwin in July 2007.

In area, the Port Pirie Diocese is the third largest in Australia, covering nearly a million square kilometers. It reaches northwards to include Uluru in the Northern Territory, and goes west and east to the state boundaries of Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Around 250,000 people live in the diocese. There are 23 priests, 17 schools and 51 churches across 29 parishes.

The parishes vary from the underground church at Coober Pedy, to the uranium mines at Roxby Downs to the fishing and tourist centres of Port Lincoln and Ceduna in the west.

In congratulating Bishop O'Kelly, Australian Provincial Fr Steve Curtin SJ said the appointment was a call back to his roots on two levels, family and the society.

"Both sides of his family come from this area, and the first priests to walk and ride across the lands of the diocese were Fathers Kranewitter, Tappeiner and Pallhuber," Fr Curtin said. "Our Jesuits from Sevenhill virtually built this diocese. When it was established in 1888, of the 11 parish priests, seven were Jesuits from Sevenhill.'

Fr Michael McKenna has been the Catholic chaplain to the University of Melbourne and the administrator of All Saints Parish, Fitzroy.

He was ordained a priest in 1983, after which, he served in the Diocese of Sale.

In 1991, while engaged in post graduate studies in Canon Law at the Gregorian University, Rome, he was elected to the first of his two terms as general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

After a return to parish life, Bishop-elect McKenna took up a Resident Fellowship in the Divinity School of Harvard University.

From 1999 to 2005, he was rector of Corpus Christi College, the regional seminary for Victoria and Tasmania. In 2006 he was appointed as Catholic chaplain to the University of Melbourne and the following year he also took on the pastoral care of All Saints Parish, Fitzroy.

Bishop-elect McKenna succeeds Bishop Patrick Dougherty, who retired as the Bishop of Bathurst in November 2008.

Bathurst Diocese administrator Fr Pat O'Regan welcomed news of the appointment of the eight bishop of Bathurst.

"This is especially welcome news, coming as it comes so close to the celebration of Easter," he said.

"For what seems a long time, the diocese has been praying that God would send us a good, holy and pastoral bishop.

"Bishop-elect McKenna brings to our diocese a unique set of experiences which include growing up in a country diocese, as well as a very broad range of experiences of both the local and universal church."

In his message to the people of the Diocese, Bishop-elect McKenna said, "I hope that the energy and peace we celebrate now might bless my ministry here in the years ahead ... Our mission is simply to proclaim him (the Risen Christ) - together - clearly, strongly, beautifully. Let us pray for one another."

New Bishops