The Most Reverend Monsignor Patrick Laurence Murphy D.D., former Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Sydney and the First Bishop of the Diocese of Broken Bay, Australia has died after a long illness.He was 86 years of age.
Born on October 28, 1920 in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, Msgr. Patrick Laurence Murphy was the eldest of seven children born to Timothy Francis Murphy and Catherine Imelda Deloughery.
Patrick Murphy attended St. Kevin's Catholic Primary School run by the Sisters of Mercy for his early education and later at St. Patrick's Christian Brothers College in Strathfield.
After high school, he worked for six months in the Commonwealth Bank.
Deciding to enter the priesthood Murphy undertook studies at St. Columba's Seminary in Springwood from 1937 till 1940 and then at St. Patrick's College in Manly between 1941 and 1944. He was ordained a priest on July 22, 1944 at Sydney's Cathedral of St. Mary by future Cardinal Norman Thomas Gilroy (1896-1997), Archbishop of Sydney and was incardinated within the Sydney Archdiocese after taking up a brief appointment at Waterloo.
During the last months of the Second World War in 1945 Fr. Patrick Murphy, left to study for a Doctorate in Theology at Maynooth, and then to Rome, when it was re-opened in 1946.
He completed the named studies in 1949 at the Urban University attached to Propaganda College.
Upon his return from overseas in July of 1949, he was placed as Assistant Parish Priest at the Holy Cross Woollahra for eight months before a placement on the staff at St. Patrick's College in Manly where he stayed until the end of 1973 teaching Dogmatic Theology.
Patrick Murphy spent twenty-six years on the staff at St. Patrick's College in Manly, including those of Vice President of the College in 1966 and of Rector of the Post Graduate House in 1969.
During this time he also performed duties at Manly, Clovelly and Harbord Parishes.
In 1973, he took up the appointment of Parish Priest at Epping and remained there until 1976. Patrick Murphy was elected Bishop on December 20, 1976 with the Titular See of Acqua Numidia.
He was named Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney. His Episcopal Consecration took place on January 22, 1977 at St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
Cardinal James Freeman, Archbishop of Sydney acted as Consecrating Bishop, assisted by Archbishop Thomas Cahill, Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn, and Msgr. James Carroll, Titular Archbishop of Amasea.
When the Archdiocese of Sydney was divided into pastoral regions in 1978 he was given the responsibility for the Inner Western Region, which stretched from Stanmore to Parramatta.
His base was the Parish of Concord where he served as Parish Priest. Beside these regional responsibilities he also served as President of St. Patrick's College in Manly for a year; Episcopal Vicar for Education; Chairman of the Sydney Archdiocesan Catholic Schools Board and Chairman of the Catholic Education Commission of New South Wales.
In 1984 Bishop Murphy was given the Archdiocesan responsibility for the Northern Region of Sydney which subsequently led to his appointment as the first Bishop of Broken Bay on April 14, 1986.
He was installed as Bishop for this newly created Diocese on May 28, 1986. Bishop Patrick Murphy was a man who had known the difficult years of the Great Depression, the Second World War and the Cold War.
His own seminary training gave him experience of the Church in Sydney, Ireland and in Rome. As a priest his main involvement had been in various roles of teaching and authority at St. Patrick's College - the large Australian seminary - which educated students from New South Wales and some other states for the diocesan priesthood.
It was a challenging and very difficult time for the seminary staff, while attempting to re-shape the formation curriculum in the light of the new currents of thinking of the Second Vatican Council. At Manly, Patrick Murphy came to know many seminarians who later would become priests in his own Diocese.
He was well regarded for bringing the priests of his new Diocese together, as in the annual clergy conferences, and creating a diocesan spirit amongst them. He was sixty-five years of age and well-experienced as an Auxiliary Bishop when he was entrusted with the leadership of the new Diocese.
He would reflect later that having a new Diocese really meant carrying on services and procedures already operating. In his own words - "Getting on with the job".
During his episcopate, Bishop Murphy maintained a style of hard-work, lean administration and firm leadership, right through to his retirement on July 9, 1996.
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