Retired Adelaide Archbishop Leonard Faulkner dies at 91

RETIRED Adelaide Archbishop Leonard Faulkner is being remembered as a man of the people – a South Australian country boy who could dine with the Queen and fight for the most marginalised – after passing away aged 91 on Monday.

Emeritus Adelaide Archbishop Leonard Faulkner at his 90th birthday celebrations in December 2016. Picture: Ben MacMahon

RETIRED Adelaide Archbishop Leonard Faulkner is being remembered as a man of the people – a South Australian country boy who could dine with the Queen and fight for the most marginalised – after passing away aged 91 on Monday.

Emeritus Archbishop Faulkner served as Adelaide’s seventh Catholic Archbishop for 16 years from June 1985 to 2001.

In that time he was the first Bishop in Australia to give lay women a governing role in the church, and established a Diocesan AIDS Council. He was passionately involved in supporting migrants and refugees, as well as Aboriginal communities within the Catholic Church and beyond.

“He listened and never judged,” SA Council of Churches ecumenical facilitator Geraldine Hawkes said. “He felt the grief of any who were marginalised.”

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson extended his deepest sympathy to Archbishop Faulkner’s family and friends and asked the clergy, religious and people from across the Archdiocese to pray for him.

“We grieve his death deeply, but we also give thanks for his life and his outstanding service to the gospel and to all whom he led,” he said.

Archbishop Faulkner’s funeral will be held next week in St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral before his burial at West Tce Cemetery.