The beginnings of the Church in Australia : a brief sketch 1792 - 1834

In previous articles at In diebus illis, we have traced the beginnings of Christianity in the Colony of New South Wales.  We noted the numbers of Catholics who were part of the First Fleet in 1788.  We read a heartfelt letter from an English Catholic priest, asking to be allowed to travel to Botany Bay to minister to Catholic convicts.  We also gained a vivid glimpse into the ministry of the first Christian Chaplain to the Colony, the Reverend Richard Johnson.

The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the events and personages of the Catholic community in the Colony of NSW from 1792 until 1834, the moment when Australia's first bishop, John Bede Polding OSB, was appointed.  For this overview, we use material from the Australian Dictionary of Biography and from some Catholic historians.   EN1   The contents of this post will be elaborated upon with forthcoming articles.  A further article will discuss the varying social conditions of Catholics during the first fifty years of the Colony.

As we have traced in previous articles, the spread of the Gospel was not a focus of the early Governors of the penal colony of New South Wales, still less, support for the practice of Catholicism.  There was no practical interest in religion per se, except as a means of improving the moral tone of the Colony - a struggle which was ongoing.  The absence of any formal Catholic community in Australia before the arrival of the two Catholic chaplains in 1820, also reflected the lack of legal rights afforded Catholics in Britain and the suspicion which British Authority had towards the blend of Irish Nationalism and Irish Catholicism.  Although the largest proportion of Catholic felons transported from Britain and Ireland from 1788 were Irish, not all were and there were also a small number of soldiers and officials of the Colony who were Catholic.  In 1792, a group of Catholics resident in Parramatta petitioned the Governor of NSW to make some provision for the religious sensibilities of Catholics; unsurprisingly, it was ignored, but this was the first moment when Catholics asserted their desire to practise their Religion.

Following the 1798 Uprising against British Rule in Wexford on the west coast of Ireland, many more Irish Catholics were transported to New South Wales and among them were three priests, Fathers JAMES HAROLD, JAMES DIXON, and PETER O'NEIL.  All three were accused - unjustly - of complicity in that Uprising.  They have been known to Australian history as The Convict Priests. The fortunes of these these three in the Colony varied somewhat, and it was only Father Dixon who was was given official permission to offer Mass publicly in 1803. Rome conferred on him the title of Prefect Apostolic of New Holland, which sounded very grand, but had very little benefit to the Catholics of the Colony.  

Father Jeremiah O'Flynn
A sketch which appears in 
The Progress of Catholicity in Australia
published 1886.

What seemed the beginnings of a Catholic community collapsed when discontented Irish convicts took up arms at Castle Hill (near Parramatta) in 1804.  Even though Father Dixon attempted to broker peace between the Castle Hill rebels and the Colonial Authority, Government toleration of Catholicism evaporated and the ministry of Father Dixon came to an official end.  All three priests had left the Colony by 1810, without any permissions granted for a further public ministry.  Seven bleak years ensued when there was no Catholic priest resident in the Colony, and yet, there were prominent Catholics - mainly former convicts - who worked quietly and successfully at building up a Catholic community.  We mention here William Davis and his wife Catherine (nee Miles), Jane Langley, James Dempsey, Michael Dwyer, James Sheedy, Michael Hayes, Edward Doyle, James Meehan, Catherine Fitzpatrick and her family.  

The essential distrust of Irish Catholics held both by the British and successive New South Wales Colonial governors, was not eased by the short ministry in Sydney of the Irish priest, JEREMIAH O'FLYNN.   Father O’Flynn, formerly a Cistercian monk, arrived in Sydney in 1817 with Rome's approbation as Prefect Apostolic.  Always given to imprudence and impetuous behaviour, Father O'Flynn failed to obtain prior approval from the British Government to enter and minister to Catholics in the Colony.  When he arrived - unannounced - he was not made welcome by the Governor, Lachlan Macquarie.  Father O'Flynn assured Macquarie that authorisation for his appointment would be forthcoming from London, but without licence, he ministered in semi-secrecy to the Catholics of Sydney and surrounding districts.  He was eventually arrested and deported by Colonial Authorities to England.  He left behind a Catholic community disheartened by the loss of their pastor, but also a Divine present : the Reserved Sacrament in a pyx guarded reverently in the home of one of the pioneer Catholics of Sydney. 

