This study was undertaken to investigate and to propose a solution to the pastoral dilemma that faced the Catholic Church in Australia the 1990’s. The pastoral dilemma contrasted two opposing pastoral responses to the significant changes in Catholic life since the Second Vatican Council. One response reacted to the changes by interpreting them as “crises of faith”. This response determined that the decline in mass attendance, the fewer vocations to the priesthood and religious life and the disregard of the teaching authority of the Church was the result of a loss of faith. Consequently, it prescribed a return to previous values and behaviour. The other response was more difficult to determine and has been the principle work of this thesis. The second pastoral response was identified in the search for the sacred in the daily lives of the people. This search linked the changes in Catholic life to the ongoing journey of faith that has taken place. A pastoral response based on this understanding of the changes in Catholic life was seen to provide an opportunity for “all who invoked the name of Christ” to enter a deeper relationship with him and each other. This response embraced the spirit of renewal proposed by the Council. A review of religious literature published in Australia since the Council was conducted to provide an overview of the journey of Catholic life. It identified four categories of literature that displayed the most interest in the changes. Whilst the review had a particular focus on Catholics, it included other traditions. Of the four categories initially sociology of religion which attracted most interest, followed later by theological reflections and interpretations, and ultimately an interest in spirituality, or the “spirituality revolution”. The historical and biographical studies reviewed recounted the changes in Church life and remained at a lesser, but constant expression of interest. An examination of the research of sociology of religion in Australia established that the changes in religious belief and practice were influenced by environmental factors and, for Catholics, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The methods of sociology identified the significant areas of change, but their limited explanations of the changes did little to assist church authorities to resolve the tensions and difficulties. The limitations of statistical information about religion contributed to the pastoral dilemma. The findings of sociology increased interest in theological reflection about the influence of the changing context of society on Catholic life. These reflections endeavoured to explain the reforms of the Council, the relationship to the changes to the reforms and led to “contextual” theology which was embraced by the “Discovery of an Australian Theology”. Spirituality by the 1990s had become a popular response that purported to take the place of “organised religion” in the community. The interest in spirituality also became the key factor in the Catholic search for deeper values, and inspired a renewed sense of the spiritual in ordinary everyday life. The popular interest in spirituality was located in the tradition of Christian spirituality, and the thesis concluded that this tradition embraced the personal experience of God, as expressed in the lives of Catholics in Australia. Such personal experiences were identified and discerned to benefit of the individual and through dialogue transformed the community. The transformation, thus begun, continued in further dialogue, engaged the community, and inspired others beyond the community of the Church to believe. Therefore, the personal experience of the spiritual was authenticated by its place in the developing tradition of the Church. The Council called for individuals and communities in the Church to identify the “signs of the times” as the opportunities for renewal, and personal renewal was closely linked to communal renewal. The “search for a soul” expressed an Australian “sign of the times”. The search provided the opportunity for many people to embark on a journey that led to personal and communal renewal or transformation. Consequently, pastoral responses to renewal based on rule and regulation, or expectations of the past, lacked the personal spiritual dimension. Thus, the title of the thesis figuratively describes the spiritual journey of Catholics from a devotional religious experience to one that seeks to find the sacred in the core values and experiences of life.

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain the extent and nature of belonging to the Australian Catholic Church as experienced by immigrants. This experience of belonging was ascertained through the quantitative study of the National Church Life Survey of 2001 and to a lesser extent the Catholic Church Life Survey of 1996. Both surveys were conducted with attenders at a particular Sunday Eucharist and hence measured the experiences only of Catholics who attend Church. This quantitative study was complemented with a qualitative study of a small group of Vietnamese Catholics who were members of a particular parish. The importance of belonging to a religious tradition is that it provides an aspect of an individual’s identity. Identity is many-faceted and formed and reformed in the context of belonging, whether that belonging is to people such as family or to groups of people such as fellow members of a religious tradition. In the process of migration and settlement, the set of primary groups to which an individual belongs is at best disrupted and at worst, lost. Belonging to a religious tradition may provide a constancy of belonging in the immigrant’s life when all other aspects of belonging are being renegotiated during settlement in the host country. In the case of the Catholic Church in Australia, there has been some debate about whether or not the Church has been welcoming of immigrants but little testing of immigrants’ experience of being welcomed and enabled to belong to the Church. The National Church Life Survey provided a unique opportunity to examine the extent and nature of belonging as experienced by immigrant Catholics. Since all respondents to the survey were asked their birthplace, comparisons could readily be made between the experiences of Australian-born Catholics and those Catholics who were born elsewhere. Since nearly 3,000 respondents completed surveys in Italian or Vietnamese, comparisons could also be made between these respondents and those who responded to the survey in English. Finally, comparisons were made between the small group of Vietnamese parishioners who engaged in the qualitative research, and other groups of Catholics. The comparisons were made between all the groups on the issue of belonging. In the survey there was a particular question that asked respondents about their experience of belonging, but there were other questions that indicated the nature of belonging of respondents, and these were used in the analysis. The results of the analyses show that on almost all measures, immigrants belong to the Church to a greater extent than Australian-born Catholics. Immigrants attend Sunday Eucharist in greater proportion than Australian born Catholics. Immigrant Catholics participated more in devotional activities, they reported a greater degree of satisfaction with their faith life and they hold more orthodox beliefs than Australian-born Catholics. However, they did participate less in parish roles and groups than did the Australian-born Catholics. Whilst it may be concluded that this participation is limited because of the barrier of language, the results of this research indicate that this is not the only barrier to participation. Even those immigrants who responded to the English language survey did not participate in parish roles and groups to the extent that Australian-born Catholics did. Further research may be able to ascertain whether cultural barriers outside the scope of this work determine the level of participation of immigrants. This research concludes that since the Second World War, Catholic immigrants have ‘done the work’ of belonging to the Australian Catholic Church. They have done this despite the ‘benign neglect’ of the Church itself and they represent in fact the Church’s ‘most Catholic’ members.

