A BRIDGE BETWEEN SPANISH BENEDICTINE MISSIONARY WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA A BRIDGE BETWEEN SPANISH BENEDICTINE MISSIONARY WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA KATHARINE MASSAM Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760463519 ISBN (online): 9781760463526 WorldCat (print): 1200780874 WorldCat (online): 1200780878 DOI: 10.22459/BB.2020 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode The ANU.Lives Series in Biography is an initiative of the National Centre of Biography at The Australian National University, ncb.anu.edu.au. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph: Benedictine Oblate Sisters of New Norcia, early 1931, NNA W6-B3-4-108. This edition © 2020 ANU Press Contents Foreword . vii Sr Veronica Therese Willaway OSB Acknowledgements . ix Illustrations . xiii 1 . To Name and to Remember: The Reunion of 2001 . 1 2 . The Company of St Teresa of Jesus at New Norcia, 1904–10 . 35 3 . Benedictine Oblates: Outsiders in Community . 73 4 . St Joseph’s Native School and Orphanage: Workers at the Edge of the Town . 105 5 . Agencia Benedictina: Burgos, Belgium and the Kimberley . 131 6 . Monastic and Missionary Sisters: ‘Their Currency and Savings Were the Work’ . 165 7 . Gathering New Energy: Abbot Catalan Recruiting in Spain, 1947–48 . 211 8 . Triggering the ‘Second Part’: Old School Patterns, a New Bindoon Community and Visiting the Villages Again . 239 9 . Winding Together: ‘The Grace of God Is Not Tied to Any Colour, Race or Nationality’ . 257 10 . Spinning Apart . 309 Bibliography . 357 Appendix 1: Numbers at a Glance . 383 Appendix 2: Benedictine Missionary Sisters of New Norcia . 387 Foreword Sr Veronica Therese Willaway OSB I am very honoured to be writing this foreword to welcome you to read this important book by Katharine Massam about the Spanish Benedictine Missionary Sisters of New Norcia. This book is much more than words to me. It holds a significant part of my youth and history. I was one of the girls who lived with and was educated by the Benedictine Sisters, and at 14 years of age I entered the Congregation. Monastic and missionary life was not easy. It was a shock to my Aboriginal existence to overnight change my life and leave my peers behind to become a religious Sister. After some time, I came to realise how dedicated these Sisters were to their religious life and vocation to be missionaries working with Aboriginal people. Some people will find that hard to believe. I know New Norcia was also a place of suffering, and I know Katharine understands that too. Walking together and listening has made this book possible. These values run deep for me. I am an Aboriginal person of the Yued and Whadjuk peoples of the Noongar Nation from the southwest of Western Australia. I am also a Benedictine Missionary Sister and have been a nun for over 60 years. The Yued traditional lands include the region where New Norcia is located. New Norcia is my family’s cultural and spiritual home. My ancestors have had a close connection with New Norcia since not long after the Aboriginal mission was established there. This includes my great- grandmother Eliza Willaway (née Tainan). She was one of the Aboriginal women replaced in her role as matron of the mission when the first Spanish nuns arrived. She is included in this book too. My family is very proud of our long association with New Norcia and the Benedictine community there. Following the closure of the mission at New Norcia in 1974, my Congregation returned to live in Spain. I went with them and stayed vii A BRIDGE BETWEEN there for three years before coming back to Australia. In the last 25 years I have been based in a Benedictine Missionary Sisters Congregation in Nebraska, USA. Katharine is very well placed to write this book about the Spanish Sisters. She has written extensively about the history of women in the Catholic Church. She has had over 25 years’ association with New Norcia, including being a member of the Archives, Research and Publications Committee for the Benedictine Community. I know the remaining Spanish Sisters have wholeheartedly supported Katharine writing this book and they have entrusted her with information, some of a sensitive nature, to faithfully tell their story. This book about the Spanish Sisters and their experience as missionaries in the distant foreign land of Australia tells a story I am pleased to know. It is a careful step along the way to more storytelling and deeper listening. The curious title,The Bridge Between, is insightful. It reminds me that we can all build bridges when we share stories and listen well. It reminds me we are always ‘between’ hearing and understanding more. This book has become part of my journey too. I remember first meeting Katharine in 1999 in Perth when she started to write the