The notorious case of Father O'Flynn had other significant outcomes so far as the Catholic Community in the Colony was concerned. Upon his return to Britain, there was public distaste for the manner in which Fr O'Flynn had been treated, but perhaps more concern was expressed for the plight of Catholics in the far-off colony who had no chaplain.  Pressure brought to bear on the Government made them more disposed to providing Catholic chaplains, but they also cooperated with Catholic Authorities in Rome and London to facilitate this.  The British Government's continuing unease about Irish Catholicism led them to cooperate with the Vicar Apostolic of London in arranging for a chaplain or chaplains to be sent to NSW.  

Father John Joseph Therry
An aquatint of him painted in
Ireland around 1815.

In 1818, Rome created an Apostolic Vicariate ( a form of Diocese) at the Cape of Good Hope and responsibility for the Catholics of far-off New South Wales was entrusted to the new Vicar-Apostolic, English Benedictine FATHER EDWARD BEDE SLATER. The new bishop's jurisdiction included Mauritius, Madagascar, the Cape of Good Hope, New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. Notwithstanding the British Government's intentions that English Catholic priests be sent to NSW, the incapacity of the English Benedictines to send priests to the outposts of this vast ecclesiastical territory caused Bishop Slater to seek chaplains in Ireland. Two Irish volunteers, Fathers JOHN JOSEPH THERRY and PHILIP CONOLLY, were accepted by Bishop Slater OSB and appointed by the British Government, each with a salary of £100. These two priests were to be the Bishop's missionaries in New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. They were responsible both to him and to the Colonial Government. The two chaplains arrived in Sydney in May 1820.  

Embarking on their work with great enthusiasm, unfortunately it became clear very quickly that the two priests did not work well together.  In 1821, within months of the pair's arrival in Sydney, Father Connolly left the mainland to establish a mission in Van Diemen’s Land, specifically in Hobarton, where the small Catholic population was almost entirely convict.  Father Therry was left to minister to the needs of Catholics in all the existing and newly-settled areas of NSW.  Despite his immense energy and missionary zeal, he was barely equal to the demands upon him.  Although admirable for his perseverance in adverse circumstances, his hot-headedness and impatience with Authority led to his too-prominent association with groups opposed to Colonial policies.  A series of aggravating incidents led to the withdrawal of his Government salary in 1826, and a determined effort to expel him from the Colony.  

Father Therry would not be moved, however, and continued his ministry whilst being supported by the Catholic Faithful, who held him in the highest esteem.  Partly because of their regard for him, the Catholic community did not warm greatly to the two Irish priests who replaced Fr Therry in succession as Chaplain from 1826.  These were  FATHER DANIEL POWER and then FATHER CHRISTOPHER VINCENT DOWLING OP.  Notwithstanding these divisions, the priests continued a zealous ministry.  In 1821, the first Catholic school in Australia commenced in Parramatta and the foundation stone of the first Catholic Chapel - subsequently known as Saint Mary's - was laid by no less a personage than Governor Macquarie.

Father John McEncroe
Arrived as a Catholic Chaplain
in 1832

From the late 1820s, as the number of Irish Catholics in the colony continued to rise (though mainly convicts and working class people), a trickle of educated and politically-significant Irishmen migrated to Sydney, notably ROGER THERRY and JOHN HUBERT PLUNKETT, both of whom were appointed to senior legal offices in the Colony.  FATHER JOHN McENCROE accompanied Mr Plunkett as an additional official chaplain (1832).  Father McEncroe, who had previously spent some years working in the American colonies, managed what his two predecessors (Fathers Power and Dowling OP) had failed to do, namely to maintain a good working relationship with Father Therry.  

In the same year, 1832, a new Vicar Apostolic at the Cape of Good Hope appointed FATHER WILLIAM BERNARD ULLATHORNE OSB (a monk of Downside Monastery in England) as his Vicar-General in the colony of New South Wales.  This appointment was ratified by the British Government.  Although very young, when Father Ullathorne arrived in Sydney in 1833, he tactfully and capably put the affairs of the Church in order with the assistance of Father McEncroe and sometimes grudging cooperation from Father Therry.  But Father Ullathorne soon saw the infant Church in Australia needed its own resident bishop, and wrote to Rome and England accordingly.  After some consideration and negotiation, the Holy See and the British Government reached agreement and FATHER JOHN BEDE POLDING, another Benedictine monk of Downside Monastery, was appointed the Vicar Apostolic of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land in 1834.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Standing on what is now Saint Mary's Road, an artist painted the watercolour shewn above in July 1834, looking towards what we know as the site of the ANZAC Memorial in the southern precinct of Hyde Park.  This watercolour is part of the collection of the National Library of Australia.

