John Warhurst, Chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn, presented this speech at a forum at the Commercial Club, Wagga Wagga on October 24, 2019. It presents an overview of the possibilities for church renewal in Australia.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]

Introduction

We can do much better and we must do much better by becoming more accountable, inclusive and transparent – at all levels of the church – parish, diocesan, national and ultimately international.

This is not a radical conclusion to reach because it is shared by a wide range of faithful Catholics in Australia (shown by the official summary of submissions to PC2020), by what we are told by our church leaders including Popes Benedict and Francis and Archbishop Mark Coleridge, by our own Truth Justice and Healing Council, and by an expert outside body, with a distinguished Catholic representative, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I can’t put it any clearer or stronger than the words I will quote to you shortly. Nevertheless, it is a position which unfortunately still faces plenty of opposition and apathy within the church.

I should say by the way that it’s no good to say that many other institutions are similarly in need of reform. That’s true, but our own Catholic Church is our focus. We are interested in the state of the church itself.

In saying this I am speaking from my position as chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn, formed in April 2017 to be a ginger group inside and a lobby group outside of faithful Catholics committed to reform. Our vision is for a church in which the talents, gifts and wisdom of all Catholics, lay, religious and ordained priests and bishops, contribute to all levels of participation and decision-making as spelled out in Canon Law and encouraged by Pope Francis.

What is the problem?

We are a shrinking church which has lost touch with our younger generations and older faithful Catholics in staggering numbers. We frequently neglect the talents and leadership abilities of our laity, especially our lay women. We have failed to live up to our own standards laid down by Vatican II in governance and culture.

We have been found guilty of widespread of abuse of morality and power by a Royal Commission and by numerous courts. We have failed to be inclusive, transparent and accountable to our own people and to the Australian people.

We are a powerful source of good in Australian society, but we must realise that we have not lived up to the privileged position that that society has accorded us.

We have a lot to learn about principled organisational behaviour from society at large. We are lagging, not leading.

Principles and Support for Church Renewal

The quotations I am about to share are encouraging for those of us who are attentive to church renewal. Some are from well-known figures, others less so, but they are all important. They range from official recognition that we are in an era of change in which impediments and crises can be admitted to the fact that the urgency and necessity of lay co-leadership must be accepted. They outline what must be done, participation must be the core principle.

Vatican II: Ours is a new age of history with profound and rapid changes… we are entitled then to speak of a real social and cultural transformation whose repercussions are felt at the religious level also.” (December 1965, Gaudium at Spes).

Pope Benedict:The laity should not be considered as collaborators with the clergy, but as the people truly co-responsible for the life of the church. (quoted by Noel Connolly).

Pope Francis: It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God’s People. … Without the active participation of all the Church’s members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. (August 2018, Letter to the People of God)

Canon Law: The Christian faithful have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful” (Canon 212.3)

Archbishop Mark Coleridge (President, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference): The crisis in the church can’t be met by business as usual. “It is hard to believe that the Church’s response would have been so poor had lay people been involved from the start in shaping a response.

The Royal Commission: The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should conduct a national review of the governance and management structures of dioceses and parishes, including in relation to issues of transparency, accountability, consultation and participation of lay men and women. This review should draw from the approaches to governance of Catholic health, community services and education agencies. (Final Report, R. 67).

Robert Fitzgerald (Royal Commissioner): Current Church governance, and some of the canons that underpin it, are based (intentionally or unintentionally) on fear of the non-ordained, especially women, a fear of outside influence (even where that is good), an arrogant assertion of the position of the Church in the world, and maintaining the unique privilege of an ordained class. It too often dismisses open, transparent and accountable approaches in favour of secrecy, complexity and legalistic approaches. It shuns genuine participation. And there are strong forces within the Church that seek the status quo.” (2019, Getting Back on Mission).

