Addresses and Statements

Thanks at Farewell Dinner

30 Jun 2015

Thanks at Farewell Dinner, 30 June 2015

Your Eminences, George Cardinal Pell, Vatican Secretary of Economic Affairs, and Edwin Cardinal O'Brien, Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the latest order to which I am proud to belong;

Your Lordships, Bishops Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Terry Brady, Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, and Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne;

Very Rev. Wojciech Giertych OP, Theologian of the Papal Household;

Very Rev. Vincent Lu Ha OP representing the Master of the Order of Preachers and Dominican brothers including the Australian Provincial, the Priors of Sydney, Vienna and San Clemente Rome, and the Novice Master of England;

Very Rev. Monsignors Harry Entwistle, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Peter Williams, Administrator of the Diocese of Parramatta, Livio Melina, International President of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family and Renzo Pegoraro, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life;

Vicar General Gerry Gleeson of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Business Manager Mr Michael Digges, and several chancery staff;

My beloved mother and father, siblings and their families, my brother clergy, fellow religious and dear seminarians, with my treasured friends and fellow pilgrims, and our extra guests tonight:

The first of the Anglophone tales of pilgrimage is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. They are rather more full of intrigue, bacchanals, and eye-popping couplings than pieties. Our own pilgrimage this week has perhaps been a more moderate affair, but nonetheless we've had our share of fun as well as religion and indeed the fun of religion.

We've been blessed to visit almost every corner of the Vatican City State: St Peter's Basilica, of course, its crypt and dome, its principal relic (the bones of St Peter) and art works such as Michelangelo's pieta; above all we've taken part in two beautiful Masses there, one just for us and one glorious papal liturgy yesterday. We've also seen the Vatican Museum, Library, Gardens and Armoury and now the Casino Paolo IV – something of 'the secret life' of the popes and this tiny state. We've visited the other patriarchal basilicas of Rome, dedicated to St John, St Paul and Mary, as well as the ancient basilicas of St Clement, Sta Maria in Trastevere and Sta Sabina. We've been up the holy stairs and down the scavi, seen Rome from above and below, been received by the Australian Embassy, Santa Croce University, the Dominican Mother House and by the Knights of Malta, and also visited Orvieto and Assisi. It sounds impossible to do so much in a week…

Amongst the saints we have encountered along the way are: Peter and Paul, Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, Sabina and all the other early martyrs of Rome; Cyril, Methodius, Basil and other saints of the patristic period; Francis, Claire, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, Beato Angelico, Adrian Fortescue and Pius V of the Mediaeval and Renaissance times; Peter Chanel, Josemaria Escriva, John XXIII and John Paul II of the modern era – to name a few. We've heard their challenge to us time and time again: there are many ways to be a saint: which will you be?
 
To have celebrated Mass twice at the tomb of St Peter, once below and once above, once intimately by ourselves and once with his successor and thousands of others, has been an enormous privilege. We've gained a real sense of the antiquity and modernit of the Church, of its continuity through the ages, of its Gospel and above all its God, who is as St Augustine said “ever-ancient, ever new”. We've also had the pleasure of getting to know each other better too.

Yesterday before Mass Pope Francis came along to speak to each one of us in turn. He reminded me that I was a Dominican and very young; I reminded him that I was Jesuit educated and that the job his pallium represented would age me quickly. After Mass he gave each of us the pallium he had blessed, now wrapped up like a box of chocolates, with a mandate from him to the Apostolic Nuncio in Australia to impose it on me when I returned. In case any of you doesn't know already, you are all invited to that Mass on the Feast of St James the Apostle, 25 July, at St Mary's Cathedral at 10am.

In this wonderful week, with so many happy memories of beautiful Masses, encounters with Christ and His saints, causes for hope and inspiration. I suspect that very few of the Metropolitan Archbishops were lucky enough to have their Mum and Dad, my brothers and sisters, and their respective families with them for these celebrations. I will never forget my father, aged 81, accompanying me on his knees all the way up the Sancta Scala and saying that he thought there were more stairs than last time he did it – sixty years ago. Nor will I forget my mother making her way from site to site often pushed in a wheelchair by Sydney seminarians or fellow pilgrims or on their arm as she walked.

Several of my brother priests and friars have also accompanied us through this pilgrimage, as have friends of mine and of the Archdiocese of Sydney. I am truly blessed to have excellent collaborators including my auxiliary Bishop Terry, Vicar General Fr Gerry, Business Manager Michael and Private Secretary Antoine and I thank them today for all the support they give me, not just while on pilgrimage but 24/7, 7/52, along with those of my support team who could not be here with us in Rome. That we have made such a pilgrimage together so early in our time together will I hope bind us together more closely in our joint mission to the Church of God in Sydney.

At the Rome end we have had Cardinal Pell, Fr Mark Withoos and Fr Anthony Robbie, the team at Domus Australia led by the Rector Fr Andrew James, as well as the tour operator, drivers, guides and hosts for our several receptions and pilgrimage events. Deacon Lewi Barakat and seminarians Matthew Meagher and Daniel Russo have all contributed tirelessly if sometimes tiredly: it has been suggested that the ability and willingness to push the Archbishop's parents in wheelchairs across cobbled Roman streets and up the hills of Assisi should become a new vocational test for Australian seminarians. Certainly our three this week have deeply impressed their Archbishop and all the pilgrims by their energetic service, idealistic faith and warm personalities.

Michael Digges, Katrina Lee and Maria de Martin have made a huge contribution to planning and executing this pilgrimage, and I want to pay particular tribute to them for their eye to detail, solicitousness to me and my needs but also those of my family and fellow pilgrims, and their generosity to us all.

To all of you my deepest gratitude and affection. As we leave here, let us recall two things: that this “eternal city” points to the eternal city, the heavenly Jerusalem, to which we are all called and towards which we are all on pilgrimage; and our own home, the city of Sydney and country of Australia to which we are sent in the meantime, to bring back the vision and hope we have been given here. Let me conclude with a reading from the Letter written by St Paul while a prisoner here in Rome to the Church in Ephesus, from which I took my episcopal motto “speaking the truth in love”.
 
I Paul, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to live in a way that is worthy of your vocation: in humility and mildness, supporting one another in patience and charity. Be careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. For in the one Spirit you have been called into one body with one hope; in the one Lord [Jesus] you have been called into one faith through one baptism; in the one Father [you have been called into the one God] who is over all, through all and in us all.
 
Each of us has been given a particular grace, according to the measure of Christ: some he graced to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers: but all for the ministry of the word, for perfecting the saints and building up the body of Christ, so that all may grow up in the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, maturing into the fullness of Christ.
 
We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried along by the latest doctrine, the malice of men or the craftiness of those who would deceive us; but speaking the truth in love, may we in all things grow up into Christ who is the head and from whom we the body draw [order and life].
 
Peace to you my brothers and sisters, with love and faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May grace be with you and all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Amen.