Eric D'Arcy

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Joseph Eric D'Arcy (April 25, 1924-December 12, 2005) was Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hobart (Australia) from 1988 - 1999.

Born in Melbourne, he was ordained as a priest of that city in 1949. He graduated Bachelor and Master of Arts in the University of Melbourne before pursuing doctoral studies in philosophy at both Oxford and Rome (Gregorian).

Achieved unwanted fame in 1955, when a secretive letter undersigned by him leaked to the press confirming the existence of 'The Movement' (modelled on Catholic Action groups in Europe) within the Australian Labor Party. The resulting furore contributed to the Labor Split. ^[1]

He taught in the Philosophy Department, University of Melbourne, eventually becoming its head, and was the author of Conscience and its Right to Freedom (Sheed and Ward, 1961) and Human Acts: an essay in their moral evaluation (Clarendon Press, 1963).

He became Bishop of Sale, Victoria, in 1981 before his appointment to Hobart in 1988, and was Archbishop Emeritus of Hobart from his retirement in 1999 to his death in Melbourne in 2005 at age 81.

Although an indifferent diocesan administrator, he was a gifted scholar and a lover of cricket till his final years.