The Power of Pat
Bishop Patrick Power never worried about being popular. As a result, he became enormously loved and respected. When the auxiliary bishop of Canberra/Goulburn was named as the ACT citizen of the year in 2009, everyone was delighted but few were surprised. His impact reached far beyond Catholic circles. He laughed and said they must have been scraping the barrel to get down to him.
Father Pat, as he was commonly known, was born in Cooma in 1942 but grew up in Queanbeyan, a railway town adjacent to Canberra but culturally quite distinct. The poet Les Murray used to stir the pot by saying there were more notable buildings in Queanbeyan than Canberra. Pat was not quite as outlandish, but he did like to remind people that Queanbeyan was there long before Canberra started taking over sheep paddocks beside the Molonglo. When he retired in 2012, he said:
If my mother taught me the unconditional love of God, it was my father who showed me what it meant to stand up against injustice and to be in solidarity with people who are struggling. Growing up in Queanbeyan, I never objected to it being called Struggletown because I felt that term epitomised many of the most admirable of my hometown’s qualities.
Pat was in the seminary from 1959 to 1965 and found life there difficult because ‘much of the formation seemed to be removed from the realities of life.’ He became a priest in 1965 and a bishop in 1986.
Father Pat was always pushing the envelope. He developed a special ministry visiting priests and brothers imprisoned at the Junee Correctional Centre, 230 km from his home. He told me how difficult this was. First, visits were only allowed on the weekend when he had many other duties to fulfil. Second, he was only allowed to visit one person per trip, so he had to go back and forth repeatedly. The travel was gruelling. Most of all, the sex offenders he was visiting were among the most despised people in the country. Pat was well aware of the damage they had done. He wrote vigorously in support of the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse, saying ‘the truth will set us free.’ But he believed that nobody ever stopped being human and, besides, the criminals were part of us and their crimes had been committed from within the Catholic Church. I admired him but doubted I’d ever be able to make such visits myself. He was in a different league.
After a church service, he memorably shirtfronted John Howard, then Prime Minister, about sending troops to Iraq. A phalanx of other religious dignitaries of various denominations stood around him in their finery, shaking Howard’s hand. Not Pat. Howard was furious and took off in a great huff. I rang Pat that night after seeing the spectacle on TV. He said his legs were still shaking. Fear never stopped him. He never believed in weapons of mass destruction. He was more likely to celebrate a Mass of weapons destruction.
Every year, we waited for his Christmas letter. He never wrote much about himself, which told you more about him than if he had. The letter was full of the names and groups of people he mixed with and whose company nurtured his faith in Christ, whom he believed was to be encountered at the margins of society. From the residents of the Narrabundah Longstay Caravan Park to refugees who’d recently arrived in Canberra to those whose children died as victims of drug culture. He sat with them all. He shared those moments.
Older people may recall the ad limina visit of the Australian bishops to Pope John Paul II in 1998. A small number of self-important zealots had wormed their way into the Pope’s ear. As a result, his instructions to the Australian bishops were less than warm and critical of their giving in to the relativism of Australian culture, which was hardly what the bishops had been doing.
He was especially harsh about the use of what was known as the third rite of reconciliation, which allowed a congregation to receive absolution while they were in a group. The bishops were broadsided and many were angry afterwards. A week or two earlier, at the Oceania Synod of Bishops, Pat spoke up in front of Pope John Paul, whom he deeply admired. Pat named four groups that had been marginalised by the church: the divorced and remarried, former priests, those in gay relationships, and women. Pat called for change. The Pope’s reaction is not recorded.
He told me about some of his interactions with Cardinal Pell. At one bishops conference meeting, Pat said that George was giving him the cold shoulder. Bishop Pat had been called into the apostolic nuncio because he was publicly supportive of LGBTIQ+ relationships, so perhaps he was in bad odour with some of his brother bishops. Pat said that he was annoyed by Pell’s rudeness but then saw Pell sitting on his own at lunch and felt sorry for him. Pat never saw anybody as an enemy, only as a fellow pilgrim.
He asked Pell why he seemed so angry and, according to Pat, Pell replied in his abrasive manner that he couldn’t tolerate disloyalty to the pope. I thought of this when a blazing diatribe against Pope Francis was attributed to Pell and wondered if the attribution could possibly be correct because how could anybody be so brazenly hypocritical.
All this and so much more are stories for others to elaborate. Our personal relationship was dear to me. It was full of laughter and banter about his dogs and the Rabbitohs. He often rang when he read something I had written, always full of encouragement, often suggesting I should send it to someone who might benefit. On radio, he often attributed his wisdom to his namesake, the Irish bookmaker Patrick Power. Like the bookmaker, he backed outsiders.
I had known Pat’s name but had never met him until, at the end of 2000, I left the Jesuit order and moved to the small town of Gunning, about 70 km from Canberra. I was disoriented. Within 48 hours, Pat was on the phone, welcoming me to the diocese and offering to journey with me. I don’t even know how he got my number. Then he came to visit and introduced me to a couple of families in Gunning whom he knew.