In the centre of this painting is Saint Mary's Catholic Chapel, whose exterior walls of light-coloured stone had only been completed in the previous year.  A year later, it would become the Cathedral Church of the newly-arrived Bishop Polding.  The proportions of Saint Mary's are not quite accurately portrayed in this painting : it was of a much more "squat" appearance.

The focus of these paintings is a collection of buildings which were constructed in stages during the 1820s and included a temporary chapel (under the patronage of Saint Joseph), a schoolroom and the residence for the various pioneering priests. 

AMDG

ENDNOTE

EN1  Biographical notes prepared in 1967 by the late Mr Bede Nairn for The Australian Dictionary of Biography were used as the skeleton for this article.

Historic Images of Saint Mary's Cathedral : 2

 

Hyde Park and Saint Mary's Cathedral April 1922.
Image : The Powerhouse Museum Sydney.

We continue our series of historic photographs with this image taken in April 1922.

This photograph, looking south-west, depicts Saint Mary's on the left, during the course of extensions to the nave.  At this point, there was very little visible of what would become the twin-towered southern facade.  

This interesting image shews Hyde Park in a right-old mess, just before the commencement of excavations for the Underground railway.  The  line from Central Station to Saint James and then Museum Station runs directly beneath the central avenue of the Park.

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

AMDG

NOTES

The photographs in this series are taken from a variety of sources, some in online Archival collections, some from books, some original images in the editor's collection.  They are presented here in a "modernised" digital form, and with as much detail of the structure of the Cathedrals enhanced in order to make them more accessible to a new generation of Australian Catholics.  The original image on which this digital rendering is based is held by the State Library of NSW.  Thanks are due to Special Collections of the State Library for undertaking a search to locate this and other rare images.  Please do not reproduce these unique images without permission. 

The faltering beginnings of christianity in australia : 1788-1793

Memorial to the first Christian Service held in New South Wales
at the corner of Hunter and Bligh Streets, Sydney.

In a small reserve adjacent to the intersection of Hunter and Bligh Streets in central Sydney is a spired monument in the Gothic style which bears the following inscription :

To the glory of God 

and in commemoration of 

the first Christian Service held in Australia 

February 3rd 1788

Rev. Richard Johnson BA 

the Chaplain 

being the preacher.

The text of the sermon : 

What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?

Psalm CXVI 12.

The Service - most probably what was known in The Book of Common Prayer as Mattins or Morning Prayer - took place a week after the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove (1) and beneath the shade of a great tree.  The monument is located on the site of the first church (see below), but not marking the exact spot where the Chaplain conducted the first Divine Service in the new colony.  (2)  A record indicates that a band of soldiers accompanied the singing of hymns at this service.  The full text of Mr Johnson's sermon has not been preserved, but it is most fortunate that the scriptural text he chose as the basis for his sermon has.  It was Psalm 116.  It is most indicative of his own piety and sense of the occasion :

What shall I return unto the Lord for all his bounty unto me?  I will raise the cup of Salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord ... I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem.

It is perhaps noteworthy and even indicative that a whole week elapsed before the first Christian Service was celebrated in that area which Captain Arthur Philip had claimed for the British Crown. (3)

An artist's impression of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove, January 1788.

Image : First Fleet Fellowship of Victoria

Let us trace how Richard Johnson came to be appointed as Chaplain to the First Fleet and new Colony.  Most readers will be familiar with the protestant hymn Amazing Grace, written in 1772 by an English parson, the Reverend John Newton.  Mr Newton was a leading figure in the Evangelical revival within the Church of England in the eighteenth century.  His story is, in its own right, most interesting (but beyond our scope here).  In 1786, Newton wrote :

A minister who should go to Botany Bay without a call from the Lord and without receiving from Him an apostolical spirit, the spirit of a missionary, enabling him to forsake all, to give up all, to put himself into the Lord’s hands, to sink or swim, had better run his head against a stone wall.

