Almost 200 years ago, the first recorded Mass was celebrated in the region that would become the Diocese of Broken Bay.
It is recorded that Fr John McEnroe celebrated Mass on 3 July 1838 in Kincumber in the home of Thomas Humphreys.
Kincumber was then a part of the Diocese of Sydney. Sydney would be elevated to an Archdiocese in 1842.
But it would take more than 100 years for a new Diocese in the region to be seriously considered.
By the middle of the 20th century, the Archdiocese of Sydney was no stranger to being divided. As the original diocese in Australia, it had at one point covered almost the entire continent. By the mid nineteenth century, it had been cut back to encompass an area just beyond the metropolitan area of Sydney.
In 1951, this would be cut back further following the creation of the Diocese of Wollongong.
But by the mid-1960s, the question of creating more dioceses was once again being brought forth. The Archdiocese of Sydney had swelled to a Catholic population of 740,000 with more than 200 parishes.
So, in 1968, the Senate of Priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney carried a motion that “investigation be made as to the practicality of the Archdiocese of Sydney being divided as soon as possible into several dioceses of approximately 30 parishes each.”
Little urgent action was taken on this however, until Cardinal Angelo Rossi, Prefect of the Congregation of the Evangelisation of Peoples, sent a letter to Archbishop James Freeman, declaring Pope Paul VI’s interest in creating a new ecclesiastical set up in New South Wales.
While Cardinal Rossi’s proposal included a vision which looked remarkably similar to the eventual Dioceses of Parramatta and Broken Bay, it would be 13 years before the Archdiocese submitted a proposal to the Vatican.
In the interim years, the Archdiocese decided to create five pastoral regions instead, with each headed by a regional auxiliary bishop.
When Cardinal Edward Clancy was appointed Archbishop of Sydney in 1983, he quickly took the view that new Dioceses were needed. He gained approval from the Australian Bishops Conference in 1985 and then took the submission to Rome.
At the time, the Northern Region of the Archdiocese was being managed by Bishop Patrick Murphy, who had moved from the Inner West region in 1984.
The Decree to establish the Diocese of Broken Bay was signed on 8 April 1986 by Pope John Paul II and announced by the Apostolic Nuncio in Canberra on 14 April 1986. Pope John Paul II also announced Bishop Patrick Murphy would become its first bishop.
The creation of the Diocese of Parramatta was announced on the same day, with Bishop Bede Heather becoming its first Bishop.
The Broken Bay name had been agreed to by Bishop Murphy and Archbishop Clancy, although it was unusual for a Diocese to be named after a region and not the town or city of its Cathedral. In fact, it remains the only regional Diocese in Australia to not adhere to the standard naming convention.
The Diocese was largely similar to the Northern Region which had been ministered by Bishop Murphy, with some exceptions. The harbourside suburbs of Mosman, Lane Cove and North Sydney which had been part of the region would remain part of the Archdiocese of Sydney, while parishes outside the region such as Epping, Carlingford and Arcadia would be brought into the new Diocese.
Bishop Murphy had been born in Sydney 1920 and ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of Sydney by Archbishop Norman Gilroy on 22 July 1944. He was consecrated as a bishop on 22 January 1977 and appointed as an Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, where he would serve until his appointment as the first Bishop of Broken Bay.
Bishop Murphy was installed as Bishop of Broken Bay on 28 May 1986 by Cardinal Edward Clancy, formally beginning the Diocese.
Forty years on, the Diocese of Broken Bay has forged its own path, building a strong identity.
As we celebrate 40 years of the Diocese, we celebrate the unique place Broken Bay holds within the life of the Australian Church, and ponder how it can continue to grow and boldly carry out its mission to proclaim the Gospel.
