William Placid Morris - Episcopal Ministry

Episcopal Ministry

Morris (who at all times during this period was resident on Mauritius) was Vicar Apostolic of The Cape of Good Hope, South Africa from 1832 to 1837, and from 1832 until 1840 Vicar Apostolic of Mauritius which, until 1834, included the emergent Australian colonies.

Morris sent his vicar-general William Bernard Ullathorne to Australia in 1833, where Ullathorne quickly realised the necessity for severing all the Australian missions from the jurisdiction of a bishop resident in Mauritius. As a result of Ullathorne's representations, Pope Gregory XVI detached Australia from the Vicariate of Mauritius and established the hierarchy in Australia in 1834. In 1837 the Vicariate of the Cape of Good Hope was likewise detached from the care of Bishop Morris and it, in turn, was confided to Bishop Patrick Griffith.

On Mauritius, Morris fell into a serious dispute with one of his priests which ended with that priest's expulsion from the colony. In reprisal, the expelled priest laid charges against Morris in Rome to which Morris was required to respond. This he did, entrusting various documents to a French bishop for him to lodge with the authorities in Rome. Unhappily for Morris, those documents were never lodged and in 1840 he was peremptorily recalled to Rome and relieved of his post as Vicar Apostolic of the Mauritius. He retired to England and until his death in 1872 served in effect as an auxiliary bishop to the first two Cardinal Archbishops of Westminster, Nicholas Wiseman and Henry Edward Manning.