Mr Newton persuaded the government of the day to send such a Chaplain with the First Fleet and recommended the Reverend Richard Johnson as that man.  At that time, Mr Johnson was in his early thirties and serving as a curate in a London Parish.  A native of Yorkshire, he had been educated at Cambridge.  In the same month that Captain Arthur Philip was appointed to the charge of the First Fleet (October 1786), Mr Johnson was appointed by the British Government to be its Chaplain. (4) He sought a wife to accompany him to New South Wales and they married quickly. 

The First Fleet of eleven ships and approximately 1400 persons - convicts, sailors, marines, officials with wives and servants - left Portsmouth Harbour under the command of Captain Philip in May 1787.  Mr and Mrs Johnson were on board the vessel The Golden Grove.  On The Golden Grove he was able to conduct a service each Sunday, and to read prayers every evening. When the Fleet reached Rio de Janeiro, he visited the other ships to minister to those on board, marines and convicts alike.  It seems obvious that Richard Johnson did not see himself as part of the Authority of the new Colony of NSW, but rather as a preacher of the Gospel, with a zeal for the salvation of souls. (5) A man who wished for comfort or prestige would never have accepted such an appointment.  But a man who fervently lived the Gospels might; and such a man was Richard Johnson.

A portrait of Captain Arthur Philip RN painted in 1786;
Commander of the First Fleet and First Governor of NSW.
The Collection of the State Library of NSW.

Captain Arthur Philip, however, possessed no such fervour, nor saw merit in such a ministry in the Colony of NSW.  He was a navy man and he had his Orders.  After Captain Philip was appointed to command the First Fleet and to establish the Settlement at Botany Bay as its Governor, he had the responsibility of assembling those whom he thought would benefit the establishment of the Colony.  He managed this most effectively.  Arthur Philip foresaw that what began as a settlement for the cast-offs of England would develop into place of great value to the British Crown.  He wrote : "Nor do I doubt but that this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made."  Few in the British Government, however, shared this view. Arthur Philip wished to reform the convicts, not simply gaol and punish them.  He also wished to befriend Australia's Indigenous peoples. But Philip's was also a very pragmatic vision; he was no dreamer.

The mental picture formed by those statesmen and bureaucrats in England who planned the Penal Settlement, namely, that Botany Bay (6) was a fertile land where crops would readily grow to support the needs of the residents, were not realised in the land immediately surrounding the settlement at Sydney Cove.  We need only ponder the difficulty of establishing a self-sustaining settlement in an unknown land, completely unlike England, with a harsh climate and its own peoples who had lived on the continent for tens of thousands of years.  At various points in the first two years after settlement, the starvation of both convicts and the troops guarding them seemed a real possibility; there was insufficient to feed those who arrived in January 1788 and subsequently in 1789 and 1790. The planting of crops around Sydney Cove had failed and convicts, sailors, even Mr Johnson himself, went out into Port Jackson in boats to catch fish to feed the Settlement.

A map of the Settlement at Sydney Cove in July 1788 - just six months after the landing - shews clearly a tract of land in approximately the area bounded by the present Harrington, Essex, Grosvenor and George Streets which had been set aside for the building of a church.  From this, we can surmise that the construction of a church had been discussed between Governor Philip and Mr Johnson. (7)

An engraving of the Settlement at Sydney Cove based on a detailed map drawn up
in July 1788.  The ornament and the no. 7 indicate the spot which
had been selected for the construction of a church. 
It was eventually built elsewhere in 1793.

One of the telling aspects of the attitude of the Government of the new Colony, however, was that it took fully five years before a building specifically for the purpose of Divine Service came to be constructed.  And even then - 1793 - it was paid for out of the pocket of the Chaplain, Mr Johnson.  It was also not on the land indicated on the 1788 map.  By the time that church had been completed, Arthur Philip had relinquished government of the colony and returned to England.  A request from Mr Johnson of Philip in 1792 for convict labour and some financial support to build churches both in Sydney and Parramatta was declined by the Governor.

A sketch by the architect and historian Morton Herman of
the first Christian Church in Australia, erected in 1793 on the corner of Hunter
and Bligh Streets Sydney.
The T-shaped building was able to seat a few hundred souls
and was dedicated to Saint Philip.

In five years as the first Governor, Arthur Philip had accomplished much in establishing the settlements of New South Wales from their natural states to a self-supporting colony.  He was a fair man, persevering, determined, just and possessed of courage. He was not capricious, or cruel or readily prone to discouragement. In less steady hands, it is most likely that the Settlement in 1788 would have collapsed, leaving an awkward situation for all concerned.  For all his virtues, however, Arthur Philip seemed not to have been a man of any religious conviction.  He did not approve of the Chaplain's desire to evangelise the convicts of the new Colony, or those in charge of them.  He asked Mr Johnson to focus his attention on instilling a sound morality instead, which was of more obvious social benefit.