Soon afterwards, he invited me to a special dinner at the Southern Cross Club in Woden. How a club connected to the church (there was a picture of another bishop in the foyer) could run so many poker machines was beyond my understanding. That aside, it was a wonderful occasion. Pat had gathered about forty former priests with their wives. Most of these men had a very different story from mine, having been ostracised and disowned, even sometimes by their families.
All this simply because they wanted to get married. Or sometimes just explore life. It was painful to hear them speak and I was grateful that my experience was so different to theirs.
The group was large because once upon a time, the public service was one of the few places a former priest, banned from teaching in Catholic schools or other works, could get a job. Many came to Canberra. Pat reached out to us and many of these men were overwhelmed. The group then met a few times every year and those dinners were healing.
Pat baptised our first child, Benedict, in Gunning. We soon had three children under the age of two, and Pat told us to use his house as much as we liked when we came to Canberra. He always wanted to help. And he did. My heart aches for his kindness even now.
Michael McGirr is the mission facilitator of Caritas Australia.
Funeral Homily for Fr. Peter Foley
Today we celebrate and remember the life of a great man, a great priest and a great pastor. Peter was an icon of the Geelong Deanery. He was parish priest of Belmont for 27 years. He was also a man of strong convictions and strong opinions and he was a man of vision.
The year of Peter’s ordination, 1962, was also the year in which the Second Vatican Council was convened. Was this coincidence, serendipity, or divine providence? I believe that it was divine providence. Peter and his confreres embraced the reforms and innovations of the council. They implemented these reforms within their parishes with energy and enthusiasm. The council gave Peter the freedom to pursue his own pastoral vision and created the fertile pastoral environment in which he flourished. Peter and his confreres turned these reforms into reality in parish life. This was Peter’s achievement and has become his legacy.
Peter never shirked a challenge. He embraced challenge, it spurred him on. He believed in doing right. It wasn’t about equity or fairness. It was about right. Peter did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. He wasn’t looking for kudos or recognition. For Peter the reward was in the action, and he was a man of action. Peter was tenacious and fearless. I don’t believe that there was any archbishop who didn’t incur Peter’s wrath or strength of opinion; he had a healthy disrespect for authority. He appreciated the need for hierarchy, but he never kowtowed to it. His battles with the 7th Archbishop of Melbourne is the stuff of legend.
Peter was also a man who used colourful expressions. When I visited him in St. John of God Hospital, I would ask him how he was feeling, how he was doing. Those of you who are familiar with the 3AW breakfast programme, are aware that the hosts, Ross and Russ, have euphemisms for colourful language. Peter’s response to my inquiry was “I’m redacted Jimmy”.
His larrikin demeanour was both endearing and polarising. Those of us who knew and loved him enjoyed his down to earth personality and felt comforted by it. His work to help the parish of Manya in Uganda is legendary as was his outreach and care for all who were in need. Peter was an innovative and visionary pastor. He made the courageous decision to move the parish plant from High St to its present position here in Fryers Rd. He built this church and merged the two parish primary schools, Mercia and St. Bernard into the one, Clairvaux.
Peter preached the Gospel and he lived the Gospel. His care for his brother priests was evident through his establishment of the Infirmed Priests Sustentation Fund, which morphed into the Priests Retirement Foundation, for which we are all in his debt. Peter was also a friend and supporter of the National Council of Priests. In the new parish administration centre, Peter leased the NCP office space which was of great assistance to the work and mission of the NCP. Peter also had his detractors, as do we all. The stories of Peter toying with them at Sunday Mass are numerous. He never let opposition deter him from his mission.
Peter was also a devoted follower of the Geelong Football Club, “The Cats”. Like many of us Peter revelled in the 2007 drought breaking premiership by wearing his Geelong scarf under his stole celebrating Mass. He was also an aficionado of the “Turf” and enjoyed a punt. Peter wouldn’t want to be lionized. Behind all of his bravado was a man of deep humility. He loved being a priest. He loved his people in all of the parishes he ministered. Peter loved his Lord, Jesus Christ whose priesthood he embraced. Peter is now in the arms of the God whom he loved and who has always loved him and who has called him home.
Peter now stands in God’s presence. We are always in God’s presence, but Peter now sees the face of God. As he looks into the face of God, he sees the face of love. Looking into the face of love Peter prays for all of you, his family and friends, because Peter still loves you. We pray for him because we still love him. Our prayers and Peter’s prayers are directed to the God who loves us all. We grieve Peter’s loss. This funeral liturgy is to help us say goodbye and to help us deal with our own grief. We all grieve in our own way and in our own time. There is no handbook, no text book, no blueprint for grief.
The French philosopher and mystic, Simone Weil, spoke about grief and loss in these terms. She used the term affliction to describe the pain which comes from grief and loss. She tells us that the pain we are experiencing is God, holding on to our hand and squeezing too tight.
We are all in the arms of the God who loves us and cares for us, the God who is comforting us and reassuring us that our beloved Peter, friend, Priest, Pastor, brother and uncle is now at peace and has been called home. Vale Fr. Peter Foley, Priest, Pastor, son, brother, uncle, and friend.
“Well done good and faithful servant”.
