Congress Papers

At each of the Congresses numerous papers were presented, mainly from Australia but with a significant number from overseas. Generally the Congress papers were classified into six sections: Apologetics; Social Questions; Charitable Institutions; Education; History and Missions; Science and Art; Statistics. There were some significant categories added at times e.g. the 1904 Congress had a section on Medical Questions and another on the Christian Woman.

In each of these sections an effort was clearly being made to deal with the issues of the day and, while upholding tradition, to indicate that the Church was not opposed to true progress. In his paper on ‘Liberalism in Religion’ the Rev Dr McDonald from Maynooth College, Ireland stated: ‘Within the domain of politics there are many opinions peculiar to the Liberal party which, whether they are true or false in themselves, are, at least, not in any way opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and which, therefore, the faithful are perfectly free to hold. I consider it the duty of one who addresses a body of Catholics of all shades of opinion to avoid such questions as might cause division and with regard to which every Catholic has, in the sense aforesaid, a right to form his own judgment.’

He added: ‘The second remark I wish to make is to the effect that I do not wish to be understood as holding that in the domain of faith and morals there is no room for Liberalism, understanding the term to signify progress, development, increase in knowledge, and advancement of culture and civilisation. Those who have read Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the ‘Development of Christian Doctrine” or “Cardinal Franzzelin’s Treatise on Tradition” will understand in what sense the deposit of faith is capable of being developed and expanded.

McDonald, nevertheless, does make it clear that the official teaching authority of the Church is vested in the Pope and the bishops. Yet he expresses sympathy for Catholic journalists attempting to critique the Church.

Another constant feature of the Congress papers was the traditional Catholic teaching that religion is integral to human life and therefore to education. Indeed Moran was utterly convinced of the importance of religion to human happiness and the advancement of civilisation.

One of the papers presented at the 1900 Congress was on ‘Catholicism and Modern Constitutionalism’ by John Reiner from New Jersey in the United States. He was a lay man and, from comments in his paper, a convert to the Catholic faith. He obviously agreed wholeheartedly with Moran’s position on religion as he commenced his paper declaring categorically that his aim was ‘to show that at all times, and in all ages … the government under which various individuals in a community banded themselves together for mutual protection was affected by the religion which those individuals professed, or which permeated the times in which they lived, so that religion or a decline in religion worked for good or evil in the government itself.’

If any of you have read Al Gabay’s book on the mystical life of Alfred Deakin, who was a Victorian politician and a key player in the Federation drama, you would know that at least one of our founding fathers of Federation agreed strongly with Moran and Reiner’s view that religion is central to all human activity – that the human person is continually reaching out to the transcendent.

Having indicated two of the significant contextual strands to the Congresses – that the Catholic Church is not opposed to true progress but encourages it and that religion is central to the life of the human person - let us focus again on the women. The participation of women in the public forum of the Congress of 1900, where theology and public policy were confronted, especially in the area of public education, reflected the hierarchical structure of the Church. All the papers in the Apologetics and Education Sections, which provided the theological and philosophical underpinning of the Catholic schools, were given by men and, with one exception, clerical men. In the section on Our Schools, however, the women dominated with six of the eleven papers being written by women religious; two by religious Brothers; one by a Jesuit Priest; and one was anonymous.

None of the women religious or religious brothers who provided a paper was named but simply given a corporate identity e.g. Dominican Sisters, Strathfield or Patrician Brothers, Ryde. This, no doubt, was the result of a spirituality of religious life, which did not promote the individual over the group.. No lay woman presented a paper at the Congress of 1900, although, from the Catholic newspapers of the time it is known that a significant number had become increasingly involved in the discussion of public policies such as the extension of the franchise to women, which was publicly supported by Cardinal Moran.

The Dominican Sisters from Strathfield provided a paper on ‘Christian doctrine and history of the Church considered as the basis of Catholic enlightenment and culture.’ It is clear that a central concern of the Sisters was to prepare the young girl for her subsequent life, when her religion would be the subject of attack. There is then, not surprisingly, a certain defensiveness in this paper. It is stated that authentic history shows that the Church is not ‘the oppressor of mankind’ but in fact it is ‘the defender of the truest liberties of the human race.’

The Loreto Community contributed a paper on ‘Character Training in Christian and Catholic Education’. They declared: ‘A Solemn moment, a great moment in her history has come for Australia. In all the freshness of youthful vigour she steps forth and takes her place in the rank of nations, and every heart breathes for her the wish she may be: “as great as the greatest, as good as the best.” A goodly heritage is hers. Empires long passed away have bequeathed her glorious traditions. Nations of the far West have sent their children, the “bold, determined Teuton, the keen-witted, original Celt”, to build the fabric of her greatness.’

This type of patriotism is expressed frequently by both men and women in many of the Congress papers.

