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World first with Melbourne's third woman bishop

Kate Prowd to be consecrated bishop on Saturday

By Barney Zwartz

October 4 2018When Kate Prowd is consecrated a bishop in Melbourne on Saturday, it will create Anglican history: she will be half of the first brother and sister pair to be bishops, both in the same diocese.

The Reverend Prowd’s brother is Lindsay Urwin, formerly a bishop in England and now Vicar of Christ Church, Brunswick, and the bishop responsible for Melbourne’s Anglican schools.

She will also be the third woman bishop in Melbourne, following the late Barbara Darling and Genieve Blackwell, who was appointed an assistant bishop in 2015.

Revd Prowd, born and raised in Melbourne, was also one of the first eight women to be ordained in Australia, when she was made a deacon in 1986 at St Paul’s Cathedral, the same church where she will be consecrated a bishop on Saturday at 10.30am. She was ordained priest in 1992.

Married to the Revd Roger Prowd, who recently retired from full-time parish ministry, Revd Prowd has three daughters. The youngest, 14, is still at home.

“I see myself as being called to be faithful to my different ‘altars’ – marriage, motherhood and ministry. It was not either/or – it was all together,” she says.

Revd Prowd also has degrees in psychology, at bachelor and master’s level. She has combined a clinical psychology practice with her ministry in both parishes and school chaplaincies, and will keep her registration as a psychologist in her new role.

But she has wound up her own private practice, and resigned from her work at Bethlehem Hospital, Caulfield South, where she has practised for the past six years as a clinical psychologist working with patients with progressive neurological diseases and in palliative care.

The consecration service will be at St Paul’s Cathedral, Flinders Street, at 10.30am this Saturday, October 6, 2018.