Elizabeth Proust, (Deputy Chair, Truth Justice and Healing Council): “It is clear from the Royal Commission’s findings that the dysfunctional governance of the Church aggravated the harm done by sexual abuse. The need for reform in this area is long overdue and the delay and obfuscation in responding to the Royal Commission on this topic, and on many others, will only worsen the alienation felt by the people of the Church, and continue to make the Church an irrelevance in our society” (2018, Final Report).

Shane Dwyer, (Outgoing CEO, The National Centre for Evangelisation and the Catholic Enquiry Centre): Many of our problems are of our own making, and any authentic spiritual journey is going to regularly encounter the challenge to get back to what’s essential and to scrape off the accretions that inevitably attach themselves as we make our way. The hull of a ship as old as ours will always need to be scraped clean of barnacles. The pope has identified clericalism as one such barnacle. Another is the desire to put rules above people. They tend to go hand in hand. The prioritising of rules over people frequently involves the prioritising of an ordained elite over the baptised majority.” (October 2019, Catholic Voice).

Pauline Connelly (Chancellor, Archdiocese of Adelaide): I want to see a governance structure where the laity have a legitimate governance role. A workable structure, an accountable structure, a transparent structure, an open structure. (March 2019, St Ignatius Parish, Norwood, Lenten Address).

Fr Noel Connolly SSC (PC2020 Facilitation Team Member): But unfortunately because of the Royal Commission, clericalism, the laity’s sense of being excluded from ministry and governance and a growing feeling of distrust in institutions across society we have now reached a serious level of distrust in the Church. In a few decades we have moved from uncritical respect to deep criticism.” (November/December 2018, The Far East).

Final Report on Submissions to the Plenary Council 2020: The structure of church life drew a great deal of attention with respondents discussing issues about leadership and governance. Amidst it all, there was a passionate desire expressed for a greater involvement of the laity at all levels” (2019, Pastoral Research Office, ACBC).

What needs to be done and how?

We have now reached the “how” stage. What needs to be done is both general and specific. The general includes adoption of accepted civic and corporate standards in our governance, transparency and participation in the appointment of bishops, the general introduction by bishops and priests of Diocesan Pastoral Councils and Parish Pastoral Councils.

It also requires greater financial accountability at all levels of the church, co-responsibility of laity and clergy, greater transparency in all its forms at all levels, wider consultation between leaders and those affected over episcopal and priestly appointments, media freedom within the church and horizontal communication rather than top down communication within the church, continued debate about the PC2020’s composition and leadership, training in synodal leadership for all of the People of God so that cultural practices not just official structures change, etc.

A practical Example: Pastoral Councils

An example of specific renewal is the matter of parish pastoral councils, which are not mandated in canon law (though parish finance councils are), and diocesan pastoral councils, which are mandated but have a miserable history of introduction and operation in Australia in clear breech of canon law.

Parish pastoral councils are the building blocks for lay participation. They should be mandated and act in a spirit of co-responsibility in advising parish priests on all matters. Diocesan pastoral councils to advise bishops should bring parish pastoral councils together through their representatives and carry out their business in a spirit of co-responsibility.

What is the Church doing?

There is a lot going on in the church. Firstly, there are church responses related to the Royal Commission, child safety and governance reform. Secondly there are a few shining examples of dioceses and parishes moving independently towards renewal. Thirdly there is the Plenary Council scheduled for 2020 and 2021.

Participation in the National Redress scheme providing financial compensation up to $150,000 pp for thousands of survivors and victims of child sexual abuse, which began operations in July 2018. This depends on hundreds of Catholic organisations signing up to the scheme. Most will have done so by the designated date of July 2020.

Catholic Professional Standards Limited is the independent body tasked to ensure that all Catholic institutions, especially parishes and dioceses, have child safe systems in place.

The Implementation Advisory Group is the largely-lay body created in 2018 tasked to implement the 100+ recommendations made to the church by the Royal Commission.

