The Church in Australia: The Catholic Tradition

AUSTRALIAN CATHOLICISM

Irish Convicts - Irish Catholicism: 1788

Here, I will deal with the various understandings of Church and ecclesiology in Australian Catholic history. To understand the birth of Australian Catholicism, it is necessary firstly to understand something of the enormous political and social changes that had occurred between Rome and England since the declaration by Henry VIII, the King of England, that he was head of the Church in England. Those who submitted to the Crown as "State and Spiritual" leader became the privileged class. Those who rejected the Crown as spiritual leader, and remained faithful to the Pontiff were treated as traitors. This was the beginning of anti-Catholic feelings and indeed persecution on an official level, particularly of Catholics of Irish background.

The arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788 heralded not only the beginning of penal settlement but the birth of the Catholic church in Australia. Not surprisingly the vast majority were convicts or emancipists "with little or no literacy, little or no property. And little or no religion." (Suttor, 1965: 18). Even the first priests were convicts, transported after the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland. The British Government had given little or no thought to religion in the establishment of a convict settlement at Botany Bay. It was only at the last moment, almost on the eve of the departure of the First Fleet, that Reverend Richard Johnson, a Methodist Minister, was officially appointed Chaplain to the Settlement. He is described by Cardinal Moran as "a man of but little energy, and quite unequal to cope with the manifold disorders that prevailed" (Moran, 1890: 8).

Much of the early history of the church is linked to the government: they appointed the chaplains and later even provided their salaries. The first public Mass was not allowed until 1803 - a permission that was withdrawn after the Castle Hill uprising in 1804 and remained in abeyance for sixteen years. In the penal colony of New South Wales there were English and Scottish soldiers and prisoners, as well as Irish convicts. (The total of the Irish being less than one quarter). For a large percentage of these persons religious allegiance was only nominal. Their religious attitudes were, however, very mixed, and intertwined with their cultural and national heritages and allegiances. The English and Scots were nearly all Protestants who came from the cities and towns. They considered themselves (prisoners and soldiers) to be civilised and something of a noble nation. The Irish on the other hand were Catholic peasants and many could not speak English, only Gaelic. This caused them to stay within their own group, or be seen apart from other prisoners. The Irish were often seen by the British as brutal, drunken, irresponsible, rebellious barbarians who rejected the two essentials of civilisation "the Protestant Religion and British political and social institutions" (O'Farrell, 1985: 3).

Politics and Irish Catholics 1788 - 1820

The number of Irish convicts present in the colony up to 1868 was a maximum of one quarter, a number too small to have any influence, but too large to ignore. The religious needs of the Catholics were totally ignored on an official level, as only Protestant ministers were allowed to conduct public acts of worship. All prisoners were made to attend the Sunday Service, regardless of their faith. On the private level, however, the priests who had been convicted of rebellion in 1798 did say Mass and administer the sacraments when they could.

The Irish convict population did not comprise ordinary criminals only. Although two thirds were justly convicted of criminal offences, murder, robbery etc., one third were political prisoners. Among their group were men whose "personal characters were incorrupt, men of principle, spirit and integrity, whose crime was a form of rebellion against British Rule" (O'Farrell, 1985: 2). Although statistically this group was rather small, their very presence changed the nature of the attitude that the following generation would have toward their convict ancestors. From the earliest time Catholics saw themselves as "manly and courageous victims of political injustice and religious persecution, more sinned against than sinning" (O'Farrell, 1985: 3).

The official view of the colonial authorities was they had to prevent the Irish situation of riots and dissension occurring in the colony. To do this they recognised the need to prevent the spread of Catholicism; those strongly anti- Catholic saw that an assembly of Catholics - at Mass - would be a source of sedition and would lead to assassinations, arson, and destruction with the eventual overthrow of the government. The solution to the problem was summed up by Rev. Samuel Marsden: "Continue the monopoly of Protestantism, particularly in the education of the children and in a few years there would be no Catholics" (O'Farrell, 1985: 7). He then went on at great length to point out the practical implications of this for the colony. "A single religion would stabilise the state..." (O'Farrell, 1985: 7).

It was in this anti-Catholic environment that the church in Australia began its growth. From my reading I find it difficult to separate the anti-Irish feelings from anti-Catholic feelings. This then will have a profound effect on the way we view the Model of the Church that was prevalent during this period. The Church was struggling for freedom for existence and expression, just as strongly as the Irish were clinging to their heritage. In this dichotomy, the Church seemed to be operating out of a political model. The Catholics in New South Wales saw that they were deprived of the "One True Church" from which they believed salvation flowed .

Father Jeremiah O'Flynn

On the arrival of Fr. Jeremiah O'Flynn they felt their spiritual lives nourished and deepened by the presence of the priest who became the legendary "pious minister". His being Irish endeared him to the community, as they recognised him as their own.

The fact that Fr. O'Flynn arrived without the consent of the British Government, nor with the recommendation from the Catholic Bishops in England, was ignored. The colonial authorities found O'Flynn to be a "muddling, ignorant, dangerous character" (O'Farrell, 1985: 15). His personal character, lack of education and being Irish worried the authorities more than his being a priest. The Catholic community found in O'Flynn the symbol of their persecution. For them, he was the unoffending priest deported out of injustice and bigotry. He was welcomed by many of the more liberally minded Protestants. These people, contrary to the opinions of those like Rev. Samuel Marsden, believed that all people had the right to worship God according to their own faith. They believed that this freedom would bring greater stability to the infant colony. They used the same arguments as the anti-Catholics used.

