Bill Morris came to us from the Brisbane archdiocese 16 years ago. He had been ordained for that diocese in 1969. Several parish appointments followed: Sunnybank, Nambour, Mt Gravatt, Goodna and Surfers’ Paradise. Between 1979 and 1984, Bill was secretary to Archbishop Rush; he was also the diocesan Vocations Director. In all of these appointments he was respected and loved.
Bill arrived in the Toowoomba Diocese after that diocese had had a long sustained period of conservative episcopal leadership. Bill came to us as a man nurtured by Vatican II; he had a strong personal faith and spirituality with an alert ecclesial faith to match; he had a friendly, but determined, pastoral nous and a handy capability with things financial.
I mentioned Bill’s faith: René Laurentin, a French theologian wrote many years ago, that “our faith does not light up our path; it gives us a star to steer by.” Bill’s faith in the new expansive diocese would not be immediately lit up. However, he did have stars to steer by. One was his growing appreciation of the local church and his call, as bishop, to take responsibility for it.
It needs to be said that our language about ‘the local church’ can be a bit restrictive. The term is sometimes used only in a geographical sense. My own understanding of ‘the local church’ grew appreciably one fine day in 1966. A mate of mine at Propaganda College in Rome where we were studying came running (at least, jogging) from the University with an article on the local church. He couldn’t contain his excitement; I couldn’t understand it. He had a keen ecclesial sense. He explained to me that most literature on the church had focused on the universal church. The article he was reading explained that each local church under its bishop was not just a branch of the universal church – it was the universal church in this place. This was not congregationalism because each local church had to be in communion with all the other local churches and the universal church. Nevertheless, each local church had to be aware of its own history, develop its own culture and bring that awareness to its own pastoral strategies. How rich, how diverse and how united the Body of Christ, the People of God could be. How rich we are because of the Church of Ethiopia; how poor might we be without the churches of China.
An awareness of this was one of Bill’s shining stars. Toowoomba was not the same as metropolitan Brisbane; the east of his diocese was not the same as the west.
This leads me to mention another feature of Bill’s leadership: his ability to listen and to learn.
Announced as Bishop of Toowoomba in November 1992, Bill presented the Apostolic Letter of Appointment to the clergy of his new diocese on 9th February, 1993. During the welcome ceremony, one of the speakers pointed out how differently the University and the Church name their leadership chairs. The University calls them ‘chairs of learning’; while the Church calls theirs ‘chairs of teaching’. The speaker suggested a prospective bishop should do both – teach and learn.
Bill has done both. To achieve this end, BIll has encouraged in the diocese as a whole, and each parish within it to set up committees and boards necessary for the church’s full active and conscious participation in both liturgy and life.
Bill has done this from one end of the diocese to the other – a distance of over 1500 kms. I spent 27 years in the Quilpie parish, the furthest west parish of the diocese. I can’t remember one year of Bill’s episcopacy that he hadn’t visited the remote west. So much so that a lady from that area only recently said to me that if they couldn’t get me for their baptisms and weddings, they would get Bill, because he’s the only other priest they know. When Bill would visit the Quilpie parish, he would bring the kites for the kids and then help them to get the kites airborne. Later on when some of these kids would go to Toowoomba for boarding school, they would acknowledge Bill not only as the bishop but as ‘our kiteman’. This extensive coverage of the diocese is without precedent and an appreciated model for any future encumbent.
“ The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, particularly those who are poor or afflicted in any way, these too, are the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ. In fact, nothing genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.”
Gaudium et Spes
Bill’s friendly and gregarious nature gives him an easy entrée into people’s lives. The Gaudium et Spes vision gives real guts to his pastoral energies.
The 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome ‘Justice in the World’ contained this remarkable passage: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appears to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel.” [Author’s emphasis] The ‘pay, pray and obey’ role for Catholics would no longer suffice.
Bill revived the Social Justice Commission in the diocese, along with a full-time Social Justice Exective Officer. Bill continues to actively support the work of the Commission, and to be advised by its competence on particular local and national issues.
Ecumenically, Bill followed the Testament of Cardinal Mercier: “In order to unite with one another, we must love one another; in order to love one another, we must know one another; in order to know one another, we must go out and meet one another.” Bill does this throughout the diocese. He encourages any ecumenical venture he considers worthwhile and faces whatever challenges that arise from the ventures.
