The catholic Church in Australia

By seymour
  • First priests

    • not all Catholics in the early settlement were practicing Catholics
    • Priests and sacraments were readily available
    • It was not till the 1800 that the first Catholic priests arrived in the colony and they arrived as convicts
    • James Dixon- had conditional freedom to perform Mass but lost privilege after cast hill rebellion
    • Father John Joseph Therry & Philip Connolly chaplains appointed by government in London 1820
    • This arrival is regarded as the formal establishment of the catholic ch
  • first bishop

    • John Bede Polding
    • Polding’s priests were mainly Irish – there was a conflict between Polding’s vision and their ideas
    • Irish clergy dominated Australia Catholic life until very recently
    • 1930’s Australian born priests outnumbered them
  • The growth of religious orders

    • Those already in Australia
    • The sister of charity
    • The good Samaritans sisters
    • The sister of st joseph (1866-founded by fr Julian tennison woods and mary mckollip)
  • catholic schooling

    • Nuns ran them
    • Only the rich people went there
    • They were all Catholics
    • Government funding
    • By 1833 there were about 10 catholic schools in the country
    • 1833-end of-1860’s- Catholics schools had some government assistance
    • 1872-1893- all states passed education acts removing state aid
  • Irish and english priest

    In the 1930's english catholic priest outmubered the Irish priest
  • post-war era

    Catholics increase (baby boomers),
    • Numbers of brothers, nuns and priest also increases
    • Catholics improved there socio-economic status
    • High level of attendance at mass
    • Many Catholics belonged to Catholic groups
    • Devotion to the rosary was common
  • change

    • 1960 And 1970 influx of non-English speaking immigrants
    • Ideas and practices came into conflict with Irish background
    • The solution was the priests from origins recruited and new schools/ churches were built