history of the Spanish Sisters. I have shared my story and insights of the Benedictine Sisters with her on many occasions in the intervening years. I accepted an invitation to attend a reunion with the ‘mission girls’ in 2001. The reunion was a very heartfelt occasion and showed the depth for feeling between the Sisters and past residents. Katharine was there too, and I saw how she listened. In 2015, I accepted another invitation and collaborated with Katharine in a workshop for theological students about monasticism at New Norcia. In 2016 we co-presented a session at the Conference on the History of Women Religious in Santa Clara, California. Through these activities, Katharine has become a dear friend. This book has been written slowly with patience, resilience and dedication. I warmly invite you to read it. 22 June 2020 Whadjuk Boodjar Perth, Western Australia viii Acknowledgements Help and encouragement have come from many directions to sustain and enliven this project. My deepest debt is to the people who have shared their stories and photographs, inviting me into their memories of life as a Benedictine sister or a child in care at St Joseph’s, usually over several conversations. Those interviews have been a privilege. Three stakeholder communities enabled the work and facilitated connections. I am grateful to the New Norcia Aboriginal Corporation, especially the members of the executive, Mary Nannup, Margaret Drayton and Paul Willaway, and to Mae Taylor whose careful initiative prompted the reunion of 2001. The Benedictine Missionary Sisters of Tutzing have been gracious hosts in Kalumburu, Madrid and Nebraska, where Sr Winfrieda Bugayong, Sr Maria Gratia Balagot, Sr Margargeta Wegscheid and Sr Pia Portmann made further introductions to the house of oblates in Barcelona, the Cistercian community in Valladolid, the Benedictine community of San José in Burgos, and to the families of the sisters. The generosity of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia also underpins this book. Abbot Placid Spearritt responded warmly to an initial enquiry with an invitation to ‘come and see’ what the archives might yield about the Spanish sisters. His vision for scholarship at New Norcia enabled the early stages of the project, and the hospitality of both the archives and the guesthouse of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia have remained a mainstay under the more recent leadership of Abbot John Herbert. Bernadette Taylor and her team at the guesthouse always smoothed the way, and the community’s archivists Wendy McKinley, Leen Charles and Peter Hocking have contributed countless hours of professional expertise, regularly going the extra mile with patience and good humour. In particular, Peter Hocking’s cheerful help and acumen, across a continent and three time zones, has been invaluable. ix A BRIDGE BETWEEN Research over decades is a rare freedom in contemporary academia. At the outset I was a member of the History Department at the University of Adelaide where a period of study leave made the first steps possible. The project was both fruitfully disrupted and ultimately enriched by my move to the United Faculty of Theology, and more recently Pilgrim Theological College, within what is now the University of Divinity in Melbourne. In a context where small group teaching is still valued and possible, students in the New Norcia intensives have engaged with the Benedictine story and the mission town, and expanded my understanding of how the site itself speaks. Along the way friends and colleagues have read and improved drafts, responded to papers and answered queries. I’m especially indebted to Edmund Campion, Graeme Davison and David Hilliard who read and discussed the full draft with typical generosity and insight, and to Kellie Abbot at the National Archives of Australia, Sally Douglas, Sarah Gador-Whyte, Stefano Girola, Anna Haebich, Andrew Hamilton, Kerrie Handasyde, Margot Harker, John Kinder, Margaret Malone, Lauren Mosso, Jill O’Brien, Carmel Posa, Randall Prior, Sharne Rolfe, Howard Wallace, David Whiteford at the State Records Office of Western Australia, and Naomi Wolfe, Indigenous Theologies Project Officer at the University of Divinity. Carlos Lopez, Kerry Mullan, Teresa De Castro and Fr David Barry translated material from historic handwriting. Stuart Fenner and Adrienne Maloney transcribed recordings. Joe Courtney made time to draft the maps and Alejandro Polanco Masa brought them expertly to life. Mary Nannup, Margaret Drayton, Paul Willaway and Sr Veronica Willaway advised on photographs and sought permissions. Merryn Gray, Carl Rainer, Lauren Murphy and Geoff Hunt brought technological magic and eagle eyes to the manuscript. The ANU.Lives editorial board and the editorial team at ANU Press were consistently perceptive and professional.