History of the Catholic Church in Australia
Background
Rumors of a great southern land have existed since ancient times. Even Greek and Roman writers hint of it. Marco Polo, that famous traveler from watery Venice, came back to Europe from China with tales that the Chinese Imperial fleet had sighted such a land mass at the bottom of the Asian Continent.
On December 8th, 1605, the Spanish explorer De Quiros set out into the world with the mandate of king and pope to extend God’s kingdom on earth with a voyage of discovery in the southern seas. On Pentecost Sunday 1606, he saw what he believed to be the fabled Great Southern Land. Though he did not land there, he named it “Tierra Austral de Espiritu Santo.” The first historian of Australian Catholicism, Patrick Francis Cardinal Moran, accepted what he believed to be a just translation: “Australia of the Holy Ghost.” This early Spanish designation was remembered by the British navigator Captain Matthew Flinders and by his exertions the name Australia gradually replaced the Dutch name of New Holland, which they had given to the whole Continent based on their discoveries on the West Coast.
Captain James Cook, on his scientific voyage of 1770, sighted Australia on April 19th. He landed in what was to be called Botany Bay (due to the beauty and variety of its plant life) on the 28th. His report to the Admiralty made the point that this place was suitable for colonization.
Many years passed and the initial interest by the Imperial Government was forgotten amidst the turmoil of wars and domestic strife.
The American Revolution and the subsequent Declaration of Independence from Great Britain meant that England no longer had a penal colony to which to send her many criminals. Botany Bay [Sydney] replaced British America as a penal colony and place of deportation.
In January 1788 ten ships under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay. They found it not so pleasant as Cook had described and sought another place to establish the Colony. They found to the north a vast and deep harbor, which could easily receive a thousand ships. This they called Port Jackson. The new settlement, which began on January 26, 1788 with the unfurling of the Union Jack with all available military display, was called Sydney, named for Viscount Sydney, the Secretary of the Royal Admiralty, under whose orders Captain, now Governor Phillip, toiled.
The Australian Experiment Had Begun
One thousand and thirty souls, of whom 696 were convicts, were the foundation of British Australia. It is estimated that one in ten of all convicts were Catholic, half of them born in Ireland. So the first Australian Catholics were lay people. There were no priests among the First Fleeters because Lord Sydney had refused the request of two priests who offered to travel with the convicts and minister to the Catholics among them.
But subsequent Catholic convicts, at least the ones who boarded the ships in Cork, were somewhat spiritually prepared for their plight. The Cork clergy heard the confessions of those being transported and provided them with Rosary beads and prayerbooks. The Naval Surgeon Peter Cunningham, who made five trips to Sydney with convict ships, wrote that the only real signs of religion he saw among the convicts were the Catholics “counting their beads and fervently crossing themselves and repeating their prayers from the book.” Even years later when Mass and sacerdotal ministrations were freely available, Australian Catholics were much attached to their Rosaries and prayerbooks, used not just at home but also when hearing Mass.
The Founding of Australia by Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N., Sydney Cove, Jan. 26, 1788—Artist: Algernon Talmage.
So the Australian Church began as a lay Church—not that the Catholics did not desire a priest. As early as 1792, five Catholics—Thomas Tynan, a marine settler, Mary MacDonald, a marine settler’s wife, and three emancipated convicts, Simon Burne, Joseph Morley, and John Brown, petitioned Governor Phillip to ask the Home Government to send out a priest. They wrote in their petition “Nothing else could induce us ever to depart from His Majesty’s colony here unless the idea of going into eternity without the assistance of a Catholick priest.” Their request was not successful. But the desire and longing of these early Catholics for a priest was a constant. It may have been a lay Church, but it was not an anti-clerical one.
It was many years before a priest reached these shores and even then it was not as a priest he came, but as a convict. This is Irishman Father James Harold’s story:
Fr. Harold, ordained in 1774, was a parish priest in the archdiocese of Dublin. By all accounts he was indefatigable in the performance of the sacred duties of his ministry.
In the summer months of 1798, there was a rebellion against the British Government in many parts of Ireland. Fr. Harold did not take part in this uprising. Indeed on the Sunday preceding the outbreak of the rebellion, he preached two impressive sermons in which he urged forbearance and peace and that his flock should shun all discord and disorder.
