Service central to priest’s honour

ORDAINED in 1962, Monsignor Frank Marriott will mark sixty years as a Roman Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst priest on 29 June.

Paring with that milestone, Monsignor Marriott has also been recognised with an Order of Australia Medal as part of the Queen’s Birthday honour list.

“There’s a sense that maybe it’s an affirmation of what I’ve been doing as a priest for the last 60 years,” he said.

“There is satisfaction in knowing x,y, or z have recognised and seen something and put it up to a panel that then ticks the box.

“Somebody’s got to decide and if they tick the box according to their criteria, who am I to argue with that. It’s nice, the appreciation.”

Monsignor Marriott has been a parish priest in many locations in regional Victoria, from Heathcote to Nagambie to Wodonga until 2008, before becoming diocesan chancellor and vicar general.

He said a highlight of his time in the community was chairing the Dargile Dump Committee in the 1970s, which managed to stop State Government’s releasing waste into the Dargile Forest in Heathcote.

He received a Protonotary Apostolic award from Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, and in 2014 following mass protests in Bendigo about a Islamic mosque, Monsignor Marriott was the founding chairman of the Bendigo Interfaith Council.

“Upon reflection, I think it’s a force for good in a changing demographic community like Bendigo is now,” he said.

“We’ve accomplished quite a bit over the last seven years here in Bendigo and I think it’s contributed to the peace and wellbeing and harmony of the city.

“Historically, when you scratch through the dogma, all the major religions try to proclaim do good to others, respect others, work for the betterment of the community.”

Monsignor Marriott also currently chairs the Priests Retirement Foundation for the Diocese of Sandhurst, established in 2001 by the late Bishop Joseph Grech.