Justin Simonds

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Justin Daniel Simonds (b. 22 May 1890, Glen Innes, New South Wales - d. 3 November 1967, Melbourne) was the first Australian-born Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne. He occupied the see from 1963 until shortly before his death four years later.

Simonds had previously been Archbishop of Hobart and in 1942 was transferred from to the Archdiocese of Melbourne as Coadjutor Archbishop, a position he held for the next 21 years. He was attending the Second Vatican Council in November 1963 when news arrived of Archbishop Daniel Mannix's demise.

He returned to Melbourne where he celebrated Mannix's funeral Mass and preached the panegyric: "We are mourning one of the world's leaders of our time. A cedar of Lebanon has fallen," said Simonds, who dedicated the new organ to the memory of his predecessor. This instrument, one of the largest in Australia, has 4,762 pipes and a set of Spanish trumpets.

Ill-health and age reduced Simonds' own period as Melbourne archbishop (while he was in office, he suffered several strokes and his vision greatly deteriorated). He died less than six months after his May 1967 retirement.

[edit] External links

St Patrick’s Cathedral The Archbishops of Melbourne by Dean W.J. McCarthy
Michael Costigan, 'Simonds, Justin Daniel (1890 - 1967)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 16, Melbourne University Press, 2002, pp 243-244.