An important feature of Bill’s leadership is that he doesn’t dodge the tough decisions. Before his arrival in the diocese, priestly appointments were made almost exclusively on the criterion of seniority. Bill’s decision to include other criteria such as suitability was not well received by some priests, so much so that on one occasion a group of priests aired their grievances in the state’s largest Sunday paper, The Sunday Mail.
Bill is not quick to crush people’s initiatives. One awkward period arose out of his allowing the Magnificat Meal Movement to take root in the diocese. It was a conservative group who promoted devotion to Mary and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Harmless enough one might say, and Bill used the Gamaliel principle to guide his way. However, as time went by, aspects of their life proved well-wide of the Gospel, forcing Bill to withdraw any official approval of their organisation.
Apostolic Visitator
For many years of Bill’s episcopacy, there has been a regular flow of letters going off to Rome from those who had never forgiven Vatican II for happening, nor forgiven Bill for advancing its vision. These critics seemed to get a sympathetic hearing.
What really annoyed Rome was Bill’s 2006 Advent Pastoral Letter. He recognised the discussions going on around the world about the growing shortage of priests. He stated that ‘if Rome would allow it’, he would be prepared to ordain married priests, and that ‘if Rome would allow it’, he would be prepared to ordain women priests.
If memory serves me correctly, Bill’s Advent letter did not address any issue that the Bishops’ Oceania Conference of 1998 had not previously recognised as important, indeed, urgent.
Rome, it seemed, cared little for Bill’s caveats ‘if Rome would allow’. It was not enough to do what Rome believed, the local churches had to believe what Rome believed. On the 23rd of March 2007, Bill was notified that an Apostolic Visitator had been appointed by the Congregation for Bishops, and one month later, Archbishop Chaput from Denver, Colorado USA, arrived in the Toowoomba Diocese to review Bill and his work.
Chaput first met informally with Bill, and then met with the Council of Priests. He then began a series of meetings with various diocesan bodies, officials, priests, directors of diocesan agencies and people of the Diocese. Prior to his arrival, he had nominated various people, clergy, officials and groups he wished to meet; others were chosen by the bishop.
This provided a cross-section of people and clergy of the diocese representing all levels of support for and opposition to Bill.
For a couple of days he visited the parishes on the eastern rim of the diocese and conducted some interviews there. He then returned to Toowoomba for more interviews.
On his final day, he had an interview wth Bill.
He then departed to prepare his report. He let Bill know by fax that he had presented his report to the Congregation for Bishops on the 3rd of May 2007. To this day, Bill has not seen the contents of the report.
It is fair to say the the Apostolic Visitator did not turn up with four heads. He did not come down on the Toowoomba Diocese like the wolf on the fold – he did not rant and rave.
However, ignorance, blindness amd disrespect have many faces without the monster garb. How can a respected leader of a local church be investigated without ever finding the content of the report based on these investigations? Is this not unthinkable in this age of transparency and accountability? I kid you not, Archbishop Chaput’s visit did nothing to increase respect for the way Rome’s officials do business.
After the Chaput visit, not many Toowoomba people were expecting to find in their mailboxes a wee note from Denver, Colorado, saying how much he enjoyed his visit to our part of the world, how enriching the experience had been for him, and how much he had learnt. Learning did not seem to be part of the exercise.
An American theologian said not long ago that one of his real fears was that Rome “has no ears”. He doubted whether Rome could hear the local churches. The Toowoomba experience would have done nothing to quell his fears.
The following questions of the priests and people remain:
- Why Bill Morris? Is he disloyal to the Church? Is he the most radical bishop in Australia? Is he the only bishop who has raised the questions of the Advent letter? If so, why so?
- How do the other bishops of Australia regard Bill? Would they support him?
- Does the Apostolic Nuncio know much about the local church in Australia? Is he supportive of them?
- Where do people go when they see their beloved bishop treated shabbily?
- Where do priests go? Is there a Court of Appeal?
I know that the people of Toowoomba would find some comfort in leaving the whole sorry experience in the hands of the Blessed Mary McKillop, who had her own pain of being oppressed by the ecclesial heirarchy.
And what about Bill himself after the Visitator’s enquiries? He is remarkably calm.
I love that prayer we used to pray out loud in the old ritual when we were putting the salt on the baby’s tongue during baptism. It went like this:
“May you remain eager, hopeful, and lighthearted in the service of His Name ”
Bill must have received a good dollop of salt – may he long savour it!
Jeff Scully, Quilpie QLD
