By Clement Mulcahy, Past President, Royal Western Australian Historical Society
Martin Griver Unearthed: The life of a Spanish missionary priest who became a bishop in colonial Western Australia,1814-1886 by Odhran O’Brien
Commissioned by the Archdiocese of Perth, the book is a significant work that places the story of the Spanish missionary within the context of the ecclesiastical tensions and colonial isolation experienced by the pioneer clergy and the laity of the Swan River colony.
The study has an international setting too, with the overview from Rome, the recruiting of men and women from Spain, Italy and Ireland, funding from Spain and the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, as well as concern from Sydney’s Archbishop Polding whose remit included the western outpost of the continent.
Published by St Paul’s Publication – Society of St Paul, Strathfield, NSW, and printed in China, the standards achieved in this 284-page, illustrated volume, complete with a comprehensive bibliography, index, list of contents, appendices, tables and maps, reflects well upon both the author and the publisher.
These sources are of particular relevance as the biography will attract international students of Church history and missiology, as well as a national readership, while many Western Australians would not be familiar with the intense Spanish and European connections with the Church locally.
The title of the book provides a link between the pioneer missionary labouring in the antipodes and a time of social and political change in Europe.
At first glance, the title might imply that the settlement experienced the benefit of an exceptionally long bishopric, 1814-1886, and the calm that could have been established.
Instead, Griver was caught up in the maelstrom of schism, canonical injunctions, a divided community and alienated monks and nuns.
The arresting photograph of Martin Griver on the dust cover gives a sense of the man’s serenity which countered the stress and challenges outlined so well by his biographer, Odhran O’Brien.
The title also provides a hint of the forensic spirit that seems to have driven much of the sophisticated research that marks this biography which opens, unusually, with the exhumation of the central figure.
Professor Rafferty’s foreword gives a strong sense of the main thrust of the research, analysis and interpretation provided by the author in this study of “a reluctant bishop who nevertheless left a significant imprint in the history of Australian Catholicism”.
Odhran O’Brien has brought his material together in a compelling narrative which enables the reader to meet both the man and the bishop, the women who were the nuns, the Spanish monks who laboured at Subiaco or New Norcia and those who had been appointed priests or bishops.
This has been far preferable to offering the reader an analysis of the canonical disputes, the institutional diocese, convent, and parish, without the regard for the human frailties, strengths or social attitudes relevant to the times that permeates the pages.
The authoritarianism unacceptable now, that permeated the Catholic hierarchy both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is placed in context.
The pressure for adaptation to better meet the needs of Australian conditions faced by local bishops is well examined by the author.
The absorbing narrative noted by Professor Rafferty loses none of its pace in meeting this test. Archival material is used very effectively and author research disinterred a number of documents pivotal to a more complete understanding of Martin Griver.