In other cultures, in other ages and even other contemporary nations (such as Spain and France), building a temple, a shrine or a House of God would seem a sensible way of seeking God's help for a struggling society.  Men of the Enlightenment, however, such as Governor Philip and his officers, lacked such a sensibility.  Mr Johnson conducted Divine Service initially in a tent and sometimes in rooms which were made available on a Sunday.  In those earliest days, no one was compelled to attend and evidence is lacking as to how many of the Settlement's inhabitants actually did.

In the next posts in this series, we shall further discuss the Christian ministry of the Reverend Richard Johnson in the infant Colony; the landing of Count La Perouse at Botany Bay, the Catholic convict James Ruse and the stirrings of Catholicism in those early years.

AMDG

NOTES

1. Sydney Cove includes the spot we now refer to as Circular Quay. 

2. It would seem doubtful that the site of the Memorial marks the spot of the first Christian Service, which was more likely closer to the Sydney Cove. A map of the Settlement made in March 1788, indicates that the corner of the present Hunter and Bligh Streets was an area outside the Settlement. There does not seem to be documentary evidence to be definite about this point. The Memorial, however, certainly indicates the place where Rev'd Mr Johnson built the first church in 1793.

3. The new colony of New South Wales initially comprised all of the Eastern half of the continent, as far as what is now South Australia.

4. Some early historians, repeated by others over the years, have asserted that the inclusion of a Chaplain to the First Fleet was an after-thought, decided upon not long before the Fleet sailed from England.  This is completely inaccurate, since both the Chaplain and the Commander of the First Fleet were both appointed in October 1786, when the matter was still in the planning stages.

5. In the language of the Church of England, Mr Johnson would be described as an Evangelical, but one of the Officers of the new Colony, Lieutenant Tench went so far as to describe him as a "Methodist".

6. In August 1788, Captain Philip wrote to the Authorities in England, describing in detail the map of July 1788.  All the buildings he planned and his intentions for the laying out of streets &c. are mentioned in this letter.  But there is no mention of the construction of a church in the letter.

7. Based upon Captain Cook's discovery in 1770, and the observations of the botanist on that voyage, Sir Joseph Banks, the British Government had settled upon Botany Bay as the place for the Penal Settlement.  Often New South Wales was referred to colloquially as Botany Bay.  But when the First Fleet reached New South Wales and Captain Philip assessed Botany Bay, he found it not in the least suited to the needs of a large new settlement.  A short expedition Northward in a long boat lead to the discovery of Port Jackson (which we now refer to as Sydney Harbour) and, in particular Sydney Cove.  Captain Philip sailed the Fleet into Port Jackson and landed at Sydney Cove, claiming it for the British Crown on 26th January 1788.


REFERENCES

The following online articles give useful accounts of the lives of Arthur Philip and Richard Johnson.

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/phillip-arthur-2549

http://acl.asn.au/resources/richard-johnson-first-chaplain-to-australia/

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/0-dict-biogI-K.html#johnson1

The following monographs were used in preparing this article :

Cedric Flower The Illustrated History of NSW, Rigby Publishers Limited, Sydney, 1981.

GB Barton The History of New South Wales from the Records, volume 1 Governor Philip 1783-1789, by Authority, Sydney,  1889.

Old Saint Mary's and the Benedictine Monastery

Image : Sydney Archdiocesan Archives

This engraved sketch was drawn in Hyde Park in or shortly after 1840.  

Engraved by William Baker of King Street, Sydney, it is a quite accurate depiction of the Cathedral precinct at that time.  

Standing at the fence of Hyde Park and centrally positioned, are two figures in black, who are Benedictine monks; their religious habit is shewn very clearly.  On the left of the image is depicted the buildings commenced by Father Therry for a residence, schoolhouse and chapel, but which were subsequently used for the Benedictine Monastery.  Between these buildings and the Cathedral, is a small market garden and a figure can just be made out at work there.  

The engraving, in the collections of the Sydney Archdiocesan Archives, was photographed by Giovanni Portelli and digitally enhanced for presentation in this post. 

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

AMDG.

