MSC pioneers in Aboriginal ministry, Menindee-Wilcannia, NSW.

Some weeks ago we posted Pat Austin MSC’s parish supply in Balranald. He mentioned MSCs in the 1930s and 1940s in the Broken Hill diocese.  We Googled and found a summary which turned out to have been written by Martin Wilson MSC in his magazine, Nelen Yubu, in 1982. So, thanks to Martin and Google.

Martin writes (and photo-information from Jim Littleton's obituaries:

Between founding the missions on Palm Is. and Alice Springs, Fr Moloney was asked in 1934

by Bishop Fox of Wilcannia-Forbes to give a mission at the black settlement conducted at

Menindee on the Darling, 625 miles west of Sydney, by the Government Aborigines’ Welfare

Board. Fr Carmine used to come to Menindee every second month to say Mass. but that was

not much, even though it was all that was possible. Fr Moloney gave the blacks a fortnight’s

mission, and at the end baptised 129. Bishop Fox was delighted. Fr Moloney stayed for a short

time and then had to go on to found Alice Springs mission.

A priest came regularly from Broken Hill to say Mass, and the blacks remained remarkably

faithful, in spite of the efforts of the parson, a well meaning man, to get them back. After

Bishop Fox’s repeated requests, we agreed to send a permanent man there: first of all Fr

Ormonde in 1936. In Menindee township he added two sacristies to the church, and worked

amongst the whites of the town and district, soon multiplying the number of Catholics there

(three) by ten. At the blacks’ camp about eleven miles from town he built a temporary church

out of wool-packs. There were at a maximum 300 Aborigines in the camp, dissociated from

their tribes and tribal life, helping in the upkeep of the camp by their work on the stations and

orchards around Mildura.

Two OLSH nuns arrived 1941 and used to go out regularly to the camp from Menindee and

give catechetical instruction. 1942 Fr V. Dwyer replaced Fr Ormonde. During Fr Dwyer’s time

a galvanised iron church took the place of the one out of wool-packs.

1943 Fr Dwyer was succeeded by Fr A. Guest, and Fr Guest in 1946 by Fr Toohey. Any real progress was held up

until the government decided about the transfer that was projected. The camp was moved

finally to just outside Wilcannia 1949, Fr Toohey still in charge. The nuns go out to the camp

each day to teach in the church-school, and Fr Toohey says Mass in it on Sundays.