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Fr Therry: a Pioneer Priest for Australian Catholics and Jesuit Schools

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Fr Therry: a Pioneer Priest for Australian Catholics and Jesuit Schools Fr Therry: a pioneer priest for Australian Catholics and Jesuit schools For many years, there was no official priest in Australia, and it was the laity, especially convicts, who nurtured the Catholic faith. There were some priests, such as Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn, who performed baptisms and marriages and celebrated Mass in private homes without government sanction. When this was discovered in 1818, Governor Macquarie ordered him to leave the colony. In May 1820, the first official Catholic chaplains Philip Connolly and John Joseph Therry were permitted to work. Fr Therry at the age of 30 was missioned to Sydney. From 1821-1826 he was the only priest on the Australian mainland. Assigned for four years, he stayed for forty-four years until his death in Balmain in 1864. Australia underwent enormous change during those years. Fr Therry was energetic and tended to the needs of those who had previously been denied pastoral care. Though respectful of the British colonial authority, he advocated for the rights of a Catholic priest to minister to the people. Over the years he won Governor Macquarie’s trust and the support of Commissioner Bigge. Governor Darling worked to keep him and Governor Bourke supported the principle of religious equality in the colony. In 1833 Governor Bourke granted Fr Therry 1,200 acres of land in the northern beaches of Sydney. Fr Therry worked to develop schools and parishes in Sydney, Parramatta, and the outlying townships. He also ministered in hospitals and gaols. He established a school in Parramatta in 1821 commencing with 31 pupils. The present St Patrick’s Primary School in Parramatta and Parramatta Marist High claim their heritage from this school. Fr Therry ministered to convicts and settlers throughout Wollongong, Campbelltown, Goulburn, Queanbeyan, Maitland, Bathurst and Newcastle. In his various ministries, he formed an attachment with and affection for Aboriginal people. As the population grew, the first Catholic bishop of Sydney, Bishop John Bede Polding, an English Benedictine, was sent to Australia in 1835. This was a struggle for many of the early Sydney Catholics who were of Irish descent, and there were some tensions between him and Fr Therry. In 1838 Bishop Polding missioned Fr Therry to Van Diemen's Land as Vicar-General. Later Fr Therry served in parishes in Melbourne. He considered a mission to New Zealand, and in 1860 petitioned Governor Denison to put an end to the Maori wars. Some years before his death, he returned to Sydney. His funeral was said to be the largest in Sydney to that date. His remains are interred in the crypt of St Mary's Cathedral. Fr Therry was a friend to Caroline Chisholm. He was a person of deep faith, extraordinary stamina and life-giving enthusiasm. He was a wonderful pastor who understood human frailty which was so necessary, given that many of the people he accompanied were either convicts or had been emancipated. Fr Therry played a significant role in the establishment of the Jesuit schools in Australia. He willed his estate to the Irish Jesuits for the purpose of founding schools in the colony. His estate included 4,000 acres in holdings, including a coal mine in Pittwater and grazing land in Bowral. Within a year of his death, two Irish Jesuits, Fr Joseph Lentaigne SJ and Fr William Kelly SJ arrived in Victoria in 1865. They took responsibility for St Patrick’s College in Melbourne. When Fr Joseph Dalton SJ arrived, he set about founding Xavier College which opened in 1878. Archbishop Polding was concerned about the Irish Jesuits ministering in Sydney, so we had to wait until his successor, Archbishop Vaughan, invited us to come to Sydney in 1879, leading to the establishment of St Aloysius’ College in 1879 and Saint Ignatius’ Riverview in 1880. The Jesuits were entrusted with the care of the North Sydney Parish which extended from the Harbour to the Hawkesbury at that time. These extraordinary foundations were made possible because of the bequest of Fr John Joseph Therry. .
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