Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society Volume 36 2015 1 Bob Reece, The Invincibles: New Norcia’s aboriginal cricketers 1879-1906, reviewed by Rosa MacGinley, p 287 Odhran O’Brien, Martin Griver Unearthed reviewed by Clement Mulcahy, p 285 Wanda Skowronska, Catholic Converts Roy Williams, Post-God Nation?, from Down Under … And All Over, reviewed by James Franklin, p 308 reviewed by Robert Stove, p 301 2 Journal Editor: James Franklin ISSN: 0084-7259 Contact General Correspondence, including membership applications and renewals, should be addressed to The Secretary ACHS PO Box A621 Sydney South, NSW, 1235 Enquiries may also be directed to: [email protected] Executive members of the Society President: Dr John Carmody Vice Presidents: Prof James Franklin Mr Geoffrey Hogan Secretary: Dr Lesley Hughes Treasurer: Ms Helen Scanlon ACHS Chaplain: Fr George Connolly Cover image: Archbishop Mannix makes a regular visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor hostel for the aged, 1940s. Original image supplied by Michael Gilchrist. See book reviews, p 289 3 Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society Volume 36 2015 Contents Julia Horne, Political machinations and sectarian intrigue in the making of Sydney University. 4 Peter Cunich, The coadjutorship of Roger Bede Vaughan, 1873-77. 16 Cherrie de Leiuen, Remembering the significant: St John’s Kapunda, South Australia .......................................................43 Lesley Hughes, The Sydney ‘House of Mercy’: The Mater Misericordiae Servants’ Home and Training School, 1891-1919 .......................61 Graham Wilson, Catholics need not apply? A case for anti-Catholic bias in the selection of AIF officers ...........................................77 Ann Maree Whenman, The CCD Movement 1880 – 2000: Religious education for Catholic children not in Catholic schools in New South Wales ..........93 Kieran Tapsell, Canon law on child sexual abuse through the ages .........113 Val Noone, Father Con Reis and the Movement’s attempted takeover of Catholic immigration ministry: a Melbourne and a national issue, 1950-53. 137 Michael Costigan, B A Santamaria remembered by one who knew him a little 159 John de Luca, The two Ronnies: Priestly influence on a neophyte – a case of clerical grooming?. 170 Patricia Madigan, Nostra aetate and fifty years of interfaith dialogue – changes and challenges . 179 Michael Costigan, Catholicism and Judaism: a few personal reflections .....192 Eugene Stockton, Aboriginal Catholic Ministry: The urban apostolate ......196 Brian Lucas, The Australian bishops and national media: conflicts and missed opportunities .............................................202 4 Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society James Franklin, Gerald Ridsdale, pedophile priest, in his own words .......219 Bernard Doherty, “Mourning the Death of Our Faith”: The Little Pebble and The Marian Work of Atonement 1950-1984. 231 Michael Kelly, The many faces of religious persecution in Asia ...........274 Book review: Odhran O’Brien, Martin Griver Unearthed: The life of a Spanish missionary priest who became a bishop in colonial Western Australia, 1814-1886, reviewed by Clement Mulcahy ...........................285 Book review: Bob Reece, The Invincibles: New Norcia’s aboriginal cricketers 1879-1906, reviewed by Rosa MacGinley . 287 Book review: James Franklin, Gerry O. Nolan and Michael Gilchrist, The Real Archbishop Mannix: From the sources, reviewed by Bernard Doherty ..289 Book review: Brenda Niall, Mannix, reviewed by James Franklin. .295 Book review: Vincent Crow, St Joan of Arc Parish, Haberfield, 1909-2005, reviewed by John Luttrell .........................................298 Book review: Wanda Skowronska, Catholic Converts from Down Under … And All Over, reviewed by Robert Stove .............................301 Book review: John Hirst, Australia’s Catholic University: The First Twenty-Five Years, reviewed by Michael Costigan .....................304 Book review: Roy Williams, Post-God Nation?, reviewed by James Franklin .......................................308 Book note: David Daintree, Soul of the West: Christianity and the Great Tradition, by James Franklin ......................................311 1 2 3 Political Machinations and Sectarian Intrigue in the Making of Sydney University** Julia Horne* In the first decade of the University of Sydney, this public university and creation of the New South Wales colonial parliament had achieved the remarkable distinction of a religiously diverse university. No single religious denomination was in control or had an absolute majority in the student population. Arguably, it was the first in the British Empire to achieve such a state of affairs, which begs how such circumstances come about. What