By Eric Martin
Father Liam M Mackle OSM will be remembered as a passionate educator and a decisive man dedicated to the development of his students, both academically and spiritually, firstly as school principal at Servite College (Tuart Hill) during the 1970s and secondly, as a Catholic Chaplain at La Trobe (Bundoora) University.
Fr Liam returned to God on 24 October 2019.
The Mass to celebrate his life and achievements was held at St Denis Church, Joondanna Parish, on 31 October 2019, and was concelebrated by more than 20 priests from among the Archdiocese and the Servite Order.
Current Servite College Principal Jeff Allen paid tribute to Fr Liam.
“Fr Liam’s enormous contribution during the 1970s to the College was instrumental in establishing the flourishing coeducational Catholic school we celebrate today,” Mr Allen said.
“His vision to provide an inclusive education for all is very much in evidence within our flourishing school of today.”
He taught for many years at Servite College in Tuart Hill and in 1967 became the last of the friars to hold the position of Principal at the College, where his vision and innovation saw Servite College become the first co-educational Catholic school in WA in 1973.
Before that the school, opened by the Servites in 1958 with 95 students in two classrooms, was known as St Philip’s Regional High School for Boys and followed the traditional Catholic perspective on educating the young of each sex independently from the other.
The 1973 transition to co-ed under Fr Liam’s leadership was considered truly revolutionary at the time.
“Fr Liam was the embodiment of the Servite Spirit. He lived the Servite ideal to serve like Mary in a humble and unassuming way, but with an unrelenting concern for the growth of every person,” Mr Allen added.
“He will be sadly missed but fondly remembered for the positive impact that he had on the lives of many. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with Fr Liam’s family and of course the Servite Friars.”
According to his peers, Fr Liam’s capacity to support the needs of the students and families through genuine and heartfelt actions exemplified the Servite call to serve: he modelled what it meant to look after the needs of others in a decisive way.
As if predestined to become a Friar of the Servants of Mary (Servites), Liam Mackle was born on 15 September 1931 in Derrykeeran, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on the traditional feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the particular devotion of the medieval, mendicant Servite Order.
Ordained on 22 May 1958, Fr Liam was the third Servite of the Australian Delegation to move into St Philip’s Priory, Tuart Hill, in 1962, joining Fr Nolan and some seven other Servite Brothers to work in Wanneroo and the new and developing suburb of Osborne Park.
Fr Myles, who studied philosophy and theology with Fr Liam in Chicago, during the close of the 1950’s, recalled the first impressions of Perth common to both men when they arrived (Fr Myles in 1966 and Fr Liam in 1962).
“Coming here at 12 noon on a Saturday, we saw all these people walking home with slabs of beer on their shoulders because everything was closed, all the shops, for the rest of the weekend, which was unheard of back home,” Fr Myles shared.
“It was like everything was 10 years behind America.”
“What impressed us was people doing things: so involved in sports and all that. Coming from America, everyone had devolved into just watching but here, on the weekends along the Esplanade, there used to be so many sports.”
“One of the things that Liam got hooked up in was going out to parishes in the country to preach for missions, to raise money, not for our missions but for the Diocese,” Fr Chris, another fellow Servite brother recalled.
“At that time, the Diocese didn’t want the parish priest there to preach on the missions, they wanted someone else, who maybe had some experience (in missions), a different face. Liam was very much in the habit of doing that, so when I first came (1964) he was often times away on Saturday and Sunday: that was his delight, to go traveling out there.”
It was during this time (though unrelated to his Mission work) that Fr Liam was seriously injured in a car accident, one that he miraculously survived with full use of his limbs: traveling home from celebrating the morning Mass at Leederville, Fr Liam’s car was hit by another on Shakespeare St, breaking his neck.
“He knew his neck was broken and he said to the people who came rushing up to him, ‘Don’t touch me, my neck is broken,’” Fr Chris said.
“So they called the ambulance people and he said the same to them. He could have been a quadriplegic for the rest of his life.”
“When I visited him a few days later, he had this plate screwed into his head with these weights attached to it. And fortunately, the doctor who patched him up was one of the best surgeons for this kind of thing that you’d find anywhere in Australia.”
Needless to say, Fr Liam made a full recovery.
After retiring as Principal of Servite College, Fr Liam moved from Perth to the Australian Servite Delegation’s second priory in Parkville, Melbourne, where the order ran the Catholic chaplaincy for Latrobe University.
During this time Fr Liam furthered his own education by a Graduate Diploma in Applied Theology from GTU in Berkeley, California.
Yet in 2015, after 48 years of working with the students at the university, a decision was made (at the Servite’s General Assembly of October 2015) to end the delegation’s association with the chaplaincy and return it to the Archdiocese of Melbourne: the friars from Parkville (including Fr Liam) moved back to their original residence in Tuart Hill.
It was here that he showed the first signs of Alzheimer’s. Gradually his health and awareness declined and he was moved to the Little Sisters of the Poor and eventually to Hollywood Private Hospital.
“It was wonderful to see so many past students, teachers, friends and family members gather together to celebrate the life of Fr Liam,” Mr Allen said.
“We continue to keep them, along with our Servite Friars very much in our prayers. Fr Liam will always be remembered for the terrific impact that he had on the Order and of course on the College.”