Historical Background to the WHTS ACU Research Project

As all Church historians know, the human dimension of the Church has always been in need of reform and throughout the ages there have always been reform movements within the Church. Certainly during the decades leading up to the 1960s there was much creative and positive critique in various areas. This culminated in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which launched a large scale review of the Church and its pastoral practice in the modern world. This review highlighted the need for in-depth socio-religious and historical research. Such a need surfaced again at the 1974 Synod on Evangelisation, which was hailed as a major follow-up to the Second Vatican Council

Research Response

As a result of the Synod, Paul VI wrote his influential encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi (1976) and national and regional bishops’ conferences and conferences of major superiors of religious institutes took up the call to sponsor research.

In Australia the bishops set up the National Catholic Research Council (NCRC) directed by the sociologist Dr Michael Mason CSSR and around the same time the major superiors of women’s institutes initiated a Research Programme directed by Dr Carmel Leavey OP, also a sociologist and a Council Member of the NCRC.

In 1980 this Research Programme was re-negotiated as the Institute of Religious Studies (IRS) of which Carmel Leavey OP (Director), Rosa MacGinley PBVM and Rosalie O’Neill RSJ were the foundation members. This Institute was sponsored by the Dominican Congregation of Eastern Australia, the Queensland Presentation Congregation and the Josephite Province of NSW.

Network Develops

Among the various research projects of IRS was Rosa MacGinley’s on the history of women religious in Australia. This was a mammoth task and was finally published and launched in 1996 as A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia. This is a seminal historical work that will be mined for years to come. It was also seminal in that in the process of being researched it led to the development of a network of scholars and associates from around the country linking universities, monasteries, convents and independent scholars, women and men.

As a result of the development of this network conferences were organised for 1992, 1994, 1996 and an IRS History Newsletter was issued from 1992 until 1998 when Rosa MacGinley withdrew from IRS and moved back to her home state of Queensland.

Opportunities Open

In 1996 the Australian Bishop’s Conference launched a major research initiative focusing on the participation of women in the Australian Catholic Church. Historian Sophie McGrath saw this as an opportunity to highlight the need for a Centre for Women’s History associated with the Australian Catholic University - an institute in the public arena with an ongoing life designed to connect generations of scholars.

Such a situation would facilitate the breaking of the cycle of the loss of women’s history to succeeding generations. It would provide a forum where research in women’s history would be fostered, enriching mainstream history and providing a more realistic background for the formulation of social and political policies as well as facilitating mutual understanding between the sexes. The proposal was strongly endorsed by Rosa MacGinley and many others, including the Early Christian historian Kim Power.

Following the publication of the Bishop’s Report Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus, Sophie met with Professor Sheehan, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University. He approved the proposal in principle, which was then worked on by Rosa, Sophie and Kim under the direction of Professor Wolfgang Grichting, Director of the ACU Institute for the Advancement of Research.

Birth of WHTS ACU Project

The final submission, which more explicitly met the needs of the women as expressed in the Bishops’ Report, was for the commencement of an ACU Project for Research in Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality as the first step towards the establishment of a Centre. This submission placed theology in right relation to history, and spirituality in right relation to theology, while highlighting the special charism of ACU.

After consultation with the ACU administration and staff, Dr Rosa MacGinley pbvm (Brisbane), Dr Sophie McGrath rsm (Sydney) and Dr Kim Power (Melbourne) were appointed research fellows within the ACU Institute for the Advancement of Research to work with the relevant ACU staff on the Project.

Centres are established within the University but funded from outside. Historically, religious congregations have initiated and promoted worthwhile enterprises and, true to this tradition, this Project has been able to commence through the generosity of a number of religious congregations, mainly women’s, but some men’s congregations have also responded. A trust has been established to administer the funds.

A cause for rejoicing is that there is hope that this Project will help break the cycle of the loss of women’s history to society; it will hopefully help save women from being reduced again to reinventing the wheel! It will help enrich our mainstream history and so inform more truly our theology, spirituality and social and political policies.

This Newsletter is picking up where the IRS History Newsletter left off and is bringing together the IRS network of women scholars and associates already established with ACU academics, who have welcomed the WHTS Research Project and intend to bring it to fruition!

