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Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Australia to the Leaders, Staff, Students and Families of Catholic Education in Australia an Extraordinary Achievement Innovation

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Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Australia to the Leaders, Staff, Students and Families of Catholic Education in Australia an Extraordinary Achievement Innovation 200 Years Young A Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Australia to the leaders, staff, students and families of Catholic education in Australia An extraordinary achievement innovation. They have provided high- community. Many, too, have joined quality education to generations of ‘caring professions’ such as education Two hundred years ago the first official young Australians, now numbering in and healthcare, or a life-long religious Catholic school opened in Australia. their millions. They stand as a beacon vocation, as priests, sisters or brothers. in our society, for their contribution to Since then Catholic education the common good and to the nation’s The extraordinary success of Catholic has grown to the point that it now social capital. They have helped education did not occur by chance: educates around 770,000 primary nurture a more just, tolerant and it is fruit of the sacrifice of past and secondary school students, cohesive society. Catholic education generations and divine grace. We are in more than 1,750 schools, with is determined in its commitment to heirs to that rich legacy, borne out nearly 100,000 staff. These are excellence and equity. of sincere belief, inspiring vision and sponsored by dioceses and parishes, unwavering resolve. The bicentenary religious institutes and public juridic In this bicentenary year more than of Catholic education in Australia persons, and groups of parents. one in five Australian students attends invites us to remember the past with Six thousand Catholic catechists a Catholic school, and many others gratitude, be inspired by that story participate in the religious education a Catholic preschool, college or in the present, and look forward with of 200,000 children in government university. There are Catholic schools faith in the future. schools and parishes. Over the last in most towns and suburbs, and few years, hundreds of Church- university campuses in most capital sponsored early learning centres cities. The students come from diverse From humble beginnings in have been established, educating backgrounds and beliefs. They are 1820-21… many thousands of preschoolers. no longer all from poorer families, Around 50,000 tertiary students are as so many were in the first century For the first half century of now enrolled in our two Catholic and a half of Catholic education. colonisation, Catholics in Australia universities with their several Despite our continuing preferential were denied priests and sacraments, campuses. It is an extraordinary option for the poor and concern to be churches and church schools. They achievement! more accessible to First Australians, had to teach their children at home or refugees, those with disabilities or entrust them to schools and teachers Catholic schools are a jewel in the other disadvantage, our schools now mostly of other faiths. The early crown of the Catholic Church in boast children drawn from every part Governors promoted education to Australia, with few parallels in other of our society. Yet for all their diversity, safeguard ‘the rising generations’ from countries. Alongside families and they form a community with a common lives of lawlessness and to promote parishes they are the Church’s purpose and shared mission. As Christ social cohesion and stability. A pre- principal meeting point with young said that He had come “that they might eminent concern was that children people. They are integral to the have life, life to the full” (John 10:10), not develop the undesirable habits of Church’s mission of transmitting the we seek to draw out our students’ gifts, their convict forebears! Literacy and faith to the next generation. It is there address their challenges and enable other skills also promised to make that many young people encounter them to experience fullness of life. them more useful to the new society Christ, intensify their knowledge and that was emerging. Though there are love of God, and are formed as future Catholic schools have long held that gaps in the historical record, it seems contributors to Australian society. We education should be directed not that some Catholics also ran or taught hope all our students will emerge from just towards personal enrichment in little local schools, but these did not our schools with a deepened sense of for the individual student but survive. the sacred and greater appreciation of also to community contribution. the true, the good and the beautiful. Unsurprisingly, therefore, one of the A watershed moment for Catholic Catholic education is steadfast in great successes of Catholic education education in Australia came with the its commitment to evangelisation, has been how many of its graduates arrival in the colony of the first official catechesis, religious education and have gone on to put their character, Catholic chaplains, Philip Connolly spiritual and moral formation. skills and knowledge at the service and John Joseph Therry, in May of others: as civic leaders or judges, 1820. Theirs was the unenviable task Catholic schools are also a major leaders of industry, professions or of building up a Catholic community part of Australia’s educational trades, and in many other ways. Many whose members mostly lacked wealth, ecosystem. They are the equal of have gone on to be spouses and education or prospects – and so any other schools regarding educational parents, establishing their home as ‘a ecclesiastical infrastructure. Among Fr programs, student achievement, domestic church’, contributing to their Therry’s first decisions was to establish teacher professionalism, facilities and parish and volunteering in their local a school in Parramatta. This was the 2 200 Years Young: A Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Australia first ‘official’ Catholic school and it was Until large numbers of religious sisters gathered in Plenary Council in 1885 – already operational by January 1821, and brothers arrived on the scene in with three bishops from New Zealand with 31 pupils enrolled and Mr George Australia, it fell to Catholic laywomen and others – and they announced Morley (also identified as George and men to staff the small parish their common determination to give Marley) employed as their teacher. The schools, often in a single room, with families the choice of a Catholic school present St Patrick’s Primary School in boys and girls separated by a curtain. in the face of rising secularism and Parramatta and Parramatta Marist High Every week the space might then be enduring sectarianism. The clergy, School both claim descent from this cleared for Sunday Mass. Eventually religious and the lay faithful were first school. certified Catholic school teachers in equally resolute. After the Benedictine registered schools were paid modest monks (1833) and Sisters of Charity Interestingly, the school was not salaries by the colonial governments, (1838) came to Australia, they were exclusively for Catholic children. As and crown land was provided for soon joined by the Christian Brothers was the policy for the subsequent two some Anglican, Protestant and (1843), Sisters of Mercy (1846), Jesuit centuries, the first Catholic schools Catholic schools. But church schools Fathers (1848), Good Samaritan Sisters were open to all, even if those schools struggled to provide sufficient facilities (1857), Sisters of St Joseph (1866), were uncompromisingly Catholic and and teachers, and conditions only Presentation Sisters (1866), Dominican gave preference to parishioners. As the worsened as enrolments increased. Sisters (1867), Marist Brothers (1872), settlers spread through the continent, As secularism progressed in the Loreto Sisters (1875), Brigidine Sisters they brought with them their faith and Australian colonies, the mood was (1883), Patrician Brothers (1883), Our aspirations for Christian education increasingly against funding church Lady of the Sacred Heart Sisters (1885) – long before there was any talk of schools; instead the government and other congregations. These government schools and often before would provide education that was established, led or staffed most of the there were priests or religious. By ‘free, secular and compulsory’. As a Catholic schools with the help of lay 1839 there were 19 Catholic schools result of the Public Instruction Acts of staff. in New South Wales alone. Victoria’s the 1860s, ’70s and ’80s, the future of first official Catholic school opened Catholic schools in Australia was in When the Church in Australia recently at Port Phillip in 1839; Tasmania’s real doubt. celebrated the tenth anniversary of at Richmond in 1843; Queensland’s the canonisation of St Mary MacKillop, at Brisbane Town in 1845; Western The Catholic community bucked many commented that this great Australia’s at Swan River in 1846; and against this trend. Archbishop champion of Catholic education would South Australia’s at Penola in 1866. In Vaughan of Sydney was outspoken be well pleased with the scale and 1858 Archbishop Polding established in defence of Catholic education. reach of Catholic schooling in Australia the first Catholic university college, St Fourteen bishops, a vicar apostolic today. Despite the relative poverty John’s, in the University of Sydney. and an abbot from around Australia of most of its members, the Catholic 200 Years Young: A Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Australia 3 Catholic schools have educated a significant proportion of the nation’s young people, offering a distinctive vision and values, complementing the state systems, and enabling choice and diversity in
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