Father Mick Lowcock hopes there will soon be a resolution to the long running vacancy of the Catholic bishop of Townsville.
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The position has been vacant since Bishop Michael Putney died of cancer in 2014 with Father Lowcock acting in the capacity, travelling two days a fortnight to Townsville, adding to already extremely busy workload in a diocese the size of Italy.
“When the bishop met the Pope a number of years ago he explained it was the size of Italy and told him we had about 40 priests, and the Pope said there’s 40,000 here!” Father Lowcock said.
“The role I’ve got is called diocesan administrator. There’s two types of administrators, a diocesan administrator elected by a priests’ council and an apostolic administrator appointed by Rome.”
Father Lowcock said the Pope’s representative in Canberra, the Nuncio, was filled by Englishman Paul Gallagher who came up for Bishop Putney’s funeral but he returned to Rome for a high-profile job and his replacement has taken time to get in place.
“The other issue is it just takes an inordinate amount of time,” he said.
“There’s been a suggestion that someone was asked but wasn't able to do it either for health or personal reasons and as I understand it they start the process again so while they sent three names to Rome one would think the second one would be the next one after him but instead they start again.”
However Father Lowcock said the new Nuncio told a meeting of Australian bishops last week three new names for Townsville and Lismore are over in Rome now.
“That could mean anytime in the next two or three months, they’ll make a decision,” he said.
Meanwhile Father Lowcock said he was surprised by the huge reaction to the Church’s offer of a room for Muslim men’s daily prayers with over two million reaches to the ABC story about it.
“Last year the state government gave us half funding for a Community Action Multicultural Society position and the lady doing that, Andrea Woods, has been involved with a number of groups and one of the issues that came up was place for Muslim men to pray,” he said.
“We got insurance sorted and were able to negotiate for a small fee with the room and now it gives them a place to pray that is not a private residence.”
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
