Know Your Bishops: Richard Umbers of Sydney

Bishop Richard Umbers  of Sydney  is  a bit like the reincarnation of the late Mother Angelica.

For those unfamiliar with recent Church History, Mother Angelica was the founding mama of EWTN, the Eternal Whinging Television Network. She was another one of those "iron fists in a velvet glove"  types only she came in a full flight with wimple, coif, and scapular.

The jolly media savvy Bishop loves to post memes that  provoke rather than evangelise. His followers almost salivate with pavlovian  delight as he populates his Twitter and Facebook accounts with posts that pander to his audience's fear, prejudice  and informed ignorance.

Back in August Bishop Umbers  posted the meme above which attracted 121 "likes', 18 comments sand 6 shares. on Facebook but only 27 likes and 1 rI cannot stand that hymn either.etweet on Twitter. At no stage did the good Bishop or any of his followers acknowledge the composer, Sr Deidre Browne IBVM  a musician and liturgist on staff at Yarra Theological Union.

Here is a sample of the responses to Bishop Umber's meme:
 Come as you are
Just wear your undies
Come as you are

Onesies are fine
Do do do soooo
Do do do do dooo



I cannot stand that hymn

My mother said that she wants this song (I can't call it a hymn) at her funeral. I said that in that case I wouldn't be going. A response: Tough love. But it's for the best.


I HATE THAT HYMN! 


I posted a response to the Bishop on both accounts using this link with some background and a better pastoral insight.

This meme along with most of the other content from Bishop Umbers demonstrates a polemic that seems out of step with many other members of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Few if any statements from the media office  of the ACBC or the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council appear on his feed.

Will he feature this year's Social Justice Statement, Making it Real: Genuine human encounter in our digital world. Will Bishop Umbers read it?


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