But because he later rebuked certain persons whose cruelty and barbarity to the ordinary people caught up in the troubles was interpreted as a challenge to the Authority, a military order was issued for his arrest. A Protestant friend hid him for a time but when he ventured out to say Mass for his flock he was arrested at the Altar. The arresting officer upon request allowed him to complete the Holy Sacrifice.
Fr. Harold spent several months in jail. The terrible conditions included filthy living spaces and cruel treatment. A Father Barry also in that jail for reasons of sedition died before he could be transported. Without further trial Father James Harold was shipped on board the Minerva bound for Botany Bay. One of his traveling companions was a certain Reverend Fulton, a Protestant minister also accused of rebellion. They arrived in Port Jackson on January the 11th. The convict priest set foot in Sydney two days later, the 13th of January. The year was 1800. The Colony was 12 years old and Fr. Harold was to remain in Australia for ten years.
The aforementioned Reverend Mr. Fulton was on arrival, despite his convict status, allowed to publicly exercise his Protestant ministry. The Catholic convicts hoped Fr. Harold would be granted the same indulgence. But their requests for the consolations of religion to be granted them through Fr. Harold were refused.
Every Sunday all marines and convicts marched to and attended the Anglican Service. In the early days under Governor Phillip, a first refusal resulted in 25 lashes on Monday morning. A second refusal to this enforced attendance received 50 lashes. And a third non-compliance caused the miscreant to be transported to a worse and harsher penal settlement.
Governor MacQuarie first came to Sydney in 1810 and issued regulations for compulsory attendance of all government servants and convicts. In 1814 he softened the punishment somewhat to a reprimand for the first offense and an hour in the stock for any further refusals to attend the Church of England Divine Service.
MacQuarie was a “man of the Enlightenment” and a convinced liberal of the 18th century, so eventually he disapproved his earlier directives. But even then, many Magistrates continued to sentence Catholic servants or convicts to punishment when they declined to attend the Protestant Service.
Let us return to Fr. James Harold. The refusal to allow him to exercise his priesthood must have come as a great sorrow to him, because in letters to his nephew, a Dominican in Lisbon, Fr. James attested that he saw the hand of Providence in his transportation to Botany Bay. Though innocent of any crime, he not only forgave his persecutors, but also hoped that his presence in Sydney would provide the Catholics, free and convict, with God’s graces.
A few months after his arrival rumors started to spread that the Irish convicts were planning an uprising. In fact this conspiracy was never proven, and it is likely that the whisperings of the fancied plot were started by officers, who sought thereby to enhance their own prestige and heap obloquy on the Catholic convicts. Fr. Harold was accused of knowing of the supposed rebellion. He denied any knowledge of the matter. His denial was construed as a refusal to name the plotters. He was put under arrest.
Soon Fr. Harold and other accused men were transferred to the penal settlement in Toongabbie, a location far from Sydney. While there, he was forced not only to witness but to take an active part in the barbaric scene of a lashing.
A certain Maurice Fitzgerald was sentenced to 300 lashes whilst tied to a tree. Fr. Harold was forced to hold his hands over those of the poor convict. And so throughout the lashing, which was executed with great cruelty, Fr. Harold received on his person the blood and skin which was flayed from Fitzgerald.
Not long after this event, many men including our priest were again transferred, this time to the notorious Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island is located more than 1,400 kilometers east of the Australian mainland. It served as a penal settlement for the worst criminals from 1788 until it was abandoned in February 1814.
Political prisoners, like Fr. Harold, were housed alongside truly terrible men of the lowest morals and vicious behavior. One contemporary witness says of it: “a barbarous island, the dwelling place of devils in the human shape, who were the refuse of Botany Bay, the doubly-damned.” The head jailer, one Robert Jones (also known as Bob Buckley) was a violent robber who, with his father and brothers, had committed many crimes. He betrayed his family for a financial reward and they were hanged. He came as a convict to Sydney and managed to have himself appointed to be superintendent of Norfolk penal colony. Under such a man one can imagine the shocking treatment inflicted on the convicts.
But Fr. Harold had some consolations while on Norfolk. The Lieutenant-Governor allowed him to open a little school for the few children of the officers and staff. Sadly his increasing bad health forced him to end this pleasant occupation. For several months Fr. James was very ill and spent a long time in the hospital. In a letter to a relative he attributed this illness to the harsh conditions under which he lived. After leaving hospital he was allowed to live with a Government employee named John Drummond. Fr. Harold in the aforementioned letter describes this man as “a poor, honest, industrious, moral man (a great rarity in this island).”
