Archbishop Of Sydney Research Articles

A Guide to John Henry Newman: His Life and Thought ed. by Juan R. Vélez

Reviewed by: A Guide to John Henry Newman: His Life and Thought ed. by Juan R. Vélez Serenhedd James Juan R. Vélez, editor, ed. A Guide to John Henry Newman: His Life and Thought Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022 532 pages. Hardback. $75. The books on John Henry Newman keep on coming. It is an encouraging situation, for Newman's story can scarcely be said to have ended with his canonization by Pope Francis in 2019. One can only wonder at how the latest English saint might have annotated the little biographical list he kept of his life—"and now a Cardinal, &c"—with the confirmation of his entry into the empyrean and his elevation to the altars of the Church. Newman is not just a saint for England, of course. Let it be remembered that the miracles necessary for his canonization were found to have occurred in the United States, and so it seems fitting that the contributors to this doorstopper volume edited by Fr. Juan Vélez (author of Passion for Truth: The Life of John Henry Newman, 2011) write from all over the world, specifically from the Americas, Europe, Australia, and the Far East. The fragrance of the snapdragon on the wall has been wafted to the corners of the globe: "Their sound is gone out into all lands" (Rom 10:18). Vélez is clear from the start that the aim of the volume is "to strike a balance, disagreeing at times with Newman, indicating omissions or completing ideas he put forth without diminishing his contributions or, worse, denigrating him" (xvi). This is to be welcomed, especially in the last instance; he identifies "a hermeneutic of suspicion" that has led some "to consider that Newman's personal recollections are false until proven true" (xvii). He observes that in recent years certain scholars (he names one obvious candidate) have gone [End Page 134] out of their way to impute motives and impulses to Newman that amount to little more than speculation. It was a tendency that the late Fr. Ian Ker particularly deplored, and so it is that chapters on Newman's engagement with his students and his relationships with his friends are to be particularly cherished. As Ker often asserted, the reason that so many modern commentators have been happy to attribute something "more" to Newman's interactions with Ambrose St John is because very few people today are able to understand the deep and intense nature of Victorian friendship. Fewer still seem to be fortunate enough to have experienced it for themselves. Twenty-seven essays divided into two sections dealing with New-man's character and his doctrine respectively present a fresh approach to aspects of both. Barbara H. Wyman on Newman's women associates is an especially important inclusion, while Paul Shrimpton's evocative piece on Newman the educator reads like a eulogy for a form of pedagogy that has been lost. Focused on the pastoral care of the individual student and often developing into a lifelong mentorship, it turned out plenty of public figures who were considerably more rounded than many of our leaders of today. That is not to say that all leaders of today are without their merits, of course. Anthony Fisher, O.P., the Archbishop of Sydney, reflects deeply on Newman and conscience; Stephen Morgan, Rector of the University of St. Joseph in Macao, writes of "the vivid power and synthetic originality" of Newman's approach to the exercise of the imagination (54); while Fr. Carter Griffin, Rector of St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC, engages with Newman's call to celibacy in the context of his immediate circle and through the lens of later papal teachings. A narrative of conversion—and not only of life—also appears, for those with eyes to see. Tracey Rowland, who here considers development of doctrine, edited "The Anglican Patrimony in Catholic Communion: The Gift of the Ordinariates" (2021); Vélez emphasizes that many of the writers are "Christian Protestant converts to Roman Catholicism," (xvi) and himself contributes to a chapter (with Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, whose The Roman Mass appeared last year) which traces the intellectual...

“Australianizing” the Local Catholic Church: Polding to Gilroy

The Catholic Church in Australia until around the 1940s has commonly been described as “Irish” and “Roman”. Historians cite the high proportion of Irish clergy and bishops, the latter often educated in in Rome. While the above pattern is accepted, there is evidence of earlier “Australianization.” This article examines such evidence in the foundational Archdiocese of Sydney and focuses on two archbishops, John Bede Polding and Norman Thomas Gilroy. Polding (archbishop 1842–1877) contributed to Australianization by initiating the Australian hierarchy, establishing a local seminary, seeking leaders experienced in Australia, and founding the local Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Gilroy's episcopate (1940–1971) saw the consolidation of the Australianizing trend. Witness to the Anzac landings, the first native‐born archbishop of Sydney and cardinal, Gilroy led the archdiocese as the Australian episcopate and clergy became further Australianized. On his retirement, after being named “Australian of the Year,” the Catholic Church in Australia could best be termed “Australian” and “Roman.”

