By Dr Peter Wilkinson
This is the third part of the seventh in the series of articles looking at the particular councils of the Catholic Church in Australia held between 1844 and 1937 by Peter J Wilkinson. It examines the background and factors leading to the Fourth Plenary Council of Australia & New Zealand held in Sydney from 4 to 12 September 1937, which brought all the particular churches of both nations for the second time.
After the Australian Plenary Council in 1905, only four particular (provincial and plenary) councils were convened in the English-speaking mission territories under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide (‘Propaganda’): the Provincial Councils of Tuam and Cashel in Ireland held in 1907, the Provincial Council of Melbourne in 1907, and the fourth Plenary Council of Australia and New Zealand in 1937.
Developments in church governance, 1905 to 1937
Fewer councils were held in the English-speaking mission territories in this period as Pope Pius X (1903 to 1914) had announced in his 1908 Constitution Sapienti Consilio that the hierarchies of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States were ‘established’ and the churches there were no longer considered “mission territories”. Australia and New Zealand, however, were to remain mission territories under the jurisdiction of Propaganda. The Church in Australia remained a “mission territory” until 1976. The Church in New Zealand is still (2019) a designated mission territory.
In 1911, Cardinal Patrick Moran died and was succeeded by his coadjutor, Archbishop Michael Kelly (1911 to 1940). Moran, who had convened three plenary councils in 1885, 1895 and 1905, had been Australia’s most powerful Catholic prelate, and for 27 years had functioned as the Holy See’s de facto apostolic delegate for Australia and New Zealand.
The 1905 Plenary Council had proposed that the Archdiocese of Sydney be made the ‘primatial’ see of the Catholic Church in Australia. However, the Holy See rejected the idea, with other plans in mind. It wanted an official apostolic delegate on the ground, to settle disputes and play an active role in the selection of bishops and, in 1914, Pius X established an Apostolic Delegation of Australasia with Archbishop Bonaventura Cerretti (1914 to 1917) the first appointment.
Pius X was succeeded by Benedict XV (1914 to 1922) who, in 1917, promulgated the new Code of Canon Law. He also issued the 1919 landmark Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud, setting a new course for missionary activity in the 20th century. Benedict wanted more indigenous or locally-born clergy and bishops in all mission territories, including Australia.
Cerretti was replaced by Archbishop Bartolomeo Catteneo (1917 to 1933), who saw his principal task as implementing the new Code of Canon Law throughout Australasia. Moran had ceased convening meetings of the metropolitan bishops in 1894, and plenary meetings of all the bishops in 1897. Cattaneo immediately convened three meetings of the Australian and New Zealand metropolitan bishops in 1918 and 1919, set their agendas and insisted on presiding at each. All were focused on a single question: which set of laws had precedence – those of the previous plenary councils or those of the Code of Canon Law? For Cattaneo the answer was clear – those of the Code. This view caused tensions, but Archbishop Kelly and his fellow bishops, rather than take a firm stand, hesitated and procrastinated, with serious consequences for the next Plenary Council.
Demographic and ecclesiastical developments, 1905 to 1937
In 1905, Catholics in Australia numbered 824,363 and constituted 20.4 per cent of the total population of 4,032,977. By 1937, though Catholics had increased by 53 per cent to 1,261,220, their growth had not kept pace with the general population and, as a result, their percentage of the 6,871,492 total had fallen to 18.4 per cent (Table 1).
By 1937, parishes (only designated as ‘parishes’ from 1928) had increased by 358 (+85 per cent), priest numbers had more than doubled to 1911 (+108 per cent), as had those of religious sisters (+112 per cent) and religious brothers (+118 per cent); there were 13 more seminaries (+325 per cent) and 478 more seminarians (+646 per cent); an additional 435 Catholic schools (+ 41 per cent), and 88,162 students enrolled (+83 per cent).