The deportation of O'Flynn caused such a political ruckus in England that the Government responded by providing salaries for two Catholic chaplains. The fact that the Catholic chaplains received only 40% of the minimum salary of the Protestant chaplains only further established the image of the persecuted Catholics, whose pious priests were more interested in souls than money. The authorities of the colony, particularly Governor Macquarie, were not so much interested in any particular church denomination as in the principle of civil authority and order in the colony. Macquarie's opinion was that if priests were to be authorised to come to the colony they should be "Englishmen of liberal education and sound constitution principles" (O'Farrell, 1985: 15). He believed that the Irish priests were incapable of bringing stability to the colony because of their uncivilised and illiterate nature.

Convict Ministry : 1820 - 1850

In 1820 the first two chaplains, both Irish, Fr. Connolly and Fr. Therry arrived. On their arrival they parted after a quarrel that had occurred during the voyage to Sydney. This separation and their engagement in an isolated ministry seemed to be symptomatic of the "one-man shows" that the church presented to the colony in the early years of its presence. Rev. Connolly, the senior chaplain, moved to Tasmania as a result of the quarrel, leaving Fr. Therry with the task of ministering to New South Wales. The core of the free Catholic community in Sydney were not the illiterate, poor peasants of Ireland. They were in fact the political prisoners of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. By 1809, many of these had been pardoned or emancipated. They had then acquired, by grant or by purchase, considerable tracts of land.

Father Therry

For the first ten years Therry experienced his ministry as one of dealing with emergencies, anointing the sick and dying and burying the dead. The Catholic population ranged between 6,000 and 15,000. The population on the whole was rather irreligious. Therry often felt he was making no headway in the situation, as many people died in the distant settlements without the benefit of the Sacraments. He saw that because of the infrequency of confession there were few communicants. It was said that religion was reduced to the search for morality: "a religious man was a man that observed the big moral rules" (O'Farrell, 1985: 24). In the early years of his ministry Therry followed a path of conformity for the sake of the community. In 1831 he changed from accepting government limitations and attitudes to protesting against what he saw as injustice. This path of protest saw him dismissed from the official chaplaincy and he was ordered to leave the colony, which he failed to do. The Catholics once again felt that they were being persecuted and deprived of their religious freedom, their right to worship.

Fr. Therry would defend his actions throughout his ministry as struggling for the freedom of Catholicism. He was very much a man of the institutional Church and he was most obedient to the first Vicar-General, William Ullathorne. Above this, however, was the Irishmen who had woven into the fabric of his being, the struggle of his beloved Ireland's freedom. Many of the conflicts experienced with Bishop Wilson over Therry's total disobedience to him were based on the grounds of conflict between Therry as an Irish priest and Wilson as an English bishop. Their priestly ministry seemed secondary to Therry in this conflict. Those outside the church, who were not religiously prejudiced, saw that the church that was developing in Australia was not the institutional church in the Roman mould. They saw that some of the influential Catholics seemed to be trying to establish Irishisms rather than Romanism. This led to a sectarian attitude which began to frequent the Catholic community.

The conservative group felt they had to defend and fight for their rights. Archdeacon McEncroe was typical of this group. He allowed, and even fostered, the sectarian Irishisms to become a major issue, but always under the banner of the struggling persecuted Church. The liberally minded, on the other hand, rejected all such attitudes. They believed that in this new country liberty, freedom and equality were to be fostered. They saw religion as a private concern which had little connection with the politics of an infant Australia. This seemed to be an opinion of the vast majority of Catholics and it was demonstrated in the 1851 elections. In that election no Catholic candidate was elected, in fact, the man elected was J.D. Lang who had been attacked over his liberal thinking by people like McEncroe. The Catholic population clearly stated here and in subsequent elections that political policies were far more important than sectarian divisions.

William Ullathorne

One man who appeared to have a clear understanding of the Institutional Church without being entangled within a national struggle for survival was Rev. William Ullathorne. He was sent to Australia as the first Vicar-General. He was a young Englishman who saw the plight of the Australian church as a church "born in a cesspool of a religion of prisoners. A community without feelings of a community, whose men are very wicked, whose women are shameless and whose children are irreverent. Whose occupation has been, and is, as that described by the prophet of sorrow `to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely!" (O'Farrell, 1985: 1). Ullathorne recognised the need for this infant church to have the authority and structures of "Mother Church" Rome. If a Bishop was placed in residence there would be an authority to which internal conflicts could be directed and resolved. This would prevent the conflicts becoming a source of great division and destruction.

Soon after his arrival, and meeting with Fr. Therry, Ullathorne demonstrated his understanding of the hierarchical body of the church and the pastoral authority he held as Vicar-General. Fr. Therry met Fr. Ullathorne and was about the enlighten him on the "two parties" that existed in the community, those for Fr. Therry and those against him. This conflict arose out of the building and financing of St. Mary's. Ullathorne's response was decisive. "Listen to me. There were two parties yesterday. There are none today. They arose from the unfortunate want of some person carrying ecclesiastical authority. That is at an end. For the present in New South Wales, I am the Church, and they who gather not with me, scatter. So now there are no longer two parties" (O'Farrell, 1985: 36). For Ullathorne the church was there to "teach, sanctify and govern". To do this effectively there was a great need for ministers of the church-priests to be guided by a local authority, and then they would minister to the community.

