34 Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst Year in Review 2019 LEADERSHIP & STRUCTURE As the much loved Bishop Leslie Tomlinson celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving at Sacred Heart Cathedral on September 15, his departure from being our spiritual leader was tinged with the sadness of saying goodbye and good wishes for his wellearned rest and recreation. Bishop Les’ mission will continue as an important spiritual leader in the Church in Australia and beyond. The priesthood and ministry have been the defining features in the life of a man dedicated to the sacrificial love found in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in over forty-seven years of priesthood and ten years as a Bishop. “Even though I am retiring as the Bishop of Sandhurst, I still see myself as part of the Diocese and will take the opportunity to be part of events in the Diocese,” Bishop Les said. Retirement is something of a foreign concept in Holy Orders for while priests and Bishops retire from active ministry, Bishop Les will continue to be “a priest forever” (Hebrews 7:17). Bishop Les was ordained to the episcopacy, the fullness of Holy Orders, in 2009, as an Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, on the appointment of Pope Benedict XVI, who was only the second Pope to retire. Similarly, Bishop Les is only the third Bishop of Sandhurst to retire, a norm introduced after the Second Vatican Council. This priestly vocation offered to the Sacred Heart has expressed itself through devoted service as a parish priest, Bishop and in Chaplaincies and Spiritual Advisor roles with charitable and fraternal organisations, such as the St Vincent de Paul Society and the Knights of the Southern Cross. When Melbourne Knight of the Southern Cross, Colin Walsh, was elected President of the International Alliance of Catholic Knights several years ago, he asked Bishop Les to become the Chaplain to the organisation, where he had spiritual care for the body representing more than 15 Roman Catholic fraternal societies, including Knights of the Southern Cross (Australia and New Zealand), Knights of Columbus (USA) and orders of Catholic Knights across Europe, Africa and Asia. Bishop Les retired from this role at their international conference in Glasgow in October. The spirit of chivalry in these orders originally aimed at supporting the vulnerable within the Catholic faithful, especially job seekers and widows. This ideal has been important for Bishop Les throughout his ministry. “Catholics at the beginning of the 20th century were facing bigotry and exclusion in various ways and by collecting together, united by their Catholic faith, they endeavoured to survive,” he explained regarding the origins of many of these orders. In more recent times, the Knights of the Southern Cross has been strong in advocating the Church’s teaching in areas where the vulnerable are threatened, such as life and family issues. The St Vincent de Paul Society is another long held association, beginning at the Matthew Talbot Hostel in Sydney as a seminarian, developing into a leadership role while serving in Hobart, where he became the Tasmanian State Chaplain to the Society. “Not only did Frederick Ozanam, founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society, reach out to assist these disadvantaged people, but he brought his intellectual capacity to form a spirituality that would nurture the life of those who joined him in the work of the Society. If you read the manual of the Society, it emphasises the importance of the spirituality of reflection, prayer and discussion in every meeting,” Bishop Les said. This spirituality of love and service was nurtured in his childhood at Sacred Heart Parish, Mildura, where he first considered a vocation to the priesthood, influenced by Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s book The Priest Is Not His Own and a personable young curate. “I was impressed by his easy manner and absolute commitment to people. He came across as an ordinary person, not a high flyer, which I could relate to,” he said. Testing and considering his vocation for six years after graduating from St Joseph’s College, Mildura, Archbishop Knox accepted him for the seminary and, in 1968, he entered Corpus Christi College, Werribee. The seminarian’s departure from the family home is a concrete offering of himself on the long pilgrimage to ordination, filled with powerful symbolism and emotion. “I remember my father, who was not a Catholic, indicating he would have preferred I’d chosen something else,” Bishop Les said. “When he was dying he did make reference to this, that he hadn’t thought it was a good idea, but in the years since then he reflected on the fact that he thought it was the right thing that I had chosen. So, he was saying it was right for me.” He also recalled some of the strictness of the seminary regarding visiting family, having been refused permission to stay overnight with his family after a sister’s wedding. “During the term, this is your home,” the Rector had said. Archbishop Knox soon sent him further from home, to St Paul’s National Seminary in Kensington, Sydney, run by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. There he studied scripture under Fr Paul Stenhouse MSC, the famous editor of Annals Australasia and Fr Denis Murphy MSC. Bishop Les will most cherish the experience of having been a parish priest and having met people’s pastoral and spiritual needs. Congratulations to Bishop Les on the next stage of his ministry as Bishop Emeritus of Sandhurst. Bishop Les becomes Bishop Emeritus
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