Profiles of Central Project Team

Rosa MacGinley

Rosa has worked in the fields of Australian, Irish and religious history. She was involved in the Major Superiors’ Research Programme from 1975 and a foundation member of the Sydney-based Institute of Religious Studies which developed from this Programme. She also taught Church History courses at the Catholic Theological Union, a member Institute of the Sydney College of Divinity (SCD) and continues to teach distance courses in history for the Randwick Centre for Christian Sprituality, also an SCD member Institute.

She holds a B.A.; B.Ed; M.A. and Ph.D., all from Queensland University; also a Dip.Theol. (Catholic Institute of Sydney; and Cert. Theol. from Rome (Apostolic Religious Communities Program in association with Gregorian University.

Rosa has published several books and a number of journal articles. She will work from the McAuley Campus of ACU in Brisbane.

Sophie McGrath

Sophie is an historian with a special interest in the history of ideas, and women’s history, which she taught at the Catholic Theological Union, Hunter’s Hill. She holds a B.A.(Syd.), Dip.Ed.(New Eng.), M.Ed.(Syd.) and a Ph.D. in history from Macquarie University.

She has researched and published in the areas of the Christian Philosophy of Education, the Education of Catholic Girls, the History of Women Religious in Australia, Catholic Social Welfare History, and the Papacy and Feminism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.

Sophie is the Coordinator of the Project and will be based at the Mount Saint Mary Campus Strathfield with outreach to the North Sydney and Signadou campuses.

Kim Power

Kim came to theology in mid life. After completing an Arts degree at Melbourne University she practised as a psychologist and then as a teacher until retiring from the full time paid work force to raise her five children. During these years she ran an Art and Craft business with a friend, and worked sessionally as a psychologist.

After all her children were at school Kim commenced studying theology part-time at Yarra Theological Union and was awarded her B.Theol. in 1985. A Masters Degree in Theology followed along with the President’s Prize in 1994. Her thesis was on Augustine of Hippo’s writings on women, paying special attention to what he taught about women as the image of God. This was published in 1995 as Veiled desire: Augustine’s writing on women.

Having been awarded an Australian post-graduate award, she commenced doctoral studies at La Trobe University. Her subject was early Christian construction of sex and gender roles, focusing on Ambrose of Milan. After receiving her doctorate in 1997 she was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship as Scholar-in-residence at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, in Baltimore city. On her return she tutored and lectured sessionally at Monash and La Trobe Universities.

Kim has published numerous articles on Augustine and Ambrose and is working on a book on Ambrose and the symbol of the Virigin Bride.

As the Victorian member of the Central Project Team she will work from St Patrick’s Campus Melbourne with outreach to Aquinas Campus, Ballarat .

Oslo Conference

The19th International Congress of Historical Sciences was held in Oslo, 6-13 August 2000.

In his opening address the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, declared:

I am convinced the congress in Oslo will strengthen our collective knowledge of the past. I am equally convinced that your discussions will demonstrate the significance of history in understanding the present and facing the future. Knowledge of our diverse, yet shared, past provides depth and perspective to our efforts to build future societies, in a world increasingly shaped by global forces of transformation. Historical reflection becomes more, not less important in a world of increased interdependence and rapid change.

As an affiliated organisation The International Federation for Research in Women’s History (INFRH) organised a two day conference in association with the Congress. The theme of the Conference was ‘Conflict and Co-operation in Sites of Cultural Coexistence: Perspectives from Women’s History’. Professor Patricia Grimshaw (Melbourne University), as President of the INFRH, extended the official welcome at the conference and A/Professor Ann McGrath (University of New South Wales) chaired the session on Colonial Encounters.

The other main sessions were categorised under the headings: Women’s Missions: Home, School and Church; War, Refugees and Exile; Creating and Contesting Nationalism and National Identities; and Sisterhood and Sibling Rivalry: Women’s Movements and Feminist Movements.

The organising committee received nearly 150 proposals from around the world for papers for these sessions. Since only 27 could be accepted and the intention was to have as many countries as possible represented, it is not surprising that there was only one paper from Australia, Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s on ‘Women’s Sites of Fire and Water: Feminising and Radicalising History in the Australian Borderlands’

The IFRWH will be holding its own, independent conference in 2003. This will give more women historians the opportunity to contribute at an international level.