Ullathorne would feature prominently in the next few years. His genius for organisation helped to shape the church in Australia into a more efficient institution. Although "institutionalism" grew and developed in fragmentary fashion, it was clearly the most prevalent model of the church in the nineteenth century. The change was very gradual and perhaps began with Governor Bourke's Church Act of 1836 when Catholics were given some legal status together with Anglicans, Presbyterians and Wesleyans. As an Irish minority, Catholics had been subjected to open discrimination, grudging tolerance or contemptuous disregard, but things were changing. Some eminent citizens were Catholics: Roger Therry and John Hubert Plunkett, who were distinguished members of the legal fraternity. There were priests and nuns arriving in the colony whilst the Assisted Immigration Scheme "threatened the colony with a deluge of Catholics from Ireland" (Waldersee, 1974: 219).

Post Convict Transportation Developments : 1850 - 1875

Research suggests that between 1850 and 1875 the Church in Ireland underwent a "devotional revolution". Whereas before the famine religion was relatively weak and its practice confined and erratic, from 1850 the great mass of the Irish people were transformed into firm and pious practising Catholics by a revived church, led by Cardinal Cullen (O'Farrell, 1985: 83). In Ireland itself, the clerical inclination was to see the emigrant as leaving a safe haven of staunch Catholicism to be cast adrift in a sea of sin and secularity dotted with perilous reefs. No doubt many of the Irish clergy who came to Australia brought this imagery with them.

Caroline Chisholm

There were, of course, those who went beyond the confines of Catholic cliques to serve others; a difficult task when you consider the "male" construct of the early Australian Church. One of the most outstanding was Caroline Chisholm for her work with immigrants; and her service was given "without payment, to all in need, whatever their race of religion" (Kiddle, 1969: 14) She personified Dulles' model of the Church as servant: Throughout her life she tried "to discern the signs of the times." (Dulles, 1978: 98) Initially she was distressed by the neglect of newly arrived immigrants, particularly the women; she arranged that they would be met, given temporary accommodation and finally employed. During the first year she assisted over 2,000 people. She worked to alleviate poverty and to eliminate religious prejudice and racism - she came to Australia from India so she could write: "I have lived happily amongst pagans and heathens, Mohammedans and Hindus - they never molested me at my devotions, nor did I insult them at theirs" (Kiddle, 1969: 67). In her pursuit of justice she instituted the prosecution of the captain and surgeon of a ship for maltreating one of the girls on board. Against the background of colonial Australia this took considerable courage and selflessness: "I am ready to prosecute: I have the necessary evidence, and if it be a risk whether I or these men shall go to prison, I am ready to go to prison" (Kiddle, 1969: 35). They were tried and sentenced to six months imprisonment as well as a fifty pound fine. Caroline Chisholm contributed to a great deal to Australian Catholicism whilst retaining a genuine humility. She died in England in poverty and obscurity yet she "had kept faith with her ideal of service and knew her work had been well done" (Kiddle, 1969: 91).

On the pastoral level, women like Caroline Chisholm, confronted by the neglect of newly arrived immigrants, did much to help settle in a new country those who otherwise would have been in despair. It is said that she personally settled 11,000 (O'Farrell, 1985: 84) Caroline Chisolm did not receive any support from bishops or priests, and died in obscurity after a lifetime of service to the growing Catholic community. It was during this period of the 1860's that the Bishops introduced Irish religious to the colony to cater for the growing pastoral needs. These brought with them their monastic lifestyle, which often prevented them from ministering effectively in their vast isolated environment.

Mary McKillop

It was only with the founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph by an Australian, Mary Mckillop, and an Englishman, Fr. Julian Tenison-Woods, that at last the unique character of the emerging Australian church was being realised. If we reflect on our early roots as a church community, many of the characteristics which were identifiable then are still prevalent in our church today. The two models which oddly enough seem to dominate both then today are those reflecting the institutional church and the pastoral model. We are very much aware of our church leaders as guides and law-givers, yet the involvement of the laity and the importance of the family is emphasised and appreciated. The Irish influence still dominates in some areas today, which brings to the present church a strange blend of legalism and compassion.

Polding: The Institutional Church

In 1842 a Brief from the Holy See made John Bede Polding Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan, with bishops to be appointed to Adelaide and Hobart. These bishops had territorial titles, the first in British dominions since the Reformation. (Crowley, 1984: III). As Metropolitan, Polding began to exercise his rights and powers, and at times he was very severe. In 1852, Polding went to Perth and sacked the bishop (Brady), sending him home to Ireland. This was perhaps justified because Brady had run the diocese into debt and nearly into schism, but in other instances Polding's interference was resented. Institutionalism developed in many countries in response to attacks on the papacy and the hierarchy (Dulles, 1978: 41). Australia was no exception but here many of the "attacks" came from the laity. During the first thirty years they had enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and they were quite vocal in their opinions. Polding and Plunkett clashed over the Sisters of Charity and their public hospital, St. Vincents. When Plunkett and his supporters criticised the administration of the diocese at a public meeting, they were threatened with excommunication. Polding and other church leaders believed that lay people should not meddle in Church matters. James Quinn, bishop of Brisbane from 1859, epitomised this belief.

