Patrick Lyons

Patrick Francis Lyons (January 6, 1903—August 13, 1967) was an Australian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Sale from 1957 until his death.

[edit] Biography

Patrick Lyons was born in North Melbourne, as the second child of Patrick Joseph Lyons and his Irish-born wife Catherine Cecilia McMahon. He studied at St. Joseph's College, run by the Christian Brothers, and after matriculating, he became a clerk in the Department of the Navy. Lyons resigned four years later to pursue an ecclesiastical career. He attended St. Columba's College, St. Patrick's College, and then entered the Pontifical Urbaniana University at Rome in 1923. It was in Rome where he was ordained to the priesthood by Willem Cardinal van Rossum, CSSR, on his twenty-fourth birthday, January 6, 1927.

After obtaining his doctorate in divinity in June of that same year, Lyons returned to Australia and then did pastoral work in Collingwood, Geelong, and Brunswick before joining the staff of St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1935. In 1938, he became administrator of the cathedral, archdiocesan chancellor, and private secretary to Archbishop Daniel Mannix, whom Lyons greatly admired. He was named vicar general of Melbourne in 1939. During that same year, he established St. Patrick's Boys' Choir and choir school, incorporating members of the Vienna Boys' Choir displaced following the outbreak of World War II. In 1940, he was appointed cavaliere della Corona d'Italia in recognition of his services to the Italian community in Victoria.

On March 16, 1944, Lyons was appointed the third Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand, by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following July 2 from Archbishop Mannix, with Bishop Hugh O'Neill and Archbishop Matthew Beovich serving as co-consecrators, in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Lyons later returned to Australia upon being named Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney and Titular Bishop of Cabasa on April 5, 1950. He served as the episcopal leader of the Catholic Social Studies Movement in Sydney until 1954, during which time he incurred heavy resentment for dismissing Fr. Patrick Ryan, CSSM, as chaplain.

Lyons was made Coadjutor Bishop of Sale on October 11, 1956, and eventually succeeded Richard Ryan, CM, as the fourth Bishop of Sale on June 16, 1957. During his tenure, Lyons oversaw the expansion of his diocese, adding several new parishes^[1]. Considered conservative, authoritarian, and aloof, he attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965, and was rather cautious towards the implementation of the Council's reforms.

The Bishop died from cancer in East Melbourne, at the age of 64. He is buried in St. Mary's Cathedral in Sale.

Preceded by Matthew Joseph Brodie	Bishop of Christchurch 1944—1950	Succeeded by Edward Michael Joyce
Preceded by Richard Ryan, CM	Bishop of Sale 1957—1967	Succeeded by Arthur Francis Fox