Introduction: Remembering the Religious History of A. E. (Tony) Cahill (1933–2004) and Patrick O’Farrell (1933–2003)

This article provides an introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Religious History on the theme religion and memory based on papers presented at the 20th International Congress of Historical Sciences held at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in July 2005. The special issue was prepared as a memorial tribute to the Australian historians Tony Cahill (1933–2004) and Patrick O’Farrell (1933–2003). Patrick O’Farrell made significant contributions to the histories of Ireland, Irish Australia, migration, place and memory. Tony Cahill was a former editor of the Journal of Religious History who published a number of biographical studies of the Irish‐born Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Francis Moran (1830–1911). The introduction provides a review summary of the published work of Patrick O’Farrell and brief notes about the seven articles which make up the special issue. The Appendix includes a full bibliography of the published writing of Patrick O’Farrell.

Big change question—Taking into account mainstream economic and political trends, can/should school have a role in developing authentic critical thinking?

‘No Way’, said George Pell when, after the death of Pope John Paul II, a journalist asked if he would like to be the next Pope. ‘No ambitions at all’ (Gibson, 2005). But when he weighs in on the critical pedagogy debate Cardinal George Pell, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, clearly has ambitions broader than an average priest. Take literacy, for example. ‘While parents wonder why their children have never heard of the Romantic poets, Yeats or the Great War poets, and never ploughed through a Bronte, Orwell or Dickens novel’, Pell told a gathering of journalists attending a National Press Club luncheon in Canberra, ‘their children are engaged in analysing a variety of ‘‘texts’’ including films, magazines, advertisements and even road signs as part of critical literacy’ (Pell, 2005; Rowbotham, 2005). In contemporary debates about education, views like Pell’s are not unusual. In this paper, we will take them to be symptomatic of the conservative critique of teaching critical thinking. Pell’s problem is not just that what he calls ‘school-based post-modernism, proposes to make students into ‘‘agents of social change’’.’ It is the kind of social change he believes a critical pedagogy is designed to advocate, and this amounts to an attempt to undermine ‘[g]enerally accepted understandings of family, sexuality, maleness, femaleness, parenthood, and culture’. Any such understandings, he laments ‘are treated as ‘‘dominant discourses’’ that impose and legitimise injustice and intolerance. These dominant discourses are then undermined by a disproportionate focus on ‘‘texts’’ which normalise moral and social disorder’.

Depiction of Muslims in Selected Australian Media

Depiction of Muslims in Selected Australian Media

‘The Normal State of the Church’: William Bernard Ullathorne, First Bishop of Birmingham

‘Whilst sailing on board a French ship on the Pacific Ocean in the year 1839, I drew up the first sketch of a plan for establishing the Catholic hierarchy in Australia. The sketch was afterwards completed by the guide of my monastic life and studies, the Archbishop of Sydney, then Vicar-Apostolic of Australia; and by authority of Pope Gregory XVI, in the following year the Australian hierarchy came into existence. The fertile results which quickly followed from the establishment of the normal state of the Church in that distant land inspired me with the earnest desire of seeing the same blessing conferred on the Catholics of England. And on the day of my episcopal consecration, being the very day of the coronation of the present reigning pontiff, as the three Bishops were placing the mitre on my head, there arose up in my mind a sense that was indescribably keen of the need in which we stood for recovering our Hierarchy; and with that sense came a desire as keen to labour for its recovery.’

REVIEWS

Reviews in this articlePETER MUNZ: Problems of Religious Knowledge.ANDRE‐JEAN FESTUGIERE: Personal Religion among the Greeks.E. A. JUDGE: The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century.DAVID KNOWLES: The Religious Orders in England.GORDON DONALDSON: The Scottish Reformation.BURDETTE C. POLAND: French Protestantism and the French Revolution: a Study in Church and State Thought and Religion, 1685–1815.M. L. LOANE: Archbishop Mowll, the Biography of Howard West Kilvinton Mowll, Archbishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia.

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians: No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians: No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians. No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians. No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians. No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney

Memoirs of Distinguished Gregorians. No. II.—The Most Reverend John Bede Polding, D.D., O.S.B., First Archbishop of Sydney