The juridical nature of the institutional model is very apparent in the lives of the bishops of this period. They were "men who lived by the law. For them religion was law" (Campion, 1982: 59). The first Provincial Council in 1844 dealt with many matters that required regulations, while subsequent Synods were also preoccupied with legislation. The vehement prohibition "Mixed marriages" was debated, but not altered, for nearly a century. The whole education question is too complex to debate here, but the belief that children sent to "national" schools would be lost to the Church of England is apparent everywhere. There were many who believed with Father Patrick Dunne that "the Catholic religion was best preserved by keeping its adherents apart from Protestants, and thus away from contamination" (O'Farrell, 1985: 152).

The ecumenical sterility of this period, its emphasis on legalism and clericalism, are symptomatic of the era in which the First Vatican Council met. It is no mere historical coincidence that the Dogma of Papal Infallibility was promulgated in this same era. Obedience was imperative. It is not very difficult to locate examples that highlight the development of the Catholic church as an institution in Australia. Yet this is not the complete picture. Ullathorne, with his genius for publicity, used the laying of the foundation stone of St. Patrick's Church in 1840 as an organised demonstration of Irish Catholic Power. He used such occasions to improve the "visibility" of the church, but Irish nationalism was a crucial component of the Australian church. "Australian Catholicism was not a one-to- one encounter with the Lord God... It was a religion that put weight on continued and loyal belonging to a group of co-religionists" (Campion, 1982: 51). For many their experience was that the church was a "community". There were many different parish societies that were an integral part of the church. "They were locales where you might meet your friends, and they gave a richness, a density, and a human attractiveness" to the religion (Campion, 1982: 49). For many Irish immigrants and members of parish societies the church became a place where personal relationships were possible. The church was "a great community made up of many interlocking communities" (Dulles, 1978: 61).

The Catholic church from 1830-1880 added service to its communal and institutional dimensions. Polding himself made a unique contribution. Although head of the church in Australia, he was not particularly interested in administration. As a Benedictine he appreciated the place of religious community, but he could not accept those who would reduce religion to nationalistic fervour. For example, with regard to Caroline Chisholm Polding was unable to accept the legitimate role that women could play in the Church (O'Donoghue, 1982: 149). Yet Polding had his mission: "a unique and challenging mission". He ministered to the convicts because he believed "the sufferings of the convicts would open their hearts to Divine Grace" (O'Farrell, 1985: 3). In this he saw the Church as Sacrament impelling "men to prayer, confession (and) worship" (Dulles, 1978: 74). He was preoccupied with sin and forgiveness: "He was in his confessional more often, and longer, than any of his priests" (O'Farrell, 1985: 42). To support his "flock", Polding began a life of constant travelling, all over the colony giving missions that focussed on sin and penance. He was indefatigable in his "search for souls" - in one month in 1838 he rode 1500 kilometres.

Another remarkable feature of Polding's ministry is that he often used the Bible in his preaching and in his pastoral letter. "He had a particular love for St. Paul...and he set his student priests to memorise large sections of the New Testament, as he himself had" (O'Farrell, 1985: 42). Thus even in the beginning of Catholic church in Australia, the word of God had its heralds. The Irish hold on the Australian church was further strengthened from 1859-69 with the appointment of Irish bishops direct from Ireland. In the late 60's the Australian Bishops' council defined that all Catholic Australians must be educated in Catholic schools. By their standards all other systems were totally defective and lacking in morality.

The former tolerance and liberality toward religion in education so evident in the early 1850's had degenerated to the extent that clarification by the bishops was attributed to the prevalent Protestant and secularist anti-Catholic social attitudes. The church's authority to give religious instruction and ensure that parents educated their children in the faith could and would not be surrendered to the state, and so the education of Catholic children became a bitter battleground. The Irish bishops consolidated the Catholic education system; religious replaced lay teachers, independence among religious orders met with hostility, and such incidents as the episode of Mother Mary Woods and Sheil illustrate the way in which Irish episcopal authority was exercised (O'Farrell, 1985: 161-173).

The Work of Roger Vaughan

When Roger Vaughan replaced Polding he re-affirmed Australian Catholics' common bond. "I am a Catholic first. We join in a holy brotherhood and with the help of God, will fight the evils of the world" (O'Farrell, 1985: 177). This speech was reminiscent of Polding's pastoral letter of 1856, but what a change of emphasis from: "Before everything else we are Catholics; and next, by name swallowing up all distinctions of origin, we are Australians" (O'Farrell, 1985: 155).

These "evils" cited by Vaughan were polarised as "the blighting influence of anti- Catholic secularism," and his weapons to fight them were to be Saint Mary's cathedral, an edifice, and Catholic education, an institution (O'Farrell, 1985: 177). Vaughan's energies were channelled into opening St. Mary's in September 1882 at a cost of 103,000 pounds, at this stage with a temporary roof. Within ten years church and chapel numbers more than doubled in New South Wales; the number of Catholic schools trebled to 102 between 1873 and 1883. Donations from, and involvement of, poor and middle income earners built up the church, but the material church was a declaration of their Irish Catholicism and was not solely religiously motivated. Money collection and construction of church buildings became an obsession. By 1879 the schools had become the symbol of Catholic unity and of political, social and religious status of Catholics (O'Farrell, 1985: 184-5). Because of their "Irishness" the laity were prepared to follow their bishops faithfully and obediently, for the issue became one of loyalty to the church and not so much one of education. Social pressures to conform and threatened withdrawal of the sacraments ensured that attendance at Catholic schools became a condition of Catholicity rather than a symbol of it.

