By Anthony Barich
PERTH’S controversial first Bishop is set to return to the Archdiocese he started, almost 140 years after he died in France.
Later this month, Archbishop Barry Hickey will travel to Amélie-les-Bains, a spa town nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees in south-west France which Bishop John Brady visited for health reasons, dying there in 1871.
There has been some conjecture over whether to bring back the remains of the Bishop whose conflict with Benedictine Bishop Joseph Serra led to Brady being relieved of all authority by Rome in 1851 and ordered to leave Perth, which he did in 1852. Serra was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Perth.
Despite his removal, Bishop Brady remained Bishop of Perth until his death.
Fr Robert Cross, the archaeologist who led the 2006 exhumation of Bishops Martin Griver and Matthew Gibney from the 1865 section of St Mary’s Cathedral, feels Christian charity demands Brady be given his rightful place in the Cathedral Crypt which lies directly under the sanctuary.
“There are always two sides to a story and what history relates is not always the facts,” Fr Cross said.
“What is fact, however, is that John Brady was the first Bishop of Perth and, accordingly, he should be given his rightful place with his successors.” Doubling as Archbishop Hickey’s executive assistant, Fr Cross will meet the Archbishop on 20 January in Barcelona near the Spain-France border before meeting the parish priest at Amélie-les-Bains and possibly the local Bishop with a view to requesting assistance for exhumation.
Fr Cross has already contacted the family of Bishop Brady, still living in Ireland, and received permission to transfer the remains.
The Archdiocese of Perth has also contacted funeral directors Bowra and O’Dea to deal with legal and practical issues involved in the exhumation and repatriation of the remains of Bishop Brady to the Cathedral Crypt.
Archbishops Redmond Prendiville, Launcelot Goody and William Foley are currently interred in the Cathedral Crypt together with Bishops Griver and Gibney, the latter the founder of The Record.
Spaces have been allocated for Bishop Brady and Archbishop Patrick Clune, who is currently interred at Karrakatta Cemetery. Whilst the Redemptorist Provincial and the surviving family members of Archbishop Clune are in favour of his remains being reinterred in the Cathedral Crypt, the North Perth Redemptorist community is still considering the matter.
On the day his predecessor Archbishops were interred at St Mary’s Crypt on 5 December 2009, Archbishop Hickey expressed his hope that Archbishop Clune and Bishop Brady would one day be reinterred in the Cathedral Crypt.
“If the exhumation of Bishop Brady goes ahead, I would like it to be conducted using archaeological methods as was the case for the other Bishops reinterred in St Mary’s Cathedral Crypt,” Fr Cross said.
“This may involve some of the team who assisted me in the Cathedral and Karrakatta exhumations going to Amelie-les-Bains.
“When bodies are exhumed without the supervision of an archaeologist, appropriate care isn’t given to ensure the retrieval of everything in terms not only of bodily remains but also artefacts associated with the body and burial.
“Eventually, I hope an archaeological report will be completed as an historical record of the whole exhumation and reinterment process.”
Bishop Brady, an Irish priest from County Cavan, left Perth still plagued by the financial troubles of his administration.
He had brought out over 40 missionaries from Europe but there were only about 300 relatively poor Catholics in the diocese at the time, so he had great difficulty financing and maintaining the missionaries.
He sent Fr Serra overseas to collect funds for the diocese. While Fr Serra was in Rome he was appointed Bishop of Port Essington, 300km north of Darwin.
When Brady got news of this appointment he was concerned Serra would use the funds he raised overseas for Port Essington, though there is no evidence that this was the case. So Brady sent another Benedictine, Fr Rosendo Salvado, to Rome to express Brady’s concern that the money Serra raised should go to the Diocese of Perth.
Brady asked Rome for an assistant Bishop to look after the temporal goods of his Diocese since, according to John Winship’s recently published book Our Cathedral, the financial worries were affecting him mentally and physically.
Rome changed Serra’s appointment to coadjutor Bishop of Perth with right of succession and power over the temporal goods of the Church in the Swan River Colony, and appointed Salvado the Bishop of Port Essington, as Britain had flagged its intention to establish a colony there.
However, Britain changed its mind, leaving Salvado, Brady and Serra as Bishops all residing in Perth. At first, Brady had an amicable relationship with Serra but it eventually turned sour as he refused to hand over legal control of the diocese.
Bishop John Brady never resigned as the Bishop of Perth despite leaving the Swan River Colony in 1852. Consequently, there was no resident Bishop of Perth from 1852-71.
Serra could not take on the title although he was the Apostolic Administrator, as was Bishop Griver up until the time Bishop Brady died in 1871.