The Loreto Sisters were concerned with the education of the child and adolescent to true virtue, not just the external keeping of the law. The writer observed: ‘Each age of the world has dangers peculiar to itself, which call for the exercise of certain qualities. In our days when so many in the pursuit of pleasure “out-pagan the pagans”, and forgetting or ignoring the great future, live bond-slaves of caprice, it is necessary to impress on the young a sense of the dignity of their end as immortal beings, and the need of self-restraint in order to attain that end.’

The Loreto Sisters were critical of the public educational policy of public examinations for schools and they declared that, apart from parents stupidly spoiling their children, they saw the other great difficulty to effective education of children to be ‘the bugbear of Competitive Examinations.’ They explained: ‘The poor teachers have no time to train character or develop individuality; the one great aim is to secure good results and high percentages, at any cost. … Wise educators … have raised their voices in condemnation of this system, which sacrifices to the Moloch of examination, the teacher’s high aims and the children’s best interests. Leading school journals have inveighed against it, and with effect. In Germany a wise method of marking a child’s paper absolutely, and not relatively to his comrades, is now in place, class-placing being unknown. In England, too, examinations have been superseded by informed “Inspector’s Visits.”’

The Good Samaritan Nuns presented a paper on ‘the Australasian Catholic Readers.’ It is highly probable that they produced these Readers. A dominant theme in this paper is patriotism and the Sisters worked hard to emphasise the loyalty of Catholics to Australia and to dispel the myth that their allegiance to an international Church with the head in Rome was at variance with this. They pointed out: ‘Now on the eve of Federation, it is a pleasing fact and worthy of note to remark the patriotic spirit of the “Readers” in contributing to foster Federal aspirations.’

They elaborated: ‘The readers teach self-reliance, independence of spirit, and inculcate high ideals. They teach that the highest, greatest conquest, is the conquest of self; they teach us to annihilate all feelings of revenge and hatred; they urge, forbearance, brotherly love. But while teaching Charity and its kindred virtues, they teach no enervating doctrine. We are not asked to sacrifice our manhood, or make cutting blocks of ourselves for those so inclined to treat us. … They teach justice – but justice tempered with mercy. … They teach the dignity of honest labour, and give a meaning to the worker’s work.’

All of these papers on Catholic schools presented by Catholic women religious were general in nature and not concerned specifically with the education of Girls. One prepared by the Sisters of Mercy, Parramatta, however, did focus specifically on girls, The writer held that ‘of all the needs that press upon our notice at the close of this much vaunted nineteenth century’ none is more important than the education of girls. She declared: ‘Girls, who are to be wives of the present and mothers of future generations are the chief agencies for carrying on the works of mercy by which the Church of Christ fulfils her actions.’

This paper considers woman to be man’s help-mate and expresses this in somewhat rapturous, romantic terms but it is made clear that the writer wants the very best education for girls, though she holds that it is ‘not clever girls the world needs but unselfish devoted women who realise that their mission is sacrifice in the shade’. Despite this view, which could be interpreted as a somewhat ‘woman as the doormat’ attitude, she argues for a public policy of government examination of Catholic schools, the establishment of Catholic Teachers’ Colleges and for the higher education of girls, which she declares in her rhapsodic style she would ‘have as high as the heavens and broad as the world.’

It is significant that in the 1904 Australasian Congress there was no separate section on Our Schools and the only representative of women religious was a Loreto Nun, who contributed a paper on ‘History as a Factor in the Education of the Catholic Child’, which was included in the section on Education. It could be assumed that some women at least were now being recognised as true professionals in the field of education and not just as practitioners. The 1909 Congress, also, had no separate Schools section and in the section on Education there were five papers by women, three from women religious and two from lay women. Pleasingly, lay women were gaining more prominence.

Indeed at the 1909 Congress Miss Teresa Magner’s paper on ‘The Training of the Australian Girl’ expresses a resentment of the practice of what we would call sexism in the education of Australian children, which favoured the boy. After stressing the importance of the education of girls, she declared: ‘This holds good in Australia perhaps more than in any other country, because the Australian woman not only trains the men and women of the future, but also has a direct influence on the public life of the present.

Teresa Magner elaborated: ‘Women’s organisations have forced the Government to do many things that might otherwise be left undone, whether it be providing better accommodation for the nurses in its hospitals or establishing a Children’s Court. In many districts, too, she holds the balance at the elections. It is out-of-date to discuss the question of woman in politics; the fact remains that she is there, and should be prepared for the position she must take. The majority of women are not fitted to fill this position, and it remains for the Church to examine and remedy the defects of her education.’

It was right and proper that women were involved in the Our Schools, and later Education Sections, of the Congresses; but they were glaringly absent from the social welfare sections. Social work, of course, was not yet recognised by public policy as an academic discipline, being perceived largely as an aspect of women’s work – philanthropic ministering in the case of the upper classes, ‘helping out’ in the lower classes.

