Measuring For Curtains? Cardinal Pell, Again

There was an odd story in this week's Catholic Herald. Cardinal Pell had popped over to ordain a brother of Quarr Abbey to the priesthood. The nearest suggestion of reasons why it should be the Australian Cardinal rather than anybody else who should carry out the ordination was that a) the new priest has relatives in New Zealand and that b) the Cardinal likes to express his gratitude to the English Benedictines for the support they gave in the early years of the Archdiocese of Sydney.

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Surely neither of these suggestions is anywhere near the mark: New Zealand and Australia are separate countries with separate hierarchies (and the priest is himself an Irishman anyway). And the monks at Quarr belong to the Solesmes Congregation, not the English Benedictines.

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In the same issue was a report of the trip by Cardinal Murphy O'Connor and Bishop Hollis of Portsmouth to South Africa and Zimbabwe (and all praise to them for carrying such a trip out). It is an interesting coincidence that the Australian Cardinal should have been celebrating an ordination within the Portsmouth Diocese while its Bishop was away. Did he have to produce a criminal record check certificate, one wonders!

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Where else was Cardinal Pell during this visit to the UK? Does anybody know?