The absolute assertion of episcopal power and accompanying subservience of the laity signified both a loss of the laity's prerogative to choose their children's education but also excluded them from future church discussion, decision, and policy-making. In 1880 Henry Parkes' Public Instruction Act abolishing state aid to denominational schools was regarded as arrogant secularism. Vaughan obviously believed this impasse between secular and religious education would be settled quickly, and, had he lived longer, the Catholic church might have been less Irish and more Australian (O'Farrell, 1985: 188). But, by 1883 nearly the entire episcopacy and clergy were Irish and the laity were either Irish or of Irish descent.

Consolidation of Irish Catholicism 1880 - 1914

Patrick Cardinal Moran arrived in Australia in 1884 with the preconceived notion of advancing the social cause of Catholics through peaceful integration with the Protestant establishment. An integration which the Cardinal believed would be effected by harmonising Catholic values with those of the society and `playing the game' of that society. This game would be won by a two pronged attack; a withdrawal into a Catholic ghetto/alternative society and the advancement of Catholic education to bridge and supplant those societies. Moran's vision confirmed the model of "Church as Institution" as the dominant Australian ecclesiology till Vatican II. Catholic society was first of all to withdraw into a ghetto and consolidate its identity and resources. From this base it could begin the task of education, among other things, which would advance their cause of integration and success in the larger non-Catholic society. And with this success it was believed that this elite Catholic minority would dominate Australian society and supplant the Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment (O'Farrell, 1985: 277).

At the turn of the century Moran's vision was well on the way towards bearing fruit. In institutional terms the Catholic church was strong judging by the number and location of Catholic churches, schools, hospitals, religious orders, rank of clergy and religious and the number of people receiving the sacraments. Certainly the sacraments were a key feature of Moran's vision, but not so much for their intrinsic worth as for their function in demarcating, strengthening and impelling Catholics along the lines of his institutional model. In short, the sacraments almost seemed not be valued for themselves but for the way they fed into and assisted the institution. The sacraments were one of the many vehicles for establishing an ascendancy of the Catholic institution.

Archbishop Daniel Mannix

O'Farrell describes the period from 1910 to 1925 as one of the most intense periods of activity in Catholic interaction with the wider Australian society. After that time he observes that the greater part of the church for the next thirty years returned to a Catholic ghetto of piety and ego-centricity, a situation which was referred to in the previous section (O'Farrell, 1985: 350-2). A significant contributor to the periods of interaction and a causal factor in the subsequent period of Catholic withdrawal was Archbishop Mannix.

Mannix was very much a product of his times. He was given to occasional capricious acts of authority; and he was passionately Irish (Brennan, 1964: 140 - 147, 305 - 310). He first arrived in Melbourne as a coadjutor bishop in 1911, and till his death in 1962 spoke out against proposals to weaken Catholic schools; when he was defending both B.A. Santamaria and the DLP he maintained a posture of aggressive interaction with the wider society. Mannix constantly spoke out against injustice (as in the debate over Catholic taxes funding state schools without reciprocal government funding of Catholic schools); he fostered organisations and programs to effect social advancement along Catholic lines; and in addition to these purely domestic concerns he concerned himself with the ramifications of international affairs as in the conscription debates of 1916-1918, a war he perceived as a trade war amongst European colonial powers that did not concern us (O'Farrell, 1985: 354-56). Standing against the wider society and at times his own church he proclaimed a message of the Kingdom. Mannix stood in the prophetic line and announced a new, radical, critical message to both the church and the world.

The organisations which Mannix fostered as part of Catholic ascendancy were a cause of hierarchical backlash and preference of piety over social action as the dominant ecclesial forces. These organisations reflected another feature of Mannix's departure from the institutional model. This feature was the freedom he gave to the laity and how he valued the cause of their education and commitment to their faith. Primarily through he agency of the Jesuits, Newman College (Melbourne University) and the Catholic Library he promoted a new class of laity actively involved in ecclesial life and granted them a degree of autonomy (O'Farrell, 1985: 317).

Institutions gain much of their character and strength from the personalities behind them. The Australian hierarchy has played a far more significant role in Australian socio-political life than have Catholic intellectuals and other people (though since 1928 there have been 4 baptised Catholics as Prime Minister.) Cardinals Gilroy and Moran, Archbishops Quinn, Dunne, Duhig, Vaughan and Mannix, to name but a few, have made marked impacts on our history and on the values and attitudes of the grassroots Catholic laity.

Significantly, many of those to whom the Labor party appealed came from an Irish-Catholic background. Encouraged by their leader, Cardinal Moran, an Irish-born prelate who had arrived in Australia in 1884, many Catholics sought to find their identity in Australia through the medium of the Labor party (Sherington, 1980: 86).

One of the most significant outlets for the hierarchy's influence was in the area of politics. It is in the Australian Labor Party and the working class struggle that the young Australian Catholic church found much of its identity, unity and philosophy. Given the model the Australian Church was working from with its resulting moral adolescence, many of the laity channelled their energies into the secular sphere of politics. They did so quite successfully too.

Conway would see much of this Catholic Social success as resulting from a need to escape from the tense psychological world of a black or white, question and answer catechism, and the assent-or-be damned nature of religious allegiance (Conway, 1971: 197). The Australian Church's consistent commitment to an alliance of the institutional and sacramental models of Church has in the view of Conway led to a pitiful lack of maturity of conscience among Australian Catholics until very recent times.