The absence of a paper on the orphanages was surprising in the light of the fact that this was a time when the public policy of ‘Boarding Out’, rather than institutional accommodation of children needing care, had been implemented generally in the various States. Such Australian reformers as Charles Mackellar (the father of Dorthy Mackellar’s of ‘My Country’ fame) was critical of the Catholic policy of institutional care of children in need.

However, in the Proceedings of the1904 Congress in a final section called ‘Congress Notes’ there was published a report by a Mrs Power of Melbourne about public policy concerning ‘Boarded-Out Children’. This report appeared to be a fair critique of the changes in the regulations of the administration of the Boarding Out System in Victoria.

Mrs Power had also contributed short papers on the religious education of blind children and on hospital visitation. These latter papers indicated the fear of Protestant proselytising of Catholic patients in hospitals, mainly by women visitors with manners of ‘winning politeness’. Mrs Power protested: ‘If I were to distribute my books to Protestants, what a commotion it would cause; what a number of letters the daily papers would receive denouncing Catholic proselytising in hospitals!’ We tend to forget how strong sectarianism was at that time. The problem of eliminating sectarianism from Australian life was the subject of several papers at each Congress.

There is a ring of authority and confidence in Mrs Power’s papers. It is suggested that she represents the tip of the iceberg of the increasing number of lay women involved in Catholic social work.

No doubt as a response to women having gained the vote nationally, there was included in the 1904 Congress a section on Christian Woman in which a paper was presented by Annie Golding, a well-known Sydney activist in the field of woman suffrage. Her paper was on ‘The Evolution of Women and their Possibilities’. In tracing through the history of women across the ages Annie displays considerable knowledge of women’s history including a balanced judgment of Mary Wollstonecraft, who in 1792 had published her famous treatise The Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Annie pointed out: ‘The nineteenth century witnessed such a marked advance in the social, industrial and intellectual evolution of woman that it is aptly termed the Women’s Century. Though the tendency is to consider this development modern and extraordinary, it is in reality the crystalisation of a process of evolution that has advanced with that of man, though at times obscured, or temporarily checked by events …. The world suffered through want of the dual influence. Only the masculine was cultivated. In all lands property, military glory, and lust for power were the highest ideals. The humanising influences – sentiment, family, love and other domestic virtues - were relegated to an inferior place.’

She then exhorted the women attending the 1904 Congress: ‘Enfranchised women of Australia, rise to your responsibilities, to your potentialities; enlist the sympathies of your brothers of the Church; ask Divine guidance, and go forward, never resting, never looking back, but working on till Australia demonstrates to the world what a living force enlightened enfranchised women may become, and thus cause older nations to shake off musty, conservative traditions that fetter progress. Then, instead of being ruled by the dead hand of the past, they will emerge into the glorious light of prosperity, peace and freedom.’

Annie Golding herself took up the challenge and at the 1909 Congress presented a paper on ‘The industrial and social condition of women in the Australian Commonwealth’. It was placed in the section for Social Questions. She based her critique of the industrial and social condition of women upon Government statistics and a wide knowledge of progress in working conditions in the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. Effectively she is arguing for equal wages for men and women.

The third paper in the 1904 Section on Christian Woman was by Miss Macready and entitled ‘The Home Training of Our Girls’. In this she attempts to uphold the importance of the home and domestic arts, along with the involvement of woman in the wider discourse of the nation. Her ideal woman, after having informed herself, would use her vote intelligently. She saw the higher education of women as promoting both the domestic and public spheres of a woman’s life.

These are just some of the voices of Catholic Women from a hundred years ago. Most of those who have spoken to us were from the teaching profession but they saw the big picture beyond the class room. These women did not actually read their papers; it was still not customary for women to do so and indeed, probably because of the lack of microphones, some of the older men opted to have their papers read by the secretary. We do know from other sources, however, that those involved in the woman suffrage campaigns at this time did give public lectures and engaged in public debates.

These women, religious and lay, in the public forum of the Congresses stressed the importance of the education of Catholics in general, and of women in particular; and of woman’s enhanced role in the public arena as a person with full voting rights, pointing out especially the responsibility which these rights carry to work to remedy the ills of society. These women felt professionally confident to critique contemporary public educational policies. Their voices contained obvious cadences of love of God, loyalty to the Church and love of Australia and they deplored the dissonance of the current sectarianism. They added their voices to those of the men stressing the centrality of religion to the life of the human person and criticised the unjust laws which discriminated against Catholics. They contributed to the triumphalism, which Cardinal Moran initiated, rightly or wrongly, to encourage Australian Catholics as they emerged from having confronted, with varying degrees of success, the challenges of the nineteenth century.

In conclusion there are numerous nuances and subtexts in the various papers of these Congresses of the Federation Era that are calling for analysis to help us appreciate the complexity of the matrix of life at this time within the Catholic community, in which women played a vital part. It is hoped that in time these will be addressed by the ACU National Centre for Research in Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality and its associates if not by others.