Historic Images of Saint Mary's Cathedral Sydney

Saint Mary's Cathedral from Hyde Park, 1930.
Image : The Saint Bede Studio.

This photograph was taken in 1930 by an amateur photographer.  Looking south-east, it shews the Cathedral in its completed state after the additions which were constructed between 1914 and 1928.  

In order to depict what is in the photograph more clearly, we include the photograph below, which depicts the additions in the early stages of their construction. It is taken from almost the identical angle to the 1930 photograph.  Hyde Park also has changed in those eight or nines years : trees have grown up, but other trees and landscaping have disappeared.  This was the consequence of much of the centre of the Park being dug up in the early 1920s during the extension of the City Circle underground railway.

Saint Mary's Cathedral circa 1921.
Image : State Library of NSW

Click on the images for an enlarged view.

AMDG

NOTES

The photographs on this blog are taken from a variety of sources, some in online Archival collections, some from books, some original images in the editor's collection.  They are presented here in a "modernised" digital form, and with as much detail of the structure of the Cathedrals enhanced in order to make them more accessible to a new generation of Australian Catholics.  The original image on which this digital rendering is based is held by the State Library of NSW.  Thanks are due to Special Collections of the State Library for undertaking a search to locate this and other rare images.  Please do not reproduce these unique images without permission. 

Go to the foot of the Cross

If there is one thing more obvious than another in the vocation to which the Almighty has called us Christians, it is its absolute claim over all that man has and is - the entireness of the change by which the Christian has become a new creature, and which old things are passed away, and all things are become new.  Hence, indifference is amongst its deadliest enemies or, rather, it is a foe which bears within itself the concentrated mischief of all others.  Open sin degrades and makes miserable the sinner, but it leaves his with his eyes in some degree open, if it be only to see his own nakedness. ...

The first and the greatest of all commandments – the first of the two on which hang all the law and Prophets, runs thus: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.”  Recall to memory the terms which are used by the inspired writers of the New Testament, in order to describe true nature of the life which is to be led by the disciples of Christ : it is a pilgrimage, a race, warfare demanding watchfulness, and endurance, and stout heartedness.  The merchant of our blessed Lord’s parable, having found the one pearl of great price, went his way and sold all that he had, bought it.  If Christian men would be indeed followers of Him whose name they bear, they are warned of the cost as earnestly as they are lovingly invited; they are to take their Cross daily; they are to stand prepared to give up all that is dearest in human life, and that life itself also, when their Master’s call is heard.  The same voice which is ever crying throughout the world “Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you,” utters also the warning exhortation “You cannot serve God and Mammon” : the same Good Shepherd who gathers the lambs in his arms, and seeks out with so loving a perseverance the wandering sheep, has Himself told us of the day when He will say to those who - at the appointed hour, shall have no oil in their lamps -  “I know you not.”

¶

There is a fearful error, Dearly Beloved, against which no warnings of mine can be too solemn and importunate.  It is the error of supposing the Christian life to be a thing of negatives, as if all you had to hope and strive for were the avoiding of flagrant transgression of the penal laws of God.  What an unworthy distortion of Christian thought, and yet how many seem to adopt and live in this distortion !  You are “to cease to do evil” certainly, but it is that you may “learn to do well” and these two things are as inseparable in practice as they are in precept.  What is the main character of the spirit taught by the Church and by the Holy Scriptures?  Is it not the filial temper of love and self-sacrifice, and devout imitation of our Lord, in very contra-distinction to the grudging, reluctant, sluggish, lukewarm temper of the slave who fulfils an unloved service under constraint and fear of punishment? Think too, again, of that revelation which our Saviour has graciously made to us of the manner in which the last judgement will be conducted.  How much it declares, and how much it implies…. The blessed are blessed for what they have done; the cursed are cursed for what they have left undone.  Most merciful and dread lesson!  Let us take it to heart.

What we have said, Dearly Beloved, and what we have suggested, is enough to guide your thoughts in the direction in which we would in this season have you employ your self-examination.  What is the remedy … if you discover that practical indifference has fastened upon yourselves, or upon any you love and care for?  This one thing; recurrence to one of the first statements of your catechism - man was created in order to know God and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him in the next.  Enter into the depths of this truth and when you are in some tolerable measure permeated by a sense of what it implies, then look at this world, at its utmost good and evil in such a light.  Or listen to these words of eternal wisdom: “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?”  

