THE BISHOP ELECT OF BALLARAT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 34, 21 December 1883, Page 25

THE BISHOP ELECT OF BALLARAT.

(The Advocate, Dec. 8.) The honour was unlooked for, and very likely was undesired, but, nevertheless, it is an honour to Monsignor Moore that he has been selected to succeed the late Bishop of Ballarat of happy memory, For two reasons a special distinction attaches to the preferment, the first being that Dr. Moore has been chosen to succeed an ecclesiastic who was eminent for bis piety, his learning, and administra» tive abilities ; the second that the Ballarat diocese being young and large, the choice of the Holy See would not have fallen on any priest of whom it was not well known that he possessed the highest qualifications for an office so exalted and arduous. Monsignor Moore has, it may be said, been trained for the episcopacy. Without all the cares of that high office, he has had for some time to perform many of its duties, and these were of the most arduous nature. Almost all his years in the sanctuary have been spent in Ballarat, and the position that city has attained as an important episcopal seat, and the centre of a widely-extending Catholic population, is very largely due to the zeal, energy, and sagacity of its Bishop Elect. If in grave affairs of this kind eminent personal services were recognised as establishing a right to. succession, then we might have safely predicted on whom the choice of the Sacred College would have fallen. But as there is always uncertainty in matters of this kind, we rejoice all the more heartily with the Catholics of Ballarat that the long* established and sacred tie existing between them and Monsignor Moore has now been confirmed to his honour and their advantage. That bond is now even more sacred and stronger than it was, and that the widowed diocese has been so well provided for will be extremely gratifying to all Australian Catholics. His Grace the Archbishop had not, on Wednesday evening, received any official intelligence of the appointment of Monsignor Moore, but there are reasons apart from the Press announcement for not doubting that the right rev. gentlemen is now the Bishop Elect of Ballarat, and therefore we very heartily unite our congratulations to those which have been already presented to his lordship.