Seminary developments, 1905-1937
In 1905, St Patrick’s College, Manly, was the sole seminary in Australia preparing candidates for the diocesan priesthood. Operating since 1889, it was educating 54 seminarians from all dioceses (including those in New Zealand) and 71 candidates, mostly Australian-born, had been ordained. Several religious congregations also had formation houses in 1905: the Benedictines at New Norcia in WA (novitiate in 1904); the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in NSW (scholasticate in 1897, novitiate and apostolic school in 1904); the Passionists in NSW (novitiate in 1890) and SA (scholasticate in 1896); and the Jesuits in NSW (novitiate in 1890). The 1905 Council legislated to establish “a foreign missionary college” to train Australian priests for missions in the Philippines, China and Japan (Decree 18), and St Columba’s Seminary in Springwood was opened in 1910.
Archbishop Kelly convened two plenary meetings of the Australian bishops in 1912 and 1913, with two priority concerns: the “nationalisation” of the Manly seminary and obtaining annual reports on the progress of their own seminarians.
For the first concern, Melbourne’s Coadjutor Archbishop Daniel Mannix had a proposal: that Sydney’s Manly and Springwood seminaries be administered by the Bishops of Australia; that the Manly seminary become the Australian National Seminary with the Catholic Hierarchy of Australia as the Governing Board; that both properties be vested in Trustees nominated by the Sydney Archbishop; and that any profits be returned to the Board for seminary use. Most bishops favoured the proposal, but some senior Sydney priests baulked at the transfer of ownership and control of the assets.
In 1914, Australian-born Manly professor Terence McGuire criticised the bishops for continuing to prioritise the importation of overseas-born (mainly Irish) priests and claimed they were damaging an Australian priesthood. He called on them to rely on Australian-born priests and to establish an “Australian national seminary and Catholic University of United Australia”, possibly at Manly. Shortly after, the Manly alumni established the Manly Union with the aim of nationalising the Manly seminary and making it ‘the great ecclesiastical University of the Commonwealth’. They told the bishops that if they supported the Union and its aim, the priests would give their financial support and cooperation. But World War I intervened, and the issue was dropped.
The 1917, Code of Canon Law defined seminaries as “ecclesiastical corporations and non-collegiate moral persons, with the right to own and administer property for the purpose of training young men for the priesthood”. It wanted to keep young boys (adolescents) showing signs of a vocation from “the contagion of the world” (c. 1353), and emphasised the need for every diocese, or cluster of dioceses, to have a diocesan or inter-diocesan seminary, and preferably both a minor and major seminary (c. 1354).
Benedict XV’s Maximum Illud called for all missionary activity to break with the existing Eurocentric and colonialist mentality, move to a greater appreciation of cultural differences, and separate missionary activity from political alliances. The promotion of colonialism through religion had to cease, for the Catholic missionary is “an ambassador of Christ, not a messenger of his own nation”. He wanted the local churches to become independent of foreign missionaries and have their own indigenous (locally-born) priests and bishops.
Key to this was Benedict’s insistence on the formation of locally-born clergy who would “one day be able to take up the spiritual leadership of their people”. His successor, Pius XI (1922-1939), followed up with the appointment of numerous indigenous bishops in India (1923), China (1926), Japan (1927), Indochina (1937) and Africa (1937). In Australia, whereby 1919 only four Australian-born priests had been appointed bishops, and then only to the smallest rural dioceses, change was slow, as there was much resistance.
Benedict was also critical of mission churches producing local clergy of inferior quality, insufficient local priests for spiritual guidance, and few local bishops for governance. He abhorred feeble and faulty formation programmes and insisted on more and better seminaries to develop local clergy.
After WWI, discussions on Mannix’s 1913 proposals resumed, but soon floundered on a range of issues. The Holy See had offered the Australian bishops a building in Rome to serve as an Australian College (seminary), but they rejected it. By 1921, the bishops were deadlocked on the seminary issue and, unable to resolve it, they sought a decision from Rome. In 1922, Propaganda instructed them to set aside the ‘national seminary’ proposal, and for all the dioceses to ‘make provision for the establishment, as soon as possible, of provincial and diocesan seminaries’.
In 1923 a Victorian provincial seminary, Corpus Christi College, was opened at Werribee, and by 1937, three diocesan seminaries and 19 religious houses for clerical formation were operating, with a total of 552 major seminarians.
