Bathurst Bishop elect Michael McKenna visited his new diocese this week to take part in the annual clergy seminar which brought together about 20 active priests in Mudgee.
"I travelled by train from Sydney to Lithgow and road to Mudgee," Bishop elect McKenna told the Canowindra News.
"In Bathurst on Wednesday there was a luncheon with retired priests. Tomorrow I'll be back in Melbourne to continue as chaplain of the University of Melbourne and as All Saints' parish priest, Fitzroy.
"But I can give you a 'scoop' on the date for the ordination, it will be Friday June 26 in Bathurst."
After his seminary study at St Paul's, Kensington in the 1980s Fr McKenna had engaged in postgraduate studies in Canon Law at the Gregorian University of Rome.
He was elected to the first of his two terms as general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, much the same as Bishop Dougherty who had been elected to that position.
Like his predecessor, Bishop Dougherty, who had been appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Bishop elect McKenna said he also spent time "north of the Murray" for several years. He had become familiar with the areas of the Canberra-Goulburn diocese to the north and west as far as the Abercrombie River to the south in Bathurst diocese.
Fr McKenna's mother Marie will travel from Ballarat for the ordination along with a number of his brothers and sisters from a family of 11 children.
SOURCE
Taking the chance to meet the new flock (Canowindra News)
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Bathurst diocese