PAPAL AWARDS
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL HOUSE, SYDNEY, 20 NOVEMBER 2025
Of all the Knights of the Round Table in the great Arthurian legends, Lancelot du Lac is probably the most famous. His courage, courtesy and prowess in battle made him the very model of chivalry. He has captured the modern imagination, his story being retold in many novels[1] and films.[2] Yet in the medieval versions of the Quest for the Holy Grail,[3] Lancelot comes close, but falls short due to being compromised by sin.[4]
Only three of Arthur’s knights get to witness the wondrous procession of Our Lord’s Chalice: Galahad, Perceval, and Bors de Ganis.[5] Whilst Lancelot was renown for his military merits, these three demonstrated more important virtues: pure hearts, humble souls, truth-seeking minds, and faithful wills.
Galahad’s story is one of purity of heart. Son of Lancelot and of the Fisherking’s daughter and Grail-bearer, his worth comes not from lineage but from singular focus on the good. His innocence, virginal purity and righteousness make him immune to the compromises of the vain and ambitious. Eventually he achieves the fullest vision of God possible for a man in this life.
Perceval’s story is one of growth. He learns on the job, so to speak, beginning as a bumbling knight, maturing through various missteps, persevering through uncertainty and difficulty. His chief virtue is humility, the recognition that he has flaws and can do nothing on his own.
Sir Bors’ story is one of chivalric loyalty and responsibility. Unlike the others, he returns from the Grail quest to the world and lives out the graces poured out from the holy relic in community. His vocation is about witness, and the cultivation of virtue in everyday life.
All three, in some manner, express the traits of Christian knighthood: pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness; faithful service of their master and quest; selflessness, purity, charity and humility. Their highest honour is not some civil or ecclesiastical gong, nor some success on the battlefields of life, but to witness the rites of the Holy Grail and receive the graces from that plain white medal that is the Eucharistic Lord. Their own sacrifice is the quiet, consistent and humble offering of self to God and others. Our Lord taught that true greatness is not in being served but in being of service (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45), in eschewing titles and becoming the nobody servant, child or foot-washer (Mk 10:43; Mt 11:25-30; 23:9-12; Jn 13:1-17), humbling oneself so as to be exalted (Mt 23:12; Mk 9:33-37; Lk 1:52; 14:7-11). And so in the greatest of all Kingdoms—greater even than Arthur’s—honour is measured not by acclaim but by love made visible through service.
Fittingly the Church bestows papal knighthoods today on three men who, though not yet saints, have demonstrated some of these spiritual qualities to an heroic degree, and not just in legend but in the very real work of building up the Church, academy, hospital and society, in enlarging the faith and imagination of the young, and in serving the good of their various communities.
Today I also pay tribute to my retiring Chancellor Chris Meney, whose two decades of extraordinary service will be marked on another occasion. Today he has read the citations for the last time. In those citations we heard of diverse contributions in multiple spaces. All three of today’s knights exhibit a deep appreciation for the flourishing of body, mind and spirit, for the cultivation of faith and reason, for the pursuit and transmission of knowledge, for the service of God and humanity. While none of these three is young by comparison with Galahad, who was knighted in his early teens and did all his great deeds by age 33, our three are youngish, and so examples of the popes’ desire that papal honours be awarded not only at the end of a long life of service but earlier, as a goad both to the recipient and to others to do more and better.
In the medieval legend of Sir Mark Schembri clearly elides the stories of several men into one. There is Vet Schembri, Doctor Schembri, Schembri the hospital and RAS administrator, Schembri the university college leader, Schembri the conductor of the World Youth Day Orchestra, Schembri the active parishioner, Schembri the husband and father, and more, all rolled into one 45-year-old man. In the latest telling of the myth he is also Master of the storied castle of St John’s College in the University of Sydney, where he helps form young people of excellent mind, character, spirit and service. Each year when I go to events at St John’s College or the Carols at Maroubra, I am renewed in my admiration for this legend who has put his considerable gifts at the service of God and His people.
Sir Hayden Ramsay has dedicated his life to articulating and transmitting truths, not just in the abstract, but for shaping whole persons. He came to the attention of then Archbishop George Pell of Melbourne after daring write a letter to the editor in defence of Pope Pius XII. He was soon poached for the archbishop’s personal staff, ultimately serving three or four archbishops, and set to work reforming the intellectual programme of the seminaries. After teaching in four secular universities, he graced the Melbourne and Sydney seminaries as their Dean of Studies, and taught or lead in five Catholic tertiary institutions, rising to Deputy Vice Chancellor in both our Catholic universities and President of the Catholic Institute of Sydney. That’s a larger contribution to more Catholic tertiary institutions than any other person in Australian history. It again leaves me wondering if “The Ramsay” is another figure of Celtic legend. Hayden has strengthened the culture of those institutions in which he has served, helped guide the leaders and academics, and served the Church in many other ways. But he has especially given himself to the cultivation of young minds and hearts. His commitment to the Catholic intellectual tradition has always been informed by serious scholarship and deep faith, reminding us that the Church’s mission depends on scholars who are courageous and humble, rigorous and compassionate.
Sir Gerald Fogarty is another young man—only a few weeks older than me!—who has given his life to the pursuit of a noble profession with moral and spiritual depth. Patterned after Christ the physician of bodies and souls, he has selflessly cared for the sick with skill and reverence, placing the dignity of the patient at the centre of his practice. In academic and healthcare leadership, he has helped shape a culture where conscience, responsibility and compassion are not optional extras but core to everyday practice. He holds teaching appointments concurrently in three universities while heading up Radiation Oncology at St Vincent’s Hospital, raising questions about how many people have been elided into his myth also. Through years of service at Warrane College as its Master, he guided young men toward maturity of character and faith, teaching by example that strength is measured in service. This has already been recognised this year with civil honours, but it is fitting that the Church recognise the spiritual and moral underpinnings of all his work and the particular service he has given the Catholic community.
And so to the three newest Knights of the Round Table, or at least of the altar-table of Saint Gregory the Great, together with our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV, and on behalf of the Church in Sydney, I say: thank you for your exemplary witness to Christ and His Church, for sharing your immense gifts and efforts with all of us, and for helping to build up God’s Kingdom. Congratulations and God bless you: ad multos annos!
[1] E.g. T.H. White, The Once and Future King (1958),John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), Mary Stewart, The Merlin Trilogy (1980),Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon (1982), Sarah Luddington, Lancelot and the King (2011), and Giles Kristian, Lancelot: Warrior, Friend, Lover, Legend (2018).
[2] E.g. Lancelot du Lac (1974), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Excalibur (1981), First Knight (1995), King Arthur (2004) and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017).
[3] Such as Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval: The Story of the Grail (c.1190), The Prose Lancelot (or Vulgate Cycle c.1225), the Post-Vulgate Arthuriad (or Pseudo-Robert de Boron Cycle, 1230s), and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (c.1485).
[4] The Quest of the Holy Grail (trans. P Matarasso, Penguin, 1969), 150–54; Norris Lacy, Geoffrey Ashe and Dean Mancoff, The Arthurian Handbook (2nd edn, Routledge, 1997).
[5] Jason, “Who were the Knights of the Round Table? Legends and legacy,” Storytelling DB 12 August 2025 https://storytellingdb.com/who-were-the-knights-of-the-round-table-legends-and-legacy/#:~:text=The%20Three%20Grail%20Knights,Camelot%20to%20tell%20the%20tale