The Irish clergy, by and large, had the truth... yet there was the danger all the time of substituting tribal solidarity for the communion of saints and a series of fixations for the Christian understanding of the human situation. It is this outmoded but stubborn sense of tribal solidarity which still impels great numbers of Australian Catholics to accept episcopal or Papal directions in a lax non-evaluating sort of torpor which they mistakenly equate with loyalty... (Conway, 1971: 198).

The questions of loyalty, conscience, assent or dissent are ones that surrounded Archbishop Daniel Mannix. To the loyalist supporters of World War I conscription an enemy to rival the Kaiser to B.A. Santamaria the personification of Robert Browning's words:

We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our patten, to live and to die! Browning's `lost Leader' was to forfeit the devotion of his followers through betrayal. Mannix was not to forfeit it even in death. (Santamaria, 1984: 258)

Whatever one's view of Mannix, he worked hard and long for the Church and the Ireland he loved, and won the respect and love of many of his people. While a tenacious opponent of communism, Mannix was also a strong supporter of an increasingly active Catholic laity. This was especially so in his support of The Movement organised by Cremean and Santamaria in 1940 - 1941 to fight communism in unions (Santamaria, 1984: 233). He worked hard to implement Pius XI's policy of establishing an authentically Catholic lay leadership, despite an essentially clerical view of the role of the laity as displayed by Cardinal Gilroy of Sydney.

Catholicism, Education and Political Activism

Since it was the institutional Church which "called the shots" for Catholics at this time, the values of the institutional model fairly might be used initially to assess the success or failure of the model. The period from the 1880's to 1950's has been described as the period of self-congratulatory Catholic Triumphalism (Eddy, 1973: 313), and in terms of what was happening inside the Catholic ghetto this seemed to be quite in order. Finally they were assisted by State Aid in their educational endeavours, and were blessed by an abundant presence of clergy and religious, as well as the proliferation of Catholic property and the establishment of church hospitals orphanages, schools. All these contributed to a sense of success.

The wider society which had once so actively decried and worked against Catholic endeavours was no longer as prominent. The bigotry of an earlier period was not as active, though it was far from being isolated in its attitudes. So while Catholic belief was no longer actively besieged, it still was not acceptable in the public domain (O'Farrell, 1985: 14).

Due to the land-settlement schemes of Archbishops Quinn and Dunne - an example pursued on a smaller scale in other dioceses - many Catholic families of this time had owned property for several generations. They therefore had a capital base from which to work for their own benefit and to finance the hopes of their children. And in trade, whether as publicans (a time honoured Catholic vocation) or as retailers many Catholics had gained some notoriety and success. But it was through education that Catholics really made their mark. In the professions - particularly medicine and the law - a new class of Catholic middle-class intellectuals was found. A class which would have a great influence in the life and trials of the Catholic church through "The Movement", "Catholic Action" and the "DLP" (Campion, 1982: 119).

The Role of the Catholic Lay Person

The Knights of the Southern Cross founded in Sydney in 1919 was a "union of well-to-do Catholics" whose interest was in a "mutual aid network of businessmen as well as a protective arm for Catholic interests in political and social life" (Campion, 1987: 118 - 119). It was a secretive organization, defensively masculine and agressively Catholic. The Holy Name Society, founded in Adelaide in 1921 on an American model, also acted as a Church law enforcement agency "to counter profane and blasphemous speech" and to encourage more men to receive the sacraments (Campion, 1987: 121).

Also, the Catholic working class, fired by its idealism, was a ready source of Labor politicians and increasing interaction between the Catholic church and society on political, economic and social issues. Examples of Catholic interaction with the wider society that illustrate both Catholicism's self-perceived ascendancy and the activity of Church as institution are the Campion Society (est. 1931) and the Catholic Social Study Movement (est. 1940) (Harris, 1982: 85). Each had its roots in Melbourne University - under the direct patronage of Archbishop Mannix, and for reasons evident in the next section was at times at variance with the wider institutional church. Each was part of an effort by an educated and committed section of Catholic laity to affect Australian society at both the domestic and international levels.

These societies prompted Catholic discussion on the Spanish Civil War, the rise of fascism and the role of communism in international politics at a time both in the 1930's and the 1950's. The circulation of their pamphlets was extremely wide- spread and their programs for peace and social justice were occasionally debated by the Federal Parliament (O'Farrell, 1985: 392). Yet for all this, a significant section of the Catholic hierarchy outside of Melbourne was disenchanted with these and other similar Catholic organisations. First Archbishop Kelly of Sydney in the 1930's and then Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane in the 1950's tried to subvert their lay autonomy and directed them towards exercises of piety rather than making positive social statements (O'Farrell, 1985: 388-9). While agreeing with the politics of these organisations - even with their original dalliance with fascism as part of their vehement anti-communism - the hierarchy of the church could not abide such autonomous control. This fear of the organisations having a free rein was exacerbated by the secrecy with which later Catholic movements sought to infiltrate the unions and labour politics as part of a power-play against communism.

