POPE Benedict XVI has appointed as the country’s youngest Bishop a moral
theologian who wantsto model himself on the Pontiff to evangelise in an
increasingly secular Australia.
Bishop-elect Fr Peter Comensoli, 47, was appointed on 20 April as an Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney under Cardinal George Pell.
He described being Australia’s youngest Bishop as “daunting”.
His priority is the challenge every Christian faces - “letting people
know Jesus is here, in our lives, which is sometimes difficult in a
society where the Lord is often forgotten or even rejected. I think
that’s the chief task for me.”
Bishop-elect Comensoli was undertaking doctoral studies in theological
ethics at Edinburgh University during the Pope’s visit last year, and
witnessed “something of the picture towards which Australia is heading”
in the “stridently secular” United Kingdom.
He said that secular attitude brings with it “a sharpness - a wanting to
reject the possibility of faith and the place of faith in public life”.
Bishop-elect Comensoli said that, in the face of this hostility, the
Pope provided the model for every Christian in his 17 September 2010
presentation to public leaders in Westminster Hall, London.
“There, he proposed in a very reasoned way the role of Christian faith
and its place in public life in our western culture. He presents all of
us with the way to live the faith today.
“Here is a man who had a proposal, not an imposition, and he does so
with such intelligence and a wonderful sense of joy about being a person
of faith.
“I have a hope in Jesus Christ that he saves our world, but it needs to
be explained in a reasoned way and that can be done with a sense of
dialogue with our culture. That’s what the Pope models for us, and it’s
good if I can model that too.”
Cardinal Pell wants him to continue in his role as professor at the
Catholic Institute of Sydney, where he specialises in moral theology and
its philosophical and anthropological bases. “I am delighted with the
appointment of Bishop Comensoli,” Cardinal Pell said.
“He is young and energetic, and has an unusual blend of extensive pastoral experience and high academic achievement.”
Bishop-elect Comensoli, the first Wollongong priest to be appointed to
the episcopacy, will be ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney on 8 June at
St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President, Archbishop Philip
Wilson of Adelaide, said that “having been the Bishop of Wollongong
myself, I know and have worked with Father Peter and I can attest to how
well suited to this ministry he is”.
“He will bring many gifts of grace and intelligence to the role of
Sydney Auxiliary Bishop and my brother Bishops and I will, in a special
way, hold him up in prayer during Holy Week.”
Bishop-elect Comensoli fills the role left by Dominican Bishop Anthony
Fisher, who at 51 was Australia’s youngest prelate and was the chief
organiser of World Youth Day Sydney 2008.
The Archdiocese of Sydney has been running on only two Auxiliary Bishops
since Bishop Fisher left his role as Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney when
Pope Benedict appointed him Bishop of Parramatta in Western Sydney on 8
January 2010.
Fr Comensoli, born in Bulli, New South Wales in 1964, completed a
Licentiate in Moral Theology at the Alfonsianum in Rome before studying
moral philosophy at St Andrew’s University in Scotland.
He studied Commerce at the University of Wollongong before entering St
Patrick’s Seminary College in Manly in 1986 and was ordained to the
priesthood for the Diocese of Wollongong, NSW on 22 May 1992.