Updated ,first published
Anthony Randazzo could be the last Bankstown boy to do well, giving former prime minister Paul Keating a run for his money.
From three generations of Italian immigrants who owned a fruit and vegetable shop in Sydney’s south-west, the 59-year-old bishop of Broken Bay was appointed on Wednesday to oversee the Catholic Church’s legal system in Rome.
Pope Leo XIV proclaimed Randazzo archbishop, effective immediately.
As the governor of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, the Australian Catholic leader will head the Vatican office in Rome which oversees the laws of the church.
Giving voice to the people of Bankstown, Randazzo said: “The day we forget where we came from is a sad day … we had a farm, and a business in Bankstown. I love the fact that my family are good people to work with.”
He may be from Bankstown, and root for the football team like Keating, who also attended a Catholic school, but that’s where the similarities end, Randazzo said.
There was a lot of racial intolerance in the 1960s and 1970s for Italians and others like her late aunt, an indigenous woman, said.
Most of the new Australians from the post-war period were settled.
However he warned of the danger of “taking our eyes off the fact that we are a country that still welcomes people from different parts of the world. We should always be careful to ensure that Australia is a welcoming country, and a country that encourages everyone to be a good citizen in this country.”
Under Randazzo’s leadership, evangelical Catholicism has flourished, and enrollment in Catholic schools in his diocese of Broken Bay – Central Coast, Sydney’s northern beaches and northern beaches – has increased.
He also supported the fast-growing Catholic youth group, Ignite.
Its youth director, Kym Keady, has explained that as “a wonderful way to establish a new relationship with Jesus, revive a faith that has worn out and prepare emerging parish leaders”.
When asked if there was a change in faith, Randazzo said: “Young people are alive, and they say, ‘Wow we have faith.'”
Randazzo spent Thursday morning speaking to 800 students at St Joseph’s College in East Gosford, a Catholic girls’ high school. He was impressed by their passion for faith and their desire to contribute to the world.
Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli told Catholic leader that Randazzo’s appointment – which he starts in three months – was “a great duty and honor that Pope Leo has requested”.
The Dicastery is the Vatican body responsible for interpreting the laws of the Church and making sure they are applied worldwide.
“Only three other bishops from Australia have made the appointment of Vatican leaders,” he said. It includes the late cardinal George Pell.
Born in Sydney, Randazzo’s family moved to Queensland when he was a teenager. He attended Catholic schools in Coolangatta and Southport.
He studied at the Pius XII Provincial Seminary in Brisbane and the University of Queensland, and was ordained in 1991.
Randazzo studied canon law at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He also worked in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In that role, he dealt with the church’s sexual abuse problem, and the Australian Royal Commission’s inquiry into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, including cases of clergy raping children and cover-ups by bishops.
Randazzo’s announcement as archbishop coincides with the appointment of former nurse Dame Sarah Mullally as the first female archbishop of Canterbury, a model leader of the Anglican church.
After the Bondi terrorist attack, Randazzo he used social media to strongly condemn anti-Semitism, saying: “Violence destroys the soul of a nation. When it is directed at people because of who they are, what they believe, or how they pray, it touches the foundation of our ordinary lives.”
The Dicastery of Legislative Texts – the body that Randazzo is expected to lead – was first established in 1917 by Pope Benedict XV.
It advises the Pope, investigates legal gaps, ensures the correct legal application of Catholic teachings, and coordinates with other offices in the Curia.
With AP
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Emily Kaine is a national news blogger at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect through email address.
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