Public Prayers for Dead Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns

By Melissa Cunningham
The Courier
May 4, 2016

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3887194/public-prayers-for-dead-bishop/?cs=12

Ballarat’s Catholic diocese is holding a memorial mass for Bishop Ronald Mulkearns who presided over a notorious period of child sexual abuse by clergy which spanned decades.

The Ballarat diocese advertised the mass on its website this week. It described the service as “an opportunity for priests and people from around the diocese to come together to offer mass for Bishop Mulkearns”.

It follows a low-key response from the Catholic Church since Bishop Mulkearns died on April 3 after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 85 years-old.

Ballarat Vicar-General Father Justin Driscoll said he understood members of the community affected by the church’s dark past may be hurt by tribute.

But he quashed speculation the service would “celebrate or honour” Bishop Mulkearns’ life. Father Driscoll told The Courier it would be a “simple and ordinary weekday mass” to allow parishioners to pray for the bishop, as they would for anyone else who died in the community.

“I understand the concerns of people affected,” he said. “But this will not replicate a funeral. It will just be an ordinary mass in which a person who has died is prayed for and mentioned in the prayers of the faithful. It’s more about the practice of praying for people who have died. It’s part of what we do as people of faith, we pray for the living and we pray for the dead.”

Breaking Catholic Church tradition, Bishop Mulkearns was the first bishop in Ballarat’s history to be denied the honour of being interred in the crypt of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Instead, he was buried in a common grave at Ballarat General Cemetery after a small funeral inside Nazareth House, the nursing home where he spent his final months.

Church leaders said it was not appropriate in light of harrowing revelations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to grant Bishop Mulkearns a position inside the Cathedral.

Bishop Mulkearns headed the Ballarat diocese between 1971 and 1997, when Catholic clergy abused hundreds of children. He made a testimony on February 24 to the royal commission via videolink from Nazareth House. He admitted he failed in his duty as bishop and put the reputation of the church ahead of the welfare of scores children. The mass will be celebrated by Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird at St Patrick’s Cathedral at midday on Monday, May 16.