As you get older, some aspects of the past can take on a rosy glint. It can be a very great temptation to believe that things were decidedly much better when we were younger.
A recent letter to the editor in The West Australian provided me with something to ponder.
The correspondent wrote that the social cohesion of Perth was stronger and we were more positive and safe before the 1980s when the population of the metropolitan area was under one million. The writer quoted from a study that was demonstrating that once a population crosses the million threshold, a society becomes less cohesive and begins to show the early signs of fragmentation.
I would need to see more research on this subject to be convinced by this thesis. Yet, there are always grains of truth in these sorts of observations.
When I look back over my 60 or so years as a member of the Church of Perth, I can see many changes.
As a boy, I began school at St Columba’s School in Bayswater. All but one teacher were Religious Sisters – the children were mostly Anglo-Saxon-Irish. Although the children mixed well and played together on weekends and afterschool, we had a sense that we were different in some way as we walked to our separate schools. We were careful to walk on the side of the street that the Catholic children used, and the children who attended the government school walked together on the other side. We must have picked up on the differences from our families.
When we went to Mass on Sundays, you knew who was missing, and maybe this was one of the strongest reasons for going to Mass! The parish was the centre of our community with the usual rounds of working bees, dances and social fundraisers. Every asset of the parish and school came from the contributions of the parishioners. Consequently, there was a mighty sense of ownership and pride in the community’s achievements.
The Parish Priest was loved and feared, respected and tolerated, in all sorts of combinations of these views. We were fortunate that in Bayswater we had a priest, Fr John Russell, who was widely known and very visible, who visited every home each year on the pretext of handing “the envelopes” personally to the families for the continual support of the parish. He got to know each couple and every child. This was his prime pastoral ministry: to get to know his parishioners.
He was immensely grateful to the Sisters of Mercy, who agreed to take over the school when it looked like it would not survive. The parish had very little resources and it was a struggle to keep the school going. So thankful was Fr John that he would drive to Bassendean early each morning to collect the Sisters and when their school day was over, he would take them home in the late afternoon. He did this for many years.
My respect for Fr John grew enormously when many years later I heard this story. Bayswater was not able to support its priest and Archbishop Prendiville was finding it impossible to decide whether the parish should be given one. Fr John learnt of this and suggested to the Archbishop that he be appointed to Bayswater. The Archbishop was convinced by Fr John’s promise that for as long as it was required, his family’s business would provide a stipend to him, alleviating the burden on the small community.
I was 10 when my family moved to Morley Parish. It was there that I came to know the Carmelite Fathers. It was a larger parish and made up mostly by young families, but the feel of the community was very similar to Bayswater.
Things were beginning to change. There was more involvement of the parishioners as the renewed rites of the liturgy were being introduced. A Parish Council began to be formed, along with some committees. The pastoral ministry was being shared among the people of the community; the parish grew so that hundreds of people participated. The original parishioners continued to develop their bonds of friendship but as time went on many newcomers were strangers to one another.
The increase in migration to Australia from Asia brought new life to Morley and most other parishes in the Archdiocese. There was to be a revival in the valuing of community, which carries on to today, where so much attention is being given to the building of Christian community.
Bayswater and Morley were to be my earliest experiences of the church and I value their place in my story. I wish that more of the stories of ours can be collected so that later generations can appreciate the history and amazing work that has been achieved in our Archdiocese.
From pages 6 to 7 of Issue 22: ‘The Church in Perth’ of The Record Magazine