The First Bishop, Jeremiah Joseph Doyle 1849-1909

Born in County Cork, Ireland, the young Father Doyle studied at All Hallows Missionary College in Dublin and was ordained there in 1874 for service in the Diocese of Armidale. He arrived in Australia early in the following year and served at the Cathedral in Armidale until in 1878 he was appointed to the Richmond, Brunswick and Tweed river districts on the coast. Before long he had adopted Lismore as his base, and a church and presbytery were constructed.

In May 1887 the now Dean Doyle, at the age of 38, was appointed by Pope Leo XIII as the first bishop of the new Diocese of Grafton, and he was consecrated in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, on 28 August 1887. After a brief stay in Grafton, the new bishop was convinced that the centre of his See would best be in Lismore because of its position and larger Catholic population. The Sisters of Mercy in Grafton were joined by the Presentation Sisters in Lismore to enable the establishment of more parish schools. By 1892 plans were advanced for the building of a Cathedral. Although the foundation stone was soon laid, the general financial crisis of the 1890’s delayed the construction of the present St Carthage’s until 1904 and its opening in 1907.

Bishop Doyle was a much respected civic leader who promoted the development of many public amenities for the growing town, such as the coming of the railway and the building of the Rocky Creek dam, as well as being a much-loved pastor to the Catholic people. The fine Cathedral became an object of pride for the townspeople and to this day remains Lismore’s most notable building.

Only two years after the opening of the Cathedral, a heart attack claimed the life of Bishop Doyle. After 34 years of strenuous pioneering labours and travel on horseback and river steamer, surrounded by a devoted clergy and people, with great courage and against many odds, the faith had been securely planted. He was buried in the Lady Chapel of his new Cathedral on 6 June, 1909, and the tower and peal of bells were completed in his memory by public subscription in 1911.

The Third Bishop, Patrick Joseph Farrelly 1895-1974

Feeling the weight of his years, in the era before bishops submitted their resignation from office at the age of 75, Bishop Carroll asked Pope Pius XI to send him a coadjutor (“helper”) to share the growing demands of the diocese. Father Patrick Farrelly was born in Lismore in 1895, baptised in St Carthage’s Cathedral, ordained priest by Bishop Carroll in the Cathedral in 1918, and consecrated as Bishop Coadjutor before the same altar on 30 August 1931. At a time when most bishops were still from Ireland, Bishop Farrelly was one of the first Australian priests to be chosen for episcopal office.

For the next 18 years Bishop Farrelly exercised his ministry from Grafton. Having known two bishops whose mode of transport was the horse, Bishop Farrelly had enthusiastically adopted the motor car, in the days when roads were still poor and the rivers had to be crossed by ferry. In 1947 Bishop Carroll’s illness made it necessary for the administration of the diocese in the two years before his death to be completely assumed by his Coadjutor. On 8 May 1949 the office of Bishop of Lismore passed automatically to Bishop Farrelly.

A man of tremendous energy and a gifted speaker in great demand, Bishop Farrelly maintained the momentum of his predecessors as the record of new church organisations, church and school building and the ordination of new priests bears witness. By the 1950’s the Catholic population had risen to 45,000 parishioners in 28 parishes, and the number of priests and religious reached its height.

Bishop Farrelly’s resignation from office was accepted by Pope St Paul VI on 14 March, 1971. He died in Lismore on 25 May 1974, and was buried in front of the Cathedral, at the foot of the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, to whom he had a particular devotion. The editorial in the Northern Star paid this tribute: “He had become a legend in his own lifetime, not only by more than fifty years of direct participation in the rôle of the Catholic Church in his birthplace diocese, but by the influence and support he always directed to worthy causes in the interests of the community as a whole.”

The Fifth Bishop, Geoffrey Hylton Jarrett 1937-

It was southwards to Tasmania that Pope St John Paul II looked to seek the next bishop for Lismore. Father Jarrett had been a priest of the Archdiocese of Hobart for 30 years when he was appointed Bishop Coadjutor

Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett was born in Kyneton, Victoria, on 1st December, 1937, on his father’s side of an English pioneer family in the district, and on his mother’s side of German Lutheran families from Prussia who had migrated to Melbourne in the 1840’s. The Bishop grew up in Papua New Guinea where his father was a mining engineer and later a copra and coffee producer.

He was educated at Trinity Grammar School in Melbourne. Shortly after matriculating, then with university in view, the opportunity to travel opened wider horizons in London pursuing his interest in documentary film-making. He worked for several years in the Film Unit of BBC Television at Ealing Studios until he finally responded to a long-felt vocation to the Anglican ministry. Remaining in England he studied for five years at the Theological College of the Society of the Sacred Mission at Kelham, Nottinghamshire. On return to Australia he worked as an Anglican priest in Queensland until he was received into the Catholic Church in November 1965.

Archbishop Young accepted him for the priesthood of the Archdiocese of Hobart and his further studies were entrusted to the Marist Fathers at their seminary at Toongabbie, NSW. Bishop Jarrett was ordained priest by Archbishop Young in Sydney on 14 May, 1970.

After thirty years as a parish priest and Administrator of St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart, on 9 December he was appointed by Pope St John Paul II as Bishop Coadjutor of Lismore. His episcopal ordination took place in St Carthage’s Cathedral on 22nd February, 2001.

Upon the retirement of Bishop Satterthwaite on 1 December 2001, Bishop Jarrett became the fifth Bishop of Lismore.

The Catholic population of the diocese had now passed 100,000. Into the new millennium the greatly changed attitude to religion and belief of the past 40 years was everywhere more evident, marriage and family life was less secure, and the old Irish solidarity underpinning the Catholic community had almost vanished. This was reflected in a much diminished religious practice, most notably in the number of Catholics regularly at Sunday Mass and the sacraments.

The popularity of Catholic schools however continued to rise, with increasing non-Catholic enrolments, requiring enhancement of their value as places of Christian influence and evangelisation. The formation of teachers and principals, new and continuing, was a special focus, one aspect of which was the series of ‘Pilgrimages into the Apostolic Foundations of the Church’ in Greece, Turkey and Rome, led by the bishop and priest chaplains. The bishop’s responsibility to ensure future priests for the diocese saw the seeking of vocations from international sources to train for ordination in Australia, and led to an increased number of ordinations of both Australians and seminarians from overseas. The liturgy as the source and summit of Christian life, and the Church’s tradition of ‘worship in the beauty of holiness’ to sustain and strengthen the spiritual life was an ideal upheld and given expression especially by way of diocesan example in the exterior repair and interior restoration of St Carthage’s Cathedral between 2010-2015.

Bishop Jarrett was finally retired with the appointment of his successor, Father Gregory Homeming OCD, by Pope Francis in December 2016, and the new bishop’s assumption of office in the following February.