That fine Australian electronic journal of lay Catholic thought, Catholica, offers up an assessment and a bit of background on Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, subject of a two part interview with NCR’s Vatican guy Josh McElwee and featured by other media outlets at the Synod of Bishops this week.
Catholica editor and publisher Brian Coyne writes this in (for him) a late Wednesday evening email:
One of the interest side-developments at this present Synod session in Rome has been in watching the rise and rise of Australian archbishop Mark Coleridge. For the benefit of our Northern Hemisphere readers, a bit of background: originally from Melbourne, where he was elevated to the ranks of an Auxiliary Bishop about a year into the reign of the present archbishop there, Denis Hart, he has been long recognised as intellectually gifted. That was partly recognised in that he worked the Vatican for a period as Chaplain to His Holiness.
He became archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn in 2006 and from May 2012 has been archbishop of Brisbane. He has been seen as ambitious, and as result of that come in for some criticism. He evidently has excellent political skills and that probably helps explain the prominent media position he's been able to gain in his time at the Synod. …
The feedback we've been receiving here has been largely positive about what Mark Coleridge has been saying in his interviews as well. Keep an eye on this guy. He might be an important player in the future. He is bright; he is politically and media skilled; he has been subjected to some criticism in the past that has probably knocked some of the pretension out of him and put a bit of sheep doo-doo under his boots; he has been talking a lot of common sense in Rome.
Read more of Catholica.