So it was that in the face of a perceived challenge to their authority that the church tried to once again revert to a Catholic ghetto mentality. Almost to spite their dreams of Catholic ascendancy the majority of bishops affirmed devotion and piety over social action when an educated and committed laity seemed to challenge them. The bishops as a whole affirmed the church as institution over a proposed counter-model. The binding force of the Irish-Catholic community had been its religious faith. This faith had found expression, security and pride in its institutions. The Irish legacy of obedience, loyalty, and a Church centered around busy devotional activity, did not encourage or welcome thinkers. Thinkers were dangerous to the freedom of the clergy to rule autonomously. The characteristic dearth of spirituality had its corollary in the Church's percieved right to influence all aspects of a Catholic's life. Rules were made about everything; nothing was left to individual conscience which was better left uninformed, capable only of determining whether a thought, word or deed was right or wrong in terms of Church rules.

The Irish episcopate were authorities that governed one's value systems, one's thought on evolving issues whether political, social or religious. On the local scene the parish priest, the religious sister or brother and the school itself were personifications of that same authority.

The aim of these Irish bishops was to "build up in Australia an Irish church, that in the coming time will rival in sanctity and learning the unforgotten glories of the ancient Church in Ireland ... Forced back upon their own financial resources, the Catholics had to find other ways to support the schooling of their children in their own faith. One of the answers became the recruitment of the Irish and other religious orders who came to Australia to take up the call of teaching" (Sherington, 1980: 70).

Out of all this the simple sacramental spirituality that had been the hallmark of Irish-Catholicism found ready unquestioning acceptance in its new Australian environment. The people responsed generously with finance, loyalty, obedience and commitment to the family unit and with religious vocations.

The extraordinary loyalty of Australian Catholics to their clergy and bishops as well as to the see of Rome is due to the fact that colonial pastors and people both came from simple working stock and had to share the rigours of a new life amid social discrimination ... In time, some of this loyalty began to merge into a kind of mindless, uncritical clericalism. Great numbers of Catholics were more distinguished for their prescribed piety and zeal than their capacity to hammer out some issues of belief and morals for themselves. The effect in many Catholic families was to bring about an obvious stunting of private conscience, a kind of persisting moral adolescence in which the clergy and bishops were apt to be regarded as the only full-grown elders of the tribe whose judgement could be trusted on almost any issue (Conway, 1971: 196).

Mannix, Gilroy and the other members of the Australian hierarchy had worked hard to firmly establish a separate Catholic Education system and to encourage young Catholics to carry on to university where possible (Santamaria, 1984: 47). While few can doubt the contribution made by Catholic Education to Australia in general and to the church in particular, it has also further institutionalised the Church. Australia has one of the most comprehensive non-government education systems in the world and one can surely question the effect this has had on the grassroots laity. I would tend to suggest the Catholic school has further denied parents (willingly) another opportunity for active participation in the church and has increased the `grace-pipeline' mentality that has pervaded much non-thinking Catholicity. As the social position of the church had become more secure it had also led to a comfortable "taking for granted' an unchallenged religious faith in Catholic youth. The effects of this are becoming more obvious as these youth enter the work force and present-day tertiary institutions.

The Australian Church has developed a uniquely passive ethos that has only begun to be challenged recently. Births, deaths, marriages, the affairs of the parish primary, sacramental based solidarities, parish celebrations centering on the visits of prelates or anniversaries of ordinations or religious professions, these have been the `meat' of Australian Catholicism. The "pray, pay and obey" often quoted cliche was not all that far from reality. It has been suggested that there has been a definite link between the success of the institutional model within the Australian Church and the nature of the Australian character (Conway, 1971: 199).

The Bishops too are children of the Australian aversion toward personal originality which forbids leaders to sound too competent or even to look as if they understand what they are doing... it's not a point to be taken specifically against Catholic princes of the church but one about the low quality of Australian life (Conway, 1971: 199).

Certainly Australia in general and the church in particular have not been known for the quality and quantity of our philosophers, theologians or intellectuals, The place of both philosophy and theology within our universities compared to their European or North American counterparts bears abundant testimony to this. It would be a quite distorted view to see the manifestation of such a model as coming from the Australian hierarchy alone. Indeed most of the frustrations experienced in implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council have come not from the hierarchy but from abuses of delegated authority practised by clerical administrators above the assistant priest level. The Australian clergy have been slow to relinquish administrative posts which in many overseas countries are now offered to lay leadership. (The male dominance of the church structure of power is not a particularly Australian problem but is world-wide). The pursuit and arbitrary use of power in the name of religious obedience can do and had done much damage to relations between thinking laity and parochial clergy and episcopal authority and has led to the alienation of many laity who were already not in the mainstream (Conway, 1971: 200). This little Curia mentality has caused mush questioning and soul searching since the late 1960's.

The Church had been preoccupied with political issues: Cardinal Moran's stance on behalf of trade unionists in the 1890's, the Labor split of 1954, the formation of the DLP, tensions with Communism, Australian involvement in Vietnam, conscription and the long standing quarrel between the so-called `Catholic Left' and B.A. Santamaria's National Civic Council (formerly the Movement), which vigorously had been supported by Mannix. All this, to the virtual exclusion of considering sociological issues, coupled with the traditional suspicion of 'intellectuals' which has been so much part of the general Australian backdrop, has led to a drought of Catholic intellectual contribution, both now and in the past. Yet the laity was capable of a reasoned and reasonable questioning of relevant social and moral questions. Catholic lay people whose forebears felt that the only Catholics who had a right to any display of wisdom were priests, with a grudging but necessary nod to doctors and lawyers, were therefore left to wallow in an intellectual and theological inertia that is only being presently challenged in the post-Vatican II Australian Church (Conway, 1971: 201).

