Two Sydney Catholics received a papal award in St Mary’s Cathedral House on 29 July for service to the church. Michael King supports retired priests as the Priest’s Retirement Care Coordinator under the Priests’ Retirement Foundation, ensuring their accommodation, welfare, health and pastoral care needs are met.
A former Franciscan brother, King walks with retired priests as they undergo the difficult transition to residential aged care. For his service, King became a Knight of the Order of St Sylvester. Dr Sandra Lynch is a trusted advisor to the archdiocese and to other Catholic institutions.
She is the founding director of the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame Australia, which gives ethical formation to medical and legal professionals. As a scholar, her leadership helped shape UNDA’s journal Solidarity: The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and Secular Ethics.
For her contribution to the intellectual and spiritual life of the church, Dr Lynch became a Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great. These honours rank among the highest distinctions granted by the Holy See to lay Catholics.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP presented King and Dr Lynch with their awards on behalf of Pope Leo XIV at St Mary’s Cathedral House. He compared their service to Mary, Martha and Lazarus whose feast day the Church celebrates on 29 July.
The archbishop praised King’s work in caring for some 65 retired priests as “practical Martha-esque service at its finest.”
“The priests, for whom Michael has so well cared, have spent their lives serving others and must now learn Lazarus’ often harder act of receiving care,” the archbishop said.
“Formed first as a Franciscan and then as a CatholicCare social worker, he walks with his priests through diminishment and dependence, illness and bereavement, and offers Christian friendship at its fullest.”
Archbishop Fisher compared Dr Lynch to Mary of Bethany. He said that she had given “the listening, thinking, contemplative service of the scholar. She’s placed her formidable intellect wholly at the service of the Gospel.
“Fittingly, among her fields of scholarship is the philosophy of friendship.
“And so we might say that she has spent a career thinking deeply about and enacting what today’s memorial in the church calendar celebrates.
He concluded with a flourish for the feast day: “Sir Michael and Dame Sandra, like the family of Bethany, you have kept an open door and a place at the table for Christ.”
Recently-appointed archdiocesan chancellor Monica Doumit was the master of ceremonies for the private event. King and Dr Lynch expressed their gratitude for their awards.
“I don’t even find what I do, work. I love all the priests, I love all of the people…I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to work with them. It’s been a pleasure, it’s been a joy, and I hope I can keep going for a few more years,” said King.
Dr Lynch said that the award should encourage lay Catholic voices.
“It’s important because it gives impetus to the voice of the laity in the church, and that is so important,” she said.
“I’d like to thank the archdiocese for the organisation of this event, for the care and attention they pay to the awards and the value of these awards.
“And particularly as they’ve suggested, that it recognises not just past achievement, but acts hopefully as a catalyst to others.”
Archbishop Fisher echoed her observation. “These honours are signs of the church’s thanks, but also of her hope that your example will stir the rest of us.”
