Pope Francis has given a clear view of the late George Pell’s hiring decisions, naming an expatriate Ukrainian bishop as Australia’s latest cardinal. Bishop Mykola Bychok, 44, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Australia, is now the church’s youngest cardinal.
In elevating Bychok — appointed only four years after having moved to Australia when named bishop — Pope Francis has overtly passed over senior Australian bishops appointed and promoted since Pell’s elevation to cardinal in 2003. For many years, several bishops have been lobbying (in ways familiar to anyone who works in a large multinational) for a “red hat”.
There were other seemingly obvious candidates. For example, under “normal” circumstances, the archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, would have been elevated to being a cardinal before Pell had turned 80. He will be “furious”, church insiders say. “Choking on his Talisker,” one senior Catholic source told Crikey.
Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli was also a possibility, while progressives in the Australian church had hoped Vietnamese-Australian Bishop of Parramatta Vincent Long may have caught the pope’s eye. But in recent years, Pope Francis has promoted bishops in smaller churches around the region, including in Myanmar, Timor-Leste and Laos. Indeed, priests and bishops from Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines were included in the latest batch of cardinals.
Unsurprisingly, only hours after it was announced, The Australian’s Dennis Shanahan fulminated about the decision in the nation’s leading Pell-supporting publication with a piece titled “New cardinal from Melbourne is not from Australia”. He wondered why Pell’s most right-wing appointees — Fisher, Comensoli and Hobart’s rabidly anti-same-sex-marriage Julian Porteous — had not been given the nod. He also asserted that “ideological balance” in the college was important.
Pope Francis’ view would be that, with appointments like Bychok’s, he is creating that balance in an organisation that remains too mired in the rituals and scandals of the past.
The surprise move upends the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC), where Bychok will now be the ranking member. ACBC president, Perth Archbishop Tim Costelloe, said in a statement: “Since being appointed as the Eparch (bishop) of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia, Bishop Mykola has won the affection and admiration not only of his own people but also of the bishops of Australia.”
A senior Catholic layperson told Crikey: “It’s the death of the Irish church in Australia and a statement about how the Australian bishops have failed to recognise the multiculturalism in their own organisation. The truth is the church is now importing priests from Asia and elsewhere. This is recognition of that, and Francis is saying that he understands the church here better than Australia’s senior bishops.”
Data from the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) indicates that 727 overseas-born clergy arrived in Australia between March 2012 and September 2022, about one-quarter of all clergy in the country.
Bychok’s appointment has also been seen as a gesture to the people of Ukraine, where Pope Francis has a somewhat controversial record. The decision chimes with the actions of a pope outspoken against issues such as military conflict and capitalism, and relentless in his support of refugees and the poor.
Pope Francis, the most progressive of popes (yes, it’s all relative), has angered conservative critics in recent years with his moves for reform on the possibility of women being ordained deacons, acceptance of LBGTQIA+ people in the church, and highlighting of problems with clericalism — the belief that priests are inherently superior and have a right to exercise complete control over the church and laypeople.
It seems for appointments to the College of Cardinals, Pope Francis continues to pass over his right-wing ideological opponents — especially in the United States, where resistance to his reforms is forceful. The college now has 141 voting members, well above the previous, unofficial limit of 120.