This thesis reports on and analyses the first fifty years, 1887-1937, of the Sisters of Saint Joseph’s ministry in Tasmania. The design of the study is qualitative in nature, employing ethnographic techniques with a thematic approach to the narrative. Through a multifaceted approach the main figures of the Josephite story of the first fifty years are examined. The thesis attempts to redress the imbalance of the representation of women in Australian history and the Catholic Church in particular. The thesis is that as a uniquely Australian congregation the Tasmanian Sisters of St Joseph were focused on the preservation of the original spirit and tradition articulated at their foundation rather than on the development of a unique Tasmanian identity. The thesis argues that it was the formative period that impacted on their future development and the emerging myths contributed to their search for identity. Isolated from their foundations through separation and misunderstanding, they sought security and authenticity through their conservation of the original Rule. The intervention of cofounder Father Tenison Woods in the early months of their foundation served to consolidate a distinctive loyalty to him to the exclusion of Mary MacKillop. Coupled with the influence of Woods were the Irish and intercolonial influences of significant Sisters from other foundations which militated against the emergence of a distinctive Tasmanian leadership. As a Diocesan Congregation the Tasmanian Josephites achieved status as authentic religious within Tasmania and yet were constrained by their Diocesan character. The study identifies the factors that contributed to their development as a teaching Congregation through the impact of the Teacher and Schools’ Registration Act 1906, influence of government regulations on the Woods-MacKillop style of education, and the commitment of the Church to provide Catholic education in the remote areas of Tasmania. The thesis identifies two major formative periods as occurring at the instigation of Archbishops Delany and Simonds at both the foundation and then more significantly after the consolidation phase at the end of the period under examination.

This thesis aims to show that the Columban Society made definable and significant contributions to the Australian Catholic missionary movement. The scope of the thesis is an analysis of the work of the Missionary Society of St Columban (Columban Society) in Australia from 1920-2000. Rather than the Society’s foundation in Ireland or its overseas missionary work, the focus is the activity of the Columban Society in Australia. The thesis argues that the Columban Society helped advance the understanding and practice of overseas mission within the Australian Catholic Church in four major ways. Firstly, by organising support for its own missionary venture in China and elsewhere, it helped foster mission mindedness among Australian Catholics and established structures for the ongoing resourcing of missionary activity. Secondly, it set up seminaries to train missionary priests and later opened its reformed tertiary level missionary formation programs to all church personnel in Australia. Thirdly, it helped mould Catholic opinion through its commentary on such international issues as Australian relations with Asian peoples. Finally, it contributed to the development and dissemination of new Catholic theological teaching, particularly in relation to social justice and indigenous churches, religious dialogue and the connections between faith and ecology. The Columban Society carved out a position for itself in Australia through negotiating with the local Catholic Church. Starting as a group of diocesan priests and, from 1920 onwards, tapping into the numerous Irish church personnel in Australia, the Society grew to become a missionary arm of the local church. It created a network of financial support and influence at the grass roots level in parishes and schools through a system of regular visits, collections and a monthly magazine. As the world and church changed, it added mission education programs that fed back to Australian Catholics ideas and experiences coming from the new indigenous churches. The distinctive contribution of the Columban Society to the Australian Catholic Missionary Movement lies in its close relationship with diocesan based parish Catholics and the teaching role it developed about missionary experiences of overseas churches within the context of international affairs. The Society has a significant placewithin the social history of Australia because of the direct influence it had on the opinions of the more than a quarter of the Australian population who identified as Catholics. The history of the Society is also a case study in the application of the reforms of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council of the Catholic Church 1962-1965 and the consequent redefinition of orthodox belief and practice.