David Walker (Catholic bishop)
Australian Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
David Louis Walker (born 13 November 1938) is a retired Australian bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was ordained bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay on 3 September 1996, succeeding the diocese's inaugural bishop, the Most Reverend Patrick Murphy. His retirement was effective from 13 November 2013, his seventy-fifth birthday.
Early years
David Louis Walker spent his childhood in the Sydney suburb of Clovelly until he began seminary training in 1956. His early years in the priesthood were spent teaching theology at St Patrick's College, Manly and at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Sydney.
Walker was director of the Educational Centre for Christian Spirituality which he established in Randwick in 1978 until his appointment as bishop.
Views
Although he has stated that when he was ordained bishop he was a "centrist", Walker is regarded by many Australian Catholics as a progressive bishop owing to his support for lay ministries, laicised priests and "socially progressive" attitudes. He attributes his perceived shift to the left as a consequence of the shift of the Australian Episcopal Conference to the right. He maintains that he has remained in the centre. He has been quoted as saying "when I was made Bishop, I was perceived as being in the centre of ecclesiastical politics.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “David Walker (Catholic bishop)” as australian Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q542467. VIAF identifies the subject as 85287288. The Library of Congress control number is n93000196. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1996, 2013 and 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Walker (Catholic bishop)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.