But the most consoling experience was, for a time, the presence of Fr. Peter O’Neil. Fr. O’Neil was also a convict. We tell his story a little later. For Fr. James Harold, a fellow priest was on the spiritual side a marvelous grace. But even on the natural plane came help as Fr. O’Neil had some money with him and was able to help Father James with some of the necessities of life.
After the departure of Fr. O’Neil, Fr. Harold was himself, in 1807, transferred again. This time to the penal settlement on the Derwent River in Van Diemen’s Land (since 1856 now called Tasmania).
He only stayed a short time on the Derwent and returned to Sydney in 1808.
Throughout his time in the colony Fr. Harold persisted in asking for permission to minister to his fellow religionists, but always the request was denied. Although there is no documentary evidence that he administered any Sacraments let alone offered Holy Mass, it is hard to imagine a priest not doing what he could to assist souls, especially the dying. The Australian Dictionary of Biography claims he did exercise a private ministry in Parramatta during 1808.
Fr. James Harold was now in his mid-sixties and was suffering from very bad health, a man broken both in body and mind from all the harsh treatment and deprivations.
In June 1810, the government, wearied of his presence and relentless pleas to perform priestly duties granted him leave to quit the Colony, which he did so in July on board the Concorde. After spending two years in the United States, he returned to Ireland before the close of 1813.
Fr. James Harold died on the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady into Heaven, 1830 at the age of 85 years. He was laid to rest in Old Richmond Cemetery, Dublin. Requiescat in pace.
The Reverend James Dixon
The second convict priest was Fr. James Dixon. He was accused of involvement in the uprising of 1798 by way of commanding a company of rebels. In fact, this meek and gentle man had no involvement with the rebellion, and his accusers, if they had any honesty, at best had confused him with a secular namesake. Some members of his family were indeed rebels, and this may have encouraged some to tar Fr. Dixon with the same brush. In any event he was completely innocent of all charges made against him.
Despite some attempts by both ecclesiastical and civil authorities to come to his defense, Fr. Dixon was tried at Waterford, found guilty and sentenced to death, which was commuted to transportation to Botany Bay. He arrived in Port Jackson on the transport ship Friendship on January 18th, 1800.
The government in London had received many petitions asking that Catholics in Sydney should be given spiritual help by ministers of their own religion. The Colonial Office bowed to these requests and directed that the Catholics in the colony should be allowed access to the ministrations of a priest. The Governor chose Fr. Dixon and granted him partial emancipation and appointed him to this work. The Governor even determined to grant a salary of 60 pounds to Fr. Dixon.
There were to be three “Mass Centers”—in Sydney, Parramatta, and Hawkesbury. A rotation of three weeks was initiated, but only residents could attend any one place. Other restrictions prevailed, but at least the poor believers could finally assist at the Holy Sacrifice.
A tin Chalice and Paten were made. A damask curtain was transformed into vestments. The first Mass was celebrated in Sydney on May 15th, 1803, followed the next Sunday by one in Parramatta and on May 29th at Hawkesbury. Marriages and Baptisms were also celebrated.
The Holy See, being made aware of this development, by a special decree appointed Fr. Dixon as Prefect Apostolic of New Holland. This was the first ecclesiastical appointment for the Australian Church and therefore Father James, the quiet and mild priest from County Wexford, was its first Hierarch.
The Governor in March of 1804 wrote a report extolling the good effect on the Irish convicts at having access to a priest.
Sadly, wicked men, out of hatred for the Church of God, soon circulated rumors that the Masses were being used to plot sedition. Fr. Dixon was accused of fomenting this plot or at least knowing of it, perhaps through Confession. He denied all knowledge. Thirty men were flogged and the poor priest was required to touch the bleeding backs of the victims.
Permission for Mass was revoked and by the end of 1804 all in the Colony were forced to attend the Protestant Service under pain of the lash or transportation to a penal settlement.
Evidence of Baptisms and Marriages show that Fr. James continued to exercise his ministry privately and no doubt with great caution, but the public face of Catholicism faded from view.