Selection of bishops, 1905-1937
The 1885 Plenary Council had legislated that the “senior priests” – understood as diocesan consultors and irremovable rectors – of each diocese had the right, whenever a new bishop or coadjutor bishop was required, to gather, consult, and propose the names of the best three candidates (ternus) and present them to the bishops of the province, who would then forward the ternus to the Holy See with their own comments or, if opposed to some names, add or substitute their own recommendations with their stated reasons. This process was only slightly amended by the 1895 Plenary Council.
Up to 1905 only one Australian-born priest, Patrick Dwyer, had been selected for Episcopal ordination. From 1905 to 1937 another ten were selected and ordained, the most significant being the new archbishop of Hobart, Justin Simonds. He had been the unanimous choice of the senior priests of Hobart and took office just four months before the 1937 Council.
Following Maximum Illud, the Holy See wanted more locally-born bishops in Australia. To achieve this, it appointed the tough and abrasive Archbishop Giovanni Panico (1935 to 1948) as Apostolic Delegate, who immediately set about diluting the influence of the six Irish archbishops, especially the powerful troika of Mannix (Melbourne), Duhig (Brisbane) and Killian (Adelaide). Panico executed his plan with three swift moves: Kelly’s long-standing coadjutor, Michael Sheehan, was ‘invited’ to resign and retire; Australian-born Bishop Norman Gilroy was appointed Kelly’s coadjutor with right of succession; and John Lonergan, Mannix’s vicar-general and trusted deputy, was appointed to the vacant see of Port Augusta. He died before episcopal ordination.
The Holy See also had a plan to radically change the system for selecting candidates for Episcopal appointment. In the 1937 Council’s schema, Propaganda had drafted legislation to: 1) further limit the number of priests to be consulted for the ternus, and then only ‘singly’ under a grave obligation to secrecy, before the 2-yearly meeting of the bishops; 2) allow the bishops to draw up names only every second year at their plenary meetings and not, as before, when a new bishop or coadjutor was needed; and 3) have all lists of names sent first to the Apostolic Delegate. The bishops were told that the changes were ‘the explicit mind of the Holy See’, and the sole concession they could get was to have the phrase: “the bishops will take care that … they will send to the Apostolic Delegate only the names of the most suitable candidates” inserted in the decree. It was a last ditch attempt to ensure that their terna might get preference over the terna of the Delegate.
Evangelisation of Aboriginal peoples, 1905-1937
The 1905 Plenary Council had received reports on the missions to the Aborigines in Beagle Bay (WA), New Norcia (WA) and the Northern Territory and had approved an offer from the New Norcia Benedictines to establish a priory in the Kimberley vicariate. It had also considered Geraldton Bishop Kelly’s request to be relieved of the administration of the Diocese of Victoria and Palmerston (NT), and repeated all the earlier decrees on Aboriginal evangelisation.
Up to 1937, very little direct effort had been made by the Irish bishops and priests to evangelise Australia’s indigenous peoples. The exceptions were Bishop Matthew Gibney and Fr John Creagh CSsR. Similarly, few Irish female religious congregations had established dedicated ministries to Australia’s indigenous peoples, with the notable exception of the Irish Sisters of St John of God in the Kimberley and the Irish Sisters of Mercy at Mackay (QLD).
By 1931, the Communist media were declaring Australia’s Aboriginees “an oppressed class”, and missionaries as ‘agents of colonial oppression’. They demanded the ‘liquidation of all missions and so-called homes for Aborigines, as these are part of the weapons being used to exterminate the Aboriginal race by segregating the sexes and sending the young girls into slavery’ (Workers’ Weekly, 24 September 1931).
Beagle Bay (WA) Pallotine mission
In 1905, the German Pallotine mission at Beagle Bay was in crisis. The superior lacked support from his congregational Brothers, and more Pallotines were desperately needed. A new superior removed the trouble-making Brothers in 1906 and gathered sufficient mission staff to retain the land lease.
In 1907, nine Irish Sisters of St John of God arrived at Beagle Bay and the WA Government began sending Aboriginal girls to the mission. By 1909, there were 94 girls in care. When five more sisters arrived, a convent was opened in Broome.
With the promulgation of the WA Aborigines Act, 1905, the Chief Protector became the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and half-caste child under 16 years of age, and the WA Government looked to the church missions to care for and educate the “removed” children of mixed-blood born to Aboriginal women who had been prostituted to lugger crews by their own tribesman.