The Governance Review Panel Team is the largely-lay sub-committee of IAG, of which I am a member, created late last year to implement Recommendation 67 of the Royal Commission regarding a review of culture and governance in the church. Its stated purpose is: To review the governance and management structures of the Church and make recommendations of reform to ensure that the contemporary standards of good governance are mandatory elements of the Church in Australia at all levels. The governance and management of dioceses and parishes adopted by Church leaders must focus on an unending commitment to protect the most vulnerable and rebuild trust and credibility among the Catholic and broader community.” Its March 2020 report will be both a general resource for the church and an input into the preparation for PC2020.

Individual Parishes and Dioceses across the country are taking some leads in co-responsibility and lay participation. One example are the various diocesan assemblies which are now belatedly taking place.

There is no need to wait. Those that are ahead of the pack should be recognised and congratulated and used as models of best practice.

Plenary Council 2020 preparations have been underway for more than 18 months and will culminate in two sessions in October 2020 in Adelaide and May 2021. It is a massive exercise in public consultation which like most such exercises is flawed, but it still provides opportunities for lay involvement. These are patchy opportunities because that is the fragmented nature of the Australian church. It all depends on your parish and diocesan location. My opinion also is that the whole process has been too tightly controlled from the centre and more could have been done, including publishing the 17,500 submissions, to facilitate debate and discussion within the church.

Where to from here?

Get informed and involved, be sceptical, support those clergy and bishops in favour of renewal, do things locally rather than wait for diocesan, national (Plenary Council 2020-21 and others) or international developments. Be ready for some opposition and disinterest; but take heart that you have wide-spread support. [/s2If]

This is Part 1 of the seventh in the series of articles looking at the particular councils of the Catholic Church in Australia held between 1844 and 1937 by Peter J Wilkinson. It examines the background and factors leading to the Fourth Plenary Council of Australia & New Zealand held in Sydney in September 1937, which brought together all the particular churches of both nations for the second time.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]Part 2 will appear in the Winter edition of The Swag.

After the Australian Plenary Council in 1905, only four particular (provincial and plenary) councils were convened in the English-speaking mission territories under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide (‘Propaganda’): the Provincial Councils of Tuam and Cashel in Ireland held in 1907, the Provincial Council of Melbourne in 1907, and the 4^th Plenary Council of Australia and New Zealand in 1937.

Developments in church governance, 1905-1937

Fewer councils were held in the English-speaking mission territories in this period as Pope Pius X (1903-1914) had announced in his 1908 Constitution Sapienti Consilio that thehierarchies of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States were ‘established’ and the churches there were no longer considered ‘mission territories’. Australia and New Zealand, however, were to remain mission territories under the jurisdiction of Propaganda. The Church in Australia remained a ‘mission territory’ until 1976. The Church in New Zealand is still (2019) a designated mission territory.

In 1911, Cardinal Patrick Moran died, and was succeeded by his coadjutor, Archbishop Michael Kelly (1911-40). Moran had convened three plenary councils in 1885, 1895 and 1905, been Australia’s most powerful Catholic prelate, and for 27 years had functioned as the Holy See’s de facto apostolic delegate for Australia and New Zealand.

The 1905 Plenary Council had proposed that the Archdiocese of Sydney be made the ‘primatial’ see of the Catholic Church in Australia. However, the Holy See rejected the idea, with other plans in mind. It wanted an official apostolic delegate on the ground, to settle disputes and play an active role in the selection of bishops and, in 1914, Pius X established an Apostolic Delegation of Australasia with Archbishop Bonaventura Cerretti (1914-17) the first appointment.

Pius X was succeeded by Benedict XV (1914-1922) who, in 1917, promulgated the new Code of Canon Law. He also issued the 1919 landmark Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud, setting a new course for missionary activity in the 20^th century. Benedict wanted more indigenous or locally-born clergy and bishops in all mission territories, including Australia.

