Some Aspects of the Story of Catholic Women in Australia

Sophie McGrath

The following paper was presented by Dr Sophie McGrath to the NSW Diocesan Delegates of the Commission for Australian Catholic Women (CACW), 15 February 2002

As you are well aware the reference point for this week-end is the Scripture story of the Road to Emmaus. Therese has pointed out that this Scripture story can be broken into four movements: journey, the conversation, relationships and going back. My task is to accompany you on a journey with some of our Australian Catholic Foremothers, conversing with them on our way, attempting to really listen to them, building up an ongoing life-giving relationship with them which will help to nourish us as we go back to our respective dioceses to promote the aims of the CACW.

When I was discussing this paper initially with Therese she suggested that I might speak to the women on the time-line, which accompanies the historical contextual paper I prepared for the Bishop’s Report on the Participation of Women in the Australian Catholic Church published as Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus. I am very conscious of the limitations of this time-line – I am acutely aware of the women who should be there and are not.

One such woman is the marine settler’s wife Mary Macdonald who should be the first entry on the line since in 1792 she was one of the five Catholic settlers who petitioned Governor Philip for the services of a Catholic priest . At present all we know is that she was illiterate and only able to sign her name with a cross. The men who signed the petition were Thomas Tynan, a marine settler, Joseph Morley and John Brown, convict settlers and Simon Brown another convict settler, but who like Mary could only sign with a X. Since at this time there was no pressure to include the token woman it is reasonable to speculate that Mary was one of the prime movers in the production of this document. Her life is crying out for research and hopefully there will be public documents available to facilitate this.

We wonder, too, about the men who collaborated with Mary in the production of the 1792 petition? What were the dynamics that operated among the four men and one woman who signed it?

There is one thing that is said clearly to us across the two centuries by Mary, Thomas, Joseph, John and Simon and that is that their Catholic Faith was tremendously significant in their lives - it united them as members of the mystical body of Christ, the Church, and, according to the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, unites them to us today.

While regretfully our conversation with Mary Macdonald at this time is limited, we are in a position to have a longer conversation with some Catholic women around 1900, just a century after Mary and her associates unsuccessfully made their appeal for the services of a Catholic priest.

During that intervening century priests had finally been permitted to minister in the colony, a bishop had been appointed, the first religious women had come to the Colony to be welcomed by lay Catholic women - convicts, emancipists and free settlers including a few such women as the wife of John Hubert Plunkett’s. Plunkett was appointed Attorney-General of NSW in 1836, which was a remarkable things for an Irishman and a Catholic. Incidentally as chief law officer he extended the protection of the law to convicts as well as assigned servants and, after securing the conviction of seven white men for the massacre of a tribe of aborigines at Myall Creek in 1838, he extended the protection of the law for the first time to aborigines. As yet such women as Mrs Plunkett have not been released from their apparent silence. Thankfully Caroline Chisholm, who was a contemporary of Mrs Plunkett, has had her biographers.

Indeed such middle class philanthropic women as Mrs Plunkett and Caroline Chisholm, who encouraged and supported the work of the Sisters of Charity and later the Good Shepherd Sisters, known now as the Good Samaritan Sisters, would have been aware of the developing women’s movement in Britain and Ireland, which influenced the growing women’s movement in the Australian colonies leading to the admittance of women to Sydney University in 1880 and the establishment of the NSW Woman Suffrage Society around that time.

It is good to remember that through the work, initially of lay teachers and later women religious, the secondary education of women in NSW was nurtured. By 1890 in NSW there were only three State secondary schools for girls but there were forty-four Catholic secondary schools for girls. This would have been beyond the wildest dreams of our Mary Macdonald of the 1792 petition . No doubt, she would have been delighted that Cardinal Moran, who became the Archbishop of Sydney and primate of Australia in 1885, suggested, as the 19th century was drawing to a close, that the Catholic Church should herald the 20th century and celebrate the impending federation of the Australian colonies as a Commonwealth by holding a national congress.

Indeed the Federation Era, from about 1890 to 1910, is a most interesting one in the history of Australia in general and for Catholic women in particular

Now we want to listen to the voices of the Catholic women of that time. We want to hear what they had to say about the issues of the day – what concerned them within the Church and in the wider community.

One rich source of information about the Catholic community during the Federation period are the proceedings of the Australasian Catholic Congresses of 1900, 1904 and 1909.

The first Australasian Catholic Congress was held in Sydney and was the undisputed brain-child of Cardinal Moran. He modelled it on those which had been held in many countries in Europe during the latter part of the nineteenth century, most notably in Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Belgium.

The Congress of 1900 celebrated both the triumph of the federation of the colonies into the Australian Commonwealth and the triumphant survival and expansion of the Catholic Church during the nineteenth century in the world in general and in Australia in particular. Moran considered Australia as most blessed and a land of promise. He asserted that, while taking what was best in the tradition of Western Civilisation, Australia would not perpetuate its destructive elements – those religious, political and ideological conflicts which bedevilled Europe.

So successful was the Congress of 1900 (there were no less than 700 registered participants) that it was agreed that regular Congresses should become a feature of Catholic life in Australasia. Consequently congresses were subsequently held in 1904 in Melbourne and 1909 in Sydney.

Now fortunately we do not have to resort to an hermeneutics of suspicion to determine that women were part of the Australasian Congresses and indeed a vital part. It would not surprise you to know that women, both lay and religious, were responsible for the catering and hospitality as well as the occasional entertainment. We know this from the various votes of thanks and Congress photographs.

But were the women just in the background? Were they interested to actually come to the various sessions of the Congress or did they think that the papers would be over their heads and that discussion of policies concerning the Church or the State was men’s business?

As mentioned, we know that 700 people attended the 1900 Congress but we have no further detail and no photos were published with the Proceedings. In the case of the 1904 Congress, however, the names and addresses of the approximately 1000 enrolled are printed in alphabetical order in the back of the proceedings.

I have analysed the first 533 registered, A – F in the listing. The breakdown in percentages of those who enrolled for the 1904 Congress is: 44% men; 37% women (married – 16%; single - 21%); 17% clerics; 2% nuns or women religious; 0.75% Brothers. Altogether of those who attended 81% were laity of which 54% were men and 46% were women.

From these figures it is clear that women formed a significant number of the Congress participants. Although there were no numbers recorded of registered members at the 1909 Congress, from the numerous photos of the various events it is clear that the Congress was well attended and women were well represented.

Now, we have established that the women were at the Congresses but were their voices heard?