Though financial and personnel problems persisted at Beagle Bay, the government adopted a more positive attitude and offered the Pallotines the Filipino/Aboriginal community of Lombardina, a government feeding station, which they accepted and staffed. An exceptional cyclone there in 1910 caused severe damage and took 40 lives.
In 1910, Bishop Kelly was relieved as Vicar Apostolic of the Kimberley and replaced by the Spanish Benedictine Abbot – and recently ordained bishop – Fulgentius Torres, who retained the position until his death in 1914.
With the mission’s continuing debts, the Pallotine superiors in Germany sought to withdraw from Beagle Bay in 1911, but no other religious order would take it over. A massive effort by one of the Pallotine priests turned the financial situation around and the WA Government now authorised more girls, mostly of mixed descent, to be sent to the mission. By 1913, the mission was caring for 84 girls (28 full-blood and 56 half-caste) and 36 boys (three full-blood and 33 half-caste), while another 11 children lived with their parents. No new Pallotines had arrived from Germany since 1904, and no more would arrive until 1925.
When war with Germany broke out in 1914 government officials became concerned that the German missionaries might be aiding the enemy. They were watched closely, security measures tightened, and all mail censored. The Superior, Fr Bishofs, was labelled a spy.
With a change of Chief Protector, fewer children were sent to the mission, government support was reduced, and surveillance increased. In 1914 the Irish Redemptorist priest, John Creagh, was appointed administrator of the Kimberley Vicariate, but not ordained a bishop. Creagh too was not trusted by the authorities, due to the 1914 Easter Uprising in Dublin. All the missionaries had movement restrictions imposed; Creagh returned to Perth in 1922.
Apostolic Delegate Cattaneo now recommended that the Kimberley Vicariate be entrusted to the Salesians of Don Bosco and divided into two mission fields, with the Salesians and Pallotines sharing the burden. The suggestion did not sit well with the Pallotines, whose heroic efforts to keep the mission alive and intact. However, the Italian Salesian, Ernesto Coppo, was appointed Vicar Apostolic of The Kimberley in 1922, ordained bishop, and arrived in 1923 with a multinational Salesian group of four priests and three brothers. He made his base in Broome, left the Pallotines in charge of the Beagle Bay and Lombardina missions, and opened a third (Salesian) mission at Carnarvon. His request to open a fourth mission at LaGrange was turned down. However, by the time more German Pallotines had arrived in 1925, the Salesians had vacated the Kimberley Vicariate. Most had moved to Melbourne and Brisbane to minister to the Italian immigrant communities there, and in 1927 Bishop Coppo resigned.
The Pallotines continued their ministry in the Vicariate and in 1927, when Fr Pűsken was appointed Protector of Aborigines, all government surveillance was lifted. An offer by the St John of God Sisters to care for lepers was, however, turned down.
The German Pallotine, Otto Raible, arrived as Apostolic Administrator in 1928, and when he was appointed Vicar Apostolic and ordained a bishop in 1935, the Pallotines finally had full authority.
Though the Pallotine mission continued to struggle financially, Raible expanded the Pallotine’s activity into anthropology and ethnology, acquired a second cattle station lease at Rockhole, and purchased a farm at Tardun in the southern wheatbelt which, cultivated by the Pallotines, became a productive asset. Another 11 Pallotines arrived from Germany between 1930 and 1934 and in 1935, Raible received episcopal ordination in Europe. On his return he brought an expert in tropical medicine and extra staff to establish a missionary training college in Melbourne.
By 1934, leprosy had become a major problem in the Kimberley, as had police brutality and the chaining and massacre of Aboriginals. In 1935, a massive cyclone claimed 141 lives in the Broome district, which almost destroyed the Beagle Bay mission buildings. They were still being rebuilt when Bishop Raible travelled to Sydney for the 1937 Plenary Council.
Acknowledgment: In preparing this article many primary and secondary sources were consulted. However, special acknowledgment is given to the original research of Dr Ian B Waters published in his article “The Fourth Plenary Council of Australia & New Zealand“ in Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, Vol 38 (2006) No 2, pp. 451-466.
*This article was originally published in The Swag, quarterly magazine of the National Council of Priests of Australia Inc – Autumn 2020. Reprinted with permission.