Australian cancer bishop ‘at peace'

Bishop Michael Putney of the Queensland Diocese of Townsville, who had been regarded as a leading candidate to be Archbishop of Brisbane before Dr Mark Coleridge's transfer from Canberra and Goulburn last year, has inoperable cancer.

Townsville's acting Vicar-General, Fr Michael Taylor, said on 9 January: "It is with sadness that I inform the Townsville community the biopsy results have shown that Bishop Michael's stomach cancer has now spread to his liver," adding that the illness was "untreatable and incurable".

Fr Taylor said Bishop Putney, 66, had said he was completely at peace and left his future entirely in the hands of God. 

The bishop was due to return to Townsville this week.