Peter John Elliott (born 1 October 1943)[3][4] is a retired Australian bishop of the Catholic Church who served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne from 2007 to 2018. He is also an author, writing a number of published works that predominantly concern the celebration of Catholic liturgy.
Personal life and background
Elliot was born and grew up in Melbourne, where his father served as an Anglican priest. Elliott was received into the Catholic Church while a student at the University of Oxford.[5][6]
Elliot is of partial Sorbian descent. His maternal grandmother came from a family of Lutheran Sorbs who immigrated to the Wimmera region of Victoria, from what is now the German state of Saxony in the early 19th century.[7] Their emigration from Germany was motivated by their dissent from the union of Lutheran and Calvinist churches that had recently taken place there.[7]
On 19 February 1973, Elliot was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Melbourne by Cardinal Lawrence Joseph Shehan, the Archbishop of Baltimore, during the 40th International Eucharistic Congress which took place in Melbourne and to which Shehan served as papal legate. Elliott then served as an assistant priest in several appointments in the archdiocese as well as secretary to Bishop John A. Kelly from 1979 to 1984.[6]
Ministry in the Roman Curia
Elliot returned to Rome as an official of the Pontifical Council for the Family at the Vatican, serving for 10 years beginning in 1987. His service to the council included the promotion of marriage and family life at high-profile United Nations conferences.[9]
Elliott has also served in the Roman Curia as a consultator for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and as a member of Anglicanae Traditiones, the inter-dicasterial commission charged with preparing the liturgical books to be used by the Personal ordinariates which Pope Benedict XVI established for Anglican converts to Catholicism.[9]