Fr. James Dixon eventually secured a permission to return to Ireland, which he did in 1808 and continued working in the Diocese of Ferns until his death in 1840 at the age of 82. Requiescat in pace.
Stained glass window commemorating Fr. James Dixon celebrating the first Mass in Australia [May 15, 1803], in the kitchen of a cottage. A lookout stands guard at the door.
The Reverend Peter O’Neil
The third and final convict priest to arrive in Sydney was Fr. Peter O’Neil. He was the parish priest of Ballymacode in County Cork at the time of his arrest. Governor King described him as “a Catholic priest of most notorious seditious and rebellious principles.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Fr. O’Neil landed in Australia on the 21st of February, 1801 and was almost immediately transferred to Norfolk Island, where he befriended Fr. James Harold and gave some comfort to that lonely man. Fr. Harold was to spend 10 years in the Colony, Father Dixon eight years and Father O’Neil only two years.
This priest was a great scholar. He was fluent in several languages including Irish (Gaelic or Celtic). He was also a popular speaker and zealous parish priest. He was an energetic builder of churches. He was a friend to the poor, whom he supported often from his own pocket. A man of humor and gentlemanly bearing, he was liked and respected by all who knew him. And yet he became a convict.
Port Arthur, Tasmania, one of the 11 penal sites constituting the Australian Convict Sites.
Like Fathers Harold and Dixon, he was falsely accused of sedition in the Uprising of 1798. In this case it was even worse, as Fr. O’Neil was blamed of conspiracy in the murder of a Government informer who had posed as a rebel.
Without trial, Fr. O’Neil received 275 lashes administered by six soldiers. A second flogging was stopped by a British official shocked by the lawlessness of the action against the priest. The jailers by threats and promises tried to bully him into a false confession, but he refused to perjure himself.
He was placed on a transport ship and it set sail for Sydney before an order from Lord Cornwallis, Viceroy of Ireland, arrived ordering him removed from the ship.
On board ship, Fr. O’Neil helped quell a mutiny for which the captain and officers were grateful and thereafter treated him with kindness. The Captain allowed him to say Mass in Rio de Janeiro and secure Holy Oils for what he hoped would be his missionary activity in Sydney. Whilst on board ship, Fr. Peter led the Rosary and other devotions. The captain maintained that the recitation of the Rosary by the Catholics saved the ship in a terrible storm.
Meanwhile back in Ireland the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Harwick, after having received a representation for Fr. O’Neil’s release on the ground of his innocence and the unlawful procedures against him, ordered him freed. This decree finally reached the Colony and he was able to return to Ireland a free man.
Fr. O’Neil, a man of culture and erudition, took the Government to task over his brutal treatment and denial of justice. He wrote a treatise entitled “The Humble Remonstrance,” which described in great detail all that had happened to him. There was a public backlash and protest as a result of the revelations contained therein. The Government in response acknowledged the lack of trial and lashes he received but tried to minimize the outrage against him with an appeal to the extraordinary circumstances of an insurgency.
Fr. Peter O’Neil, a tall and athletic man, served in the Lord’s vineyard for many more years after his return to Ireland. He collapsed on the way to the altar on June 29, 1846 and having been fortified by the last sacraments, died the next day at the age of 88 years. Requiescat in pace.
Conclusion
The next priest to arrive in the Colony was Fr. Jeremiah Francis Flynn on November 14th, 1817. He was not a convict but came of his own accord to serve the Catholics who were without a priest. As he came without the permission of the Colonial Office he was soon returned to Britain but not before he administered many Sacraments and offered Holy Mass. This priest of whom Cardinal Moran says, “was remarkable for his piety and devotedness, with a deep love of the people and a zeal for them,” before his forced departure left the Blessed Sacrament in the home of a pious man in Sydney quite near where the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge now stands.
In May of 1820, Fathers Philip Conolly and John Joseph Therry arrived in Sydney. They were authorized by both Church and State to minister to the Catholics of the Colony and a new chapter began in the history of the Catholic Church in the Southern Land of the Holy Spirit.
The foundation stone for the first St. Mary’s in Sydney was laid on October 29, 1821 by Governor Macquarie. It was a simple cruciform stone structure in the Gothic style. On June 29, 1865, the church caught fire and was destroyed.
The present St. Mary’s Cathedral was built between 1866 and 1928. The spires were added in 2000.
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