Cerretti was replaced by Archbishop Bartolomeo Catteneo (1917-33), who saw his principal task as implementing the new Code of Canon Law throughout Australasia. Moran had ceased convening meetings of the metropolitan bishops in 1894, and plenary meetings of all the bishops in 1897. Cattaneo immediately convened three meetings of the Australian and New Zealand metropolitan bishops in 1918 and 1919, set their agendas, and insisted on presiding at each. All were focused on a single question: which set of laws had precedence – those of the previous plenary councils or those of the Code of Canon Law? For Cattaneo the answer was clear – those of the Code. This view caused tensions, but Archbishop Kelly and his fellow bishops, rather than take a firm stand, hesitated and procrastinated, with serious consequences for the next plenary council.

Demographic and ecclesiastical developments, 1905-1937

In 1905, Catholics in Australia numbered 824,363 and constituted 20.4 per cent of the total population of 4,032,977. By 1937, though Catholics had increased by 53 per cent to 1,261,220, their growth had not kept pace with the general population and, as a result, their percentage of the 6,871,492 total had fallen to 18.4 per cent (Table 1).

Table 1:  Changes in Catholic population, religious personnel, parishes, seminaries, Catholic schools and students: 1905-1937

Source: Official Catholics directories, various years.

By 1937, parishes (only designated as ‘parishes’ from 1928) had increased by 358 (+85%), priest numbers had more than doubled to 1,911 (+108%), as had those of religious sisters (+112%) and religious brothers (+118%); there were 13 more seminaries (+325%) and 478 more seminarians (+646%); and an additional 435 Catholic schools (+ 41%), and 88,162 students enrolled (+83%).

The new ecclesiastical Province of Perth was established in 1913 with Perth as the Metropolitan See, and 3 new dioceses had been erected: Wagga Wagga in 1917, Toowoomba in 1929, and Townsville in 1930. Australia now had 5 ecclesiastical provinces, with 6 archdioceses, 16 dioceses, 1 abbacy nullius, and 2 vicariates apostolic (Table 2).

Table 2: Demographic and ecclesiastical data for the Catholic Church in Australia, 1937

Notes: 1. The term ‘district’ was replaced in the Official Directory by ‘parish’ in 1928. 2. The Summary of Statistics in the 1938 Directory does not give any data for the Diocese of Victoria and Palmerston, but the 1939 Directory does provide data for ‘Darwin’. 3. The Summary of Statistics in the 1938 Directory gives data for the VA of Kimberley in a special table for ‘Vicariates (Missions to Aboriginals in Australia and Oceania)’. Parishes are listed as ‘Mission Centres’. 4. This is the European population only. Full-blooded Aboriginal people were not included in the official Australian Census until 1967.

Seminary developments, 1905-1937

In 1905 St Patrick’s College, Manly, was the sole seminary in Australia preparing candidates for the diocesan priesthood. Operating since 1889, it was educating 54 seminarians from all dioceses (including those in New Zealand) and 71 candidates, mostly Australian-born, had been ordained. Several religious congregations also had formation houses in 1905: the Benedictines at New Norcia in WA (novitiate in 1904); the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in NSW (scholasticate in 1897, novitiate and apostolic school in 1904); the Passionists in NSW (novitiate in 1890) and SA (scholasticate in 1896); and the Jesuits in NSW (novitiate in 1890). The 1905 Council legislated to establish “a foreign missionary college” to train Australian priests for missions in the Philippines, China and Japan (Decree 18), and St Columba’s Seminary in Springwood was opened in 1910.

St Columba’s Seminary, Springwood, NSW

Archbishop Kelly convened two plenary meetings of the Australian bishops in 1912 and 1913, and their priority concerns were two: the ‘nationalisation’ of the Manly seminary, and obtaining annual reports on the progress of their own seminarians.

For the first concern, Melbourne’s Coadjutor Archbishop Daniel Mannix had a proposal: that Sydney’s Manly and Springwood seminaries be administered by the Bishops of Australia; that the Manly seminary become the Australian National Seminary with the Catholic Hierarchy of Australia as the Governing Board; that both properties be vested in Trustees nominated by the Sydney Archbishop; and that any profits be returned to the Board for seminary use. Most bishops favoured the proposal, but some senior Sydney priests baulked at the transfer of ownership and control of the assets.