Better still to go to the foot of the Cross; spend these few days of the penitential season in the slight self-denial that is required of you, strengthen your heart and purge your soul by the spiritual exercises of the Church, and then look up into the face of the Crucified, and see whether you can find any excuse for indifference.  Never did Christian man, as he stood upon Calvary and contemplated its spectacle, think of half measures.  Truly and wholly, in the church and in the world, in prosperity and adversity, “I am yours and yours only, My Lord and my God.”  May this be in all your hearts; and make the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  Amen.

Excerpts from Archbishop Polding's Pastoral Letter for 1860 as contained in the anthology The Eye of Faith.

------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

AMDG

Looking through the Eyes of Faith : 1

Thanks to the zeal of a previous generation of Church historians, a most important volume was published in 1977, to coincide with the centenary of the death of Archbishop Polding.  

This volume was The Eye of Faith : The Pastoral Letters of John Bede Polding.  Its editors had carefully collated all the Pastoral Letters which Polding had written to the Faithful of the Church in Australia, of which he was bishop, since 1835.  

It is a collection of great value.  

In two marvellous and inspiring essays at the beginning of the volume, the editors describe the significance of these Pastoral Letters.  These are some extracts from the first of those essays :

 

John Bede Polding’s Pastoral Letters are valuable historical documents. During middle forty years of the nineteenth century, Archbishop Polding wrote some seventy letters on a variety of subjects : education; the care of orphans; hospitals; capital punishment; salacious literature and censorship; world events,  including the Crimean war, the Indian mutiny; the papacy and the Papal States; floods and other very local events; politics, the responsibility of government, social harmony and the monarchy.  A number of them comment on questions which are attractive to present-day historians: aboriginals; family life and the role of women; the wider social life of colonial Australia, rather than its more narrow political expression. §

For the historian, the value of the Polding Letters is enhanced by the acuteness of their observations and comment.  Their author’s sensitivity to the nuances of colonial life - as well as to its obvious aspects - grew out of his belief that religion was a vitally involved with human activity, that each moment of time had an eschatological significance. §

Polding did not observe facts alone, but their implications for people in Australia. Each time he wrote he tried to draw his audience closer to God, to encourage upright human conduct and to counter evil, sin and the false ideologies which challenged God’s presence in Australia.  His letters present a consistently based view of the state of religion and of private and public morals in Australia throughout the crucial years of the nineteenth century. §

As historical documents, these letters present aspects of colonial life which are not often encountered in the writings of politicians, administrators and newspaper correspondents.  They have an underlying unity which derives from the known and consistent attitude of the author and which, in turn, is of assistance to those who are seeking a basis of comparison between one time and another during the forty years which they span. §

The Pastoral Letters of John Bede Polding are the footprints of the Australian Catholic Church’s first apostolic tradition and its best surviving expression.  They comprise a testament of the faith proposed for the Church’s belief; of the hope which sustained its faith and justified its discipline; and of the soul of its life of faith and hope, the doing of the truth in charity.   This deeper value, this bond of greater unity in Polding’s Letters is to be seen by those who read, not as students of one discipline or another, but with the eye of Faith. §

The Polding Pastorals are possibly Australia’s only (though by no means pure), example of a religious literature – and of an implied Christian culture – which was both markedly monastic in character and contemplatives in orientation.  They confronted the activism and unbelief which marked his day and do no less today.  ...

Polding  … and his writings suffer no embarrassment by being numbered with John Henry Newman and his works.

To be continued.

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

AMDG

NEW PORTRAIT OF ARCHBISHOP POLDING

On this beautiful Feast of the Annunciation, we are pleased to release this new portrait of Archbishop Polding.

This digital image has been prepared for a new printing of the memorial card of Archbishop Polding which has been in distribution since 2019. 

The new portrait, created by The Saint Bede Studio is a good likeness of the Archbishop and is based on a photograph taken of him around the year 1860 when he was in his mid-50s.  This image was prepared by digitally recreating the old photograph with careful attention to detail, whilst adding new features, such as the background.  This is not a click-of-a-button AI image.

The memorial card will continue to be distributed to Parishes in the Archdiocese of Sydney (and beyond) as we prepare for the Sesqui-centenary of the Archbishop's death in March 2027.

AMDG.

POPE LEO XIV

 This prayer was approved for publication by the Bishop of Maitland & Newcastle.

AMDG.