Bishop Peter Elliott, Defender of the Roman Rite, Died in Melbourne. RIP
Biography and education
Peter Elliott was born on 1 October 1943 in Melbourne. His father was a High Church Anglican vicar. His maternal grandmother came from a family of Lutheran Sorbs.
He converted to Catholicism while studying at the University of Oxford.
He was ordained as a priest on 19 February 1973, during the 40th International Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne. He earned a doctorate in Sacred Liturgy in Rome.
He then worked at the Pontifical Council for the Family in the Vatican for ten years (1987–1997).
In April 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, and he was ordained a bishop on 15 June 2007.
Liturgical Work
Bishop Elliott celebrated the Novus Ordo daily and did not oppose it. He authored three liturgical manuals about the Novus Ordo.
- Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite (1995)
- Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year (2002)
- Ceremonies Explained for Servers (2009).
He served on the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and the Liturgy Commission of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
He was also appointed to the Vatican commission Anglicanae Traditiones, which developed the liturgical books for the Personal Ordinariates established under the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus.
Defender of the Mass in the Roman Rite
Following Summorum Pontificum (2007), Bishop Elliott publicly supported the Mass in the Roman rite.
He celebrated the Roman Rite on multiple occasions, including in Australia and Hong Kong.
Twelve days after the publication of Pope Francis's document Traditionis Custodes, Bishop Elliott published a scathing response in the newspaper The Australian on 28 July 2021: "Francis abruptly reversed the generous policy of his predecessor, who is now living in retirement in his back garden."
"Francis has even tried to ensure that it [the Roman rite] should die out."
"It might be argued that key points in his decree are plainly untrue [!] and that the document is so incompetently drafted as to be moot anyway"
At that time, Monsignor Elliott has received copies of a flood of anguished letters, protesting about the severe papal ruling: "I hear not only their pain but moving arguments explaining their love for the stately old rite, its attractive silence and engaging spirituality."
And: "What has surprised my Vatican II generation is how young people are gravitating to the old rite. In 2008, I glimpsed that at World Youth Day in Sydney when I celebrated a solemn Latin Mass for an international youth movement known as Juventutem."
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