In 1914, Australian-born Manly professor Terence McGuire criticised the bishops for continuing to prioritize the importation of overseas-born (mainly Irish) priests, and claimed they were damaging an Australian priesthood. He called on them to rely on Australian-born priests and to establish an ‘Australian national seminary and Catholic University of United Australia’, possibly at Manly. Shortly after, the Manly alumni established the Manly Union with the aim of nationalising the Manly seminary and making it ‘the great ecclesiastical University of the Commonwealth’. They told the bishops that if they supported the Union and its aim, the priests would give their financial support and cooperation. But World War I intervened and the issue to be dropped.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law defined seminaries as “ecclesiastical corporations and non-collegiate moral persons, with the right to own and administer property for the purpose of training young men for the priesthood”. It wanted to keep young boys (adolescents) showing signs of a vocation from “the contagion of the world” (c. 1353), and emphasised the need for every diocese, or cluster of dioceses, to have a diocesan or inter-diocesan seminary, and preferably both a minor and major seminary (c. 1354).

Benedict XV’s Maximum Illud called for all missionary activity to break with the existing Eurocentric and colonialist mentality, move to a greater appreciation of cultural differences, and separate missionary activity from political alliances. The promotion of colonialism through religion had to cease, for the Catholic missionary is “an ambassador of Christ, not a messenger of his own nation”. He wanted the local churches to become independent of foreign missionaries, and have their own indigenous (locally-born) priests and bishops.

Key to this was Benedict’s insistence on the formation of locally-born clergy who would “one day be able to take up the spiritual leadership of their people”. His successor, Pius XI (1922-1939), followed up with the appointment of numerous indigenous bishops in India (1923), China (1926), Japan (1927), Indochina (1937) and Africa (1937). In Australia, where by 1919 only 4 Australian-born priests had been appointed bishops, and then only to the smallest rural dioceses, change was slow, as there was much resistance.

Benedict was also critical of mission churches producing local clergy of inferior quality, insufficient local priests for spiritual guidance, and few local bishops for governance. He abhorred feeble and faulty formation programs and insisted on more and better seminaries to develop local clergy.

After WWI, discussions on Mannix’s 1913 proposals resumed, but soon floundered on a range of issues. The Holy See had offered the Australian bishops a building in Rome to serve as an Australian College (seminary), but they rejected it. By 1921, the bishops were deadlocked on the seminary issue and, unable to resolve it, they sought a decision from Rome. In 1922 Propaganda instructed them to set aside the ‘national seminary’ proposal, and for all the dioceses to ‘make provision for the establishment, as soon as possible, of provincial and diocesan seminaries’.

In 1923 a Victorian provincial seminary, Corpus Christi College, was opened at Werribee, and by 1937 a total of 3 diocesan seminaries and 19 religious houses for clerical formation were operating, with a total of 552 major seminarians.

Selection of bishops, 1905-1937

The 1885 Plenary Council had legislated that the ‘senior priests’ – understood as diocesan consultors and irremovable rectors – of each diocese had the right, whenever a new bishop or coadjutor bishop was required, to gather, consult, and propose the names of the best three candidates (ternus) and present them to the bishops of the province, who would then forward the ternus to the Holy See with their own comments or, if opposed to some names, add or substitute their own recommendations with their stated reasons. This process was only slightly amended by the 1895 Plenary Council.

Up to 1905 only one Australian-born priest, Patrick Dwyer, had been selected for Episcopal ordination. From 1905 to 1937 another ten were selected and ordained, the most significant being the new archbishop of Hobart, Justin Simonds. He had been the unanimous choice of the senior priests of Hobart and took office just four months before the 1937 Council.