Women and Australian Catholicism

Certainly the Australian Church has had its sins and its sinners, its saints and even its scholars. In terms of its servant model, its record with regard to its treatment of aboriginals, its stance on ecumenism, on the White Australia Policy and its approach to women has not been good. Women in the Australian church have either been stereotyped into `the little Irish mother' of the home, faithful consecrated virgins, or sources of temptation. Many women believed the teachings and utterings of male celibate clerics who enunciated that as woman is "mistress of the home, her activities should be there and there only. Because of Eve, it is ruled that woman's special sphere should be subordinate and domestic..." (Campion, 1987: 106).

While the little Irish mother in the home was being pictured in prose and poetry as the moral guardian and keeper of the faith, in actual fact this role effectively went to the Catholic Schools...and to Nuns!... In 1933 Archbishop Duhig was only echoing a common refrain when he told a gathering of lay Catholic women that any role they might take up could only be secondary to that of women religious. As he put it, "We must never forget that in the forefront of women's work in Australia there are 10,000 consecrated virgins of Christ" (Kennedy, 1985: xv).

Kennedy in her work Faith and Feminism goes to great lengths to show the first image, the woman of John O'Brien's verse, to be nothing more than a myth and "a comforting, nostalgic crutch for a uncomprehending, uninterested clergy" (Kennedy, 1985: 264). Women nurtured (usually other women and children) and through their attendance to the mundane needs of 'lost sheep' went about the real work which was to get more people into the Church to be "saved." Typical of this was the St. Theresian Club for women founded in 1918, whose role was "caring for inner-city children from careless homes" (Campion, 1987: 109). In this group and others (Sacred Heart Sodality, Children of Mary, etc.) there was a stress on devotions - they were a reinforcing, rearguard action governed by, and directly answerable to, the parish priest. Lay women's groups such as the Grail had to fight hard and long for an independent and effective role within the Church. Founded in 1936 it strove to promote equality and justice for women and the need for women to be politically active. By 1939 the Grail had over 1000 members; "the genius of the Grail was to keep women's religious lives in their own hands and to enable them to develop away from the legalistic religion into a more colourful, humane and enthusiastic Catholicism. It was the opposite of clericalism" (Campion, 1987: 113). Yet it stands as an exception; Dedicated, pious and under clerical control was accepted as the status quo for catholic women - a natural expectation for a male, hierarchical, authoritarian Church which saw itself as having the sole mandate to rule religiously and socially.

It was an understatement but, in the terms of the experience of lay Catholic women in the Catholic Church in Australia in the period 1920-1950, survival was no mean feat." (Kennedy, 1985: 271) Australian Catholics have been notoriously `humble' and reticent to talk about their faith, let alone preach about it. Those Catholics who have gone into print have done so to a large extent in defence of the status quo or in typical Australian `knocking' of the church. The R.C.I.A. (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), Scripture study groups, and the birth of the Bible into Australian Catholic schools are all post-Vatican II phenomena. Perhaps the importance of the Catholic Truth Society literature, the National Civic Council, orators such as Mannix, Guilford Young of Hobart, and Francis Rush, and the steadily developing Catholic Media have all helped to spread the `Good News'.

The Church of Cardinal Norman Gilroy

Certainly the history of the Australian Church to 1960 was a proud but varied one. Its prelates, its Irish character (now radically effected since 1947 by much southern European migration). Its ALP/DLP politics, its working class beginnings, its institutions, and its growth alongside the developing Australian identity have all combined to give it a unique character. We have moved from the Church of Gilroy who stated:

I do not see any necessity for changes in the hierarchical structure, or in the pattern of authority... First of all there must be recognising of authority... to be worthy of being a Catholic, we must of necessity support through and through and completely in every way the Vicar of Christ" (Campion, 1987: 19)

to the group of young curates who presented this same Cardinal with a document that said:

the priestly pattern of life had been shaped by a bygone age and had not adapted to the compelling needs of modern life... we propose the setting up of team ministries which would overlap existing parish structures. modelled on communes or kibbutzim, the team ministries would reject individualism in favour of communal decision making. They would aim their efforts at the unchurched, whether Aborigines, factory workers, hoboes, or alternative lifers. Team ministries would allow plenty of scope for youthful enthusiasms. They would bypass the old-fashioned life. Presbyteries would become houses of hospitality; priests as servants of their people, hoped to take over a group of inner-city parishes... (Campion, 1987: 181).

Their request was refused; the change is both significant yet very real, as are the models they signify.

Australian Catholicism : Towards the Year 2000

May I suggest an excellent book that hopefully will direct you to contemplate the ecclesiology appropriate for present day Australia as well as the Australia for the 21st century. Father Paul Collins is known to many television viewers of "Compass" as a priest who has a realistic understanding of the tensions that are particular to the Australian Church scene. In his book Mixed Blessings he presented a good sociological overview of what he perceived to be the crisis in world Catholicism in relation to the Australian church. I recommend this text to you as challenging background reading that will assist you to formulate a personal understanding of Church within the Australian (and hopefully local) context. In part three of his book which deals with "Australia and the Future" he expresses some personal observations that I am sure will stimulate vigorous debate. I know that you will find it to be dynamic and thought-provoking.

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