political machinations supported this outcome and what was the sectarian intrigue behind the move to have a public university not dominated by any one religion? This article explores the early years of the University, the debates that led to its creation in 1850, and in the decade that followed, how the churches came gradually to accommodate themselves to an institution not founded on religious principles. In 1849, as the New South Wales Government was considering ways toward self-government it was also debating the merits of a publicly endowed colonial university. Led by William Charles Wentworth, by then a conservative squatter-politician and Australian patriot, the legislative council considered a university scheme that would make it a ‘duty of the State … to provide for the instruction of the people …’.1 The words were carefully chosen. Although there was only ever the intention to have a small proportion of the population of New South Wales university-educated—to create, in effect, a governing elite—the university’s supporters believed that the ‘people’ would benefit by having their brightest educated to a standard that would equip them to serve the public, and that the benefits would flow to the colony as a whole. This vision of a public university revealed a belief in the capacity of meritocracy as a way to select suitable male colonists on the basis of academic merit, whatever their social or religious origins. Yet there was an additional feature that soon came to define the public institution. Basic to * Julia Horne is associate professor in the department of History at the University of Sydney. Her books include Sydney, The Making of a Public University, Miegunyah, Melbourne 2012 and The Pursuit of Wonder: how Australia’s landscape was explored, nature discovered and tourism unleashed, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2005. ** This article is adapted from Julia Horne and Geoffrey Sherington, Sydney, The Making of a Public University, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne 2012 (distributed by Sydney University Press). 4 Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 36 (2015), 4-15 Political Machinations and Sectarian Intrigue in the Making of Sydney University Wentworth’s proposal was that there would be no overt religious influence in who controlled the university or what it taught—he used the word ‘secular’ to describe the sort of university he envisaged. The university was not to be dominated, he argued, by any church, or serve its needs through religious instruction. Charles Nicholson, future university provost and donor of an antiquities collection that became the basis for the University’s Nicholson Museum, was open to the idea of involvement by the major religious denominations, but he too was adamant that the curriculum be secular. The University of Sydney, founded in 1850, inherited a past that linked higher education and religious belief. It has often been assumed that its foundation broke with this tradition because of public declarations to be secular. Australian historian and, later, university Vice-Chancellor JJ Auchmuty wrote in the 1950s that secularism had triumphed in Australia, where the universities ‘are, without exception, firmly organised on a purely secular and non-sectarian basis’.2 Other scholars have since pointed out the significance of affiliated denominational residential colleges at Australian universities.3 In effect, the university emerged with a secular curriculum but only after debate about the historical basis of religion at the centre of a university. What emerged was a public secular university containing collegiate forms of the churches. In the early nineteenth century, most established universities in Europe still had formal associations with Christianity arising out of their foundation by church and religious bodies. In England, the ‘ancient universities’ of Oxford and Cambridge in the early nineteenth century could have been seen as the Church of England at study. After all, the Church of England was the established church of the nation and Oxbridge college fellows were among its ordained clergy. Even as late as 1840, about half the undergraduates at Oxford were preparing to enter the church. Religious tests were not completely abandoned at Oxford and Cambridge until the 1870s. Before the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection in 1859, few in universities had questioned the tenets of Christianity. In Britain it had not so much been belief or unbelief but matters of denominational faith that caused controversy, particularly in the efforts of the Established Church to maintain its privileged position. Increasingly, after Darwin, establishing state-endowed secular educational institutions seemed the appropriate path. This became accepted not just