Following Maximum Illud, the Holy See wanted more locally-born bishops in Australia. To achieve this, it appointed the tough and abrasive Archbishop Giovanni Panico (1935-48) as Apostolic Delegate, who immediately set about diluting the influence of the six Irish archbishops, especially the powerful troika of Mannix (Melbourne), Duhig (Brisbane) and Killian (Adelaide). Panico executed his plan with three swift moves: Kelly’s long-standing coadjutor, Michael Sheehan, was ‘invited’ to resign and retire; Australian-born Bishop Norman Gilroy was appointed Kelly’s coadjutor with right of succession; and John Lonergan, Mannix’s vicar-general and trusted deputy, was appointed to the vacant see of Port Augusta. He died before Episcopal ordination.

The Holy See also had a plan to radically change the system for selecting candidates for Episcopal appointment. In the 1937 Council’s schema, Propaganda had drafted legislation to: 1) further limit the number of priests to be consultedfor the ternus, and then only ‘singly’ under a grave obligation to secrecy, and only before the 2-yearly meeting of the bishops; 2) allow the bishops to draw up names only every second year at their plenary meetings and not, as before, when a new bishop or coadjutor was needed; and 3) have all lists of names sent first to the Apostolic Delegate. The bishops were told that the changes were ‘the explicit mind of the Holy See’, and the sole concession they could get was to have the phrase: “the bishops will take care that … they will send to the Apostolic Delegate only the names of the most suitable candidates” inserted in the decree. It was a last ditch attempt to ensure that their terna might get preference over the terna of the Delegate.

Evangelization of Aboriginal peoples, 1905-1937

The 1905 Plenary Council had received reports on the missions to the Aborigines in Beagle Bay (WA), New Norcia (WA) and the Northern Territory and had approved an offer from the New Norcia Benedictines to establish a priory in the Kimberley vicariate. It had also considered Geraldton Bishop Kelly’s request to be relieved of the administration of the Diocese of Victoria and Palmerston (NT), and repeated all the earlier decrees on Aboriginal evangelization.

Up to 1937 very little direct effort had been made by the Irish bishops and priests to evangelize Australia’s indigenous peoples. The exceptions were Bishop Matthew Gibney and Fr John Creagh CSsR. Similarly, few Irish female religious congregations had established dedicated ministries to Australia’s indigenous peoples, with the notable exception of the Irish Sisters of St John of God in the Kimberley and the Irish Sisters of Mercy at Mackay (QLD).

By 1931 the Communist media were declaring Australia’s Aboriginees ‘an oppressed class’, and missionaries as ‘agents of colonial oppression’. They demanded the ‘liquidation of all missions and so-called homes for Aborigines, as these are part of the weapons being used to exterminate the Aboriginal race by segregating the sexes and sending the young girls into slavery’ (Workers’ Weekly, 24 September 1931).

Beagle Bay (WA) Pallotine mission

In 1905 the German Pallotine mission at Beagle Bay was in crisis. The superior lacked support from his congregational Brothers, and more Pallotines were desperately needed. A new superior removed the trouble-making Brothers in 1906 and gathered sufficient mission staff to retain the land lease.

In 1907 nine Irish Sisters of St John of God arrived at Beagle Bay and the WA Government began sending Aboriginal girls to the mission. By 1909 there were 94 girls in care. When five more sisters arrived, a convent was opened in Broome.

With the promulgation of the WA Aborigines Act, 1905, the Chief Protector became the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and half-caste child under 16 years of age, and the WA Government looked to the church missions to care for and educate the ‘removed’ children of mixed-blood born to Aboriginal women who had been prostituted to lugger crews by their own tribesman.

Though financial and personnel problems persisted at Beagle Bay, the government adopted a more positive attitude and offered the Pallotines the Filipino/Aboriginal community of Lombardina, a government feeding station, which they accepted and staffed. An exceptional cyclone there in 1910 caused severe damage and took 40 lives.

In 1910 Bishop Kelly was relieved as Vicar Apostolic of the Kimberley and replaced by the Spanish Benedictine Abbot – and recently ordained bishop – Fulgentius Torres, who retained the position until his death in 1914.

With the mission’s continuing debts, the Pallotine superiors in Germany sought to withdraw from Beagle Bay in 1911, but no other religious order would take it over. A massive effort by one of the Pallotine priests turned the financial situation around and the WA Government now authorised more girls, mostly of mixed descent, to be sent to the mission. By 1913, the mission was caring for 84 girls (28 full-blood and 56 half-caste) and 36 boys (3 full-blood and 33 half-caste), while another 11 children lived with their parents. No new Pallotines had arrived from Germany since 1904, and no more would arrive until 1925.

When war with Germany broke out in 1914 government officials became concerned that the German missionaries might be aiding the enemy. They were watched closely, security measures tightened, and all mail censored. The Superior, Fr Bishofs, was labelled a spy.

With a change of Chief Protector, fewer children were sent to the mission, government support was reduced, and surveillance increased. In 1914 the Irish Redemptorist priest, John Creagh, was appointed administrator of the Kimberley Vicariate, but not ordained a bishop. Creagh too was not trusted by the authorities, due to the 1914 Easter Uprising in Dublin. All the missionaries had movement restrictions imposed. Creagh returned to Perth in 1922.

Apostolic Delegate Cattaneo now recommended that the Kimberley Vicariate be entrusted to the Salesians of Don Bosco and divided into two mission fields, with the Salesians and Pallotines sharing the burden. The suggestion did not sit well with the Pallotines, whose heroic efforts to keep the mission alive and intact, but the Italian Salesian, Ernesto Coppo, was appointed Vicar Apostolic of The Kimberley in 1922, ordained bishop, and arrived in 1923 with a multinational Salesian group of 4 priests and 3 brothers. He made his base in Broome, left the Pallotines in charge of the Beagle Bay and Lombardina missions, and opened a third (Salesian) mission at Carnarvon. His request to open a fourth mission at LaGrange was turned down. However, by the time more German Pallotines had arrived in 1925, the Salesians had vacated the Kimberley Vicariate. Most had moved to Melbourne and Brisbane to minister to the Italian immigrant communities there, and in 1927 Bishop Coppo resigned.

Pallotine Bishop Ottone Raible (1887-1966), Apostolic Administrator (1928-35) and Vicar Apostolic (1935-58) of the Kimberley Vicariate.

The Pallotines continued their ministry in the Vicariate and in 1927, when Fr Pűsken was appointed Protector of Aborigines, all government surveillance was lifted. An offer by the St John of God Sisters to care for lepers was, however, turned down.

The German Pallotine, Otto Raible, arrived as Apostolic Administrator in 1928, and when he was appointed Vicar Apostolic and ordained a bishop in 1935, the Pallotines finally had full authority.

Though the Pallotine mission continued to struggle financially, Raible expanded the Pallotine’s activity into anthropology and ethnology, acquired a second cattle station lease at Rockhole, and purchased a farm at Tardun in the southern wheatbelt which, cultivated by the Pallotines, became a productive asset. Another 11 Pallotines arrived from Germany between 1930 and 1934 and in 1935, Raible received Episcopal ordination in Europe. On his return he brought an expert in tropical medicine and extra staff to establish a missionary training college in Melbourne.

By 1934 leprosy had become a major problem in the Kimberley, as had police brutality and the chaining and massacre of Aboriginals. In 1935 a massive cyclone claimed 141 lives in the Broome district, and almost completely destroyed the Beagle Bay mission buildings. They were still being rebuilt when Bishop Raible travelled to Sydney for the 1937 Plenary Council.

Acknowledgment:In preparing this article many primary and secondary sources were consulted. However, special acknowledgment is given to the original research of Dr Ian B Waters published in his article “The Fourth Plenary Council of Australia & New Zealand” in Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, Vol. 38 (2006) No. 2, pp. 451-466. [/s2If]