Acknowledging Fr Arthur Stidwell MSC, 90^th birthday

Congratulations to Arthur Stidwell on his 90^th birthday today.

Arthur was one of the first group in 1966 of ‘late vocations’. They did an accompaniment program that year with Frank Fletcher MSC. They made their novitiate with Bob Mitchell MSC in 1967, making their first profession on 27^th February 1968. The group then moved to the Sacred Heart Monastery, Kensington, the venue for the first year of St Paul’s National Seminary for Late Vocations with Jim Cuskelly MSC.

Arthur was ordained on 21^st August 9171.  He has spent most of his priesthood in parish work, especially in Papua New Guinea, Eastern Papua. In more recent years he has been at Kensington but has done much parish supply work in Lismore diocese, more particularly in Casino.

Fr Parthalomai Paniadial MSC welcomed to Australia and to St Paul's Nightcliff

We invited Fr Bartha to tell us a little about himself and his ministry in Darwin.

"I am Parthalomai Paniadiai from India. We are seven members in my family, father, mother, three brothers and a sister. I am the fourth child in my family. This is my first first mission out from India. I am an assistant parish Priest in St. Pauls Nighcliff.

Being an assistant priest my ministries are, Administering all the sacrament, house visit and blessings, Administrator, part of council members, finance group, taking communion for the sick and honestly doing all the work with my Parish Priest Father Peter.

I am so happy to be here as a missionaries of the Sacred Heart to serve the people earnestly,

as Jesus Said, I have come to this earth not to be served but to serve so I take up the same challenge of my master and lord Jesus to serve him and serve others faithfully following my vows Obedience Chastity and Poverty. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere."

Introducing new MSC Business Manager, Andrew Mir

Andrew Mir, newly appointed Business Manager, joined the MSC Provincial team on 16 March 2020

Andrew Mir has worked in the not-for-profit sector for over sixteen years, with the last twelve and a half years being Chief Financial Officer for global not-for-profit entities focused on eliminating avoidable blindness in emerging countries, through:

* Research & Development into Optical intervention devices (Contact & Spectacle Lenses);

* Online Professional Education on best practice                 

   for   Eye Care Professionals;

* Establishment of Optometry Schools in emerging

  countries; &

* Establishment of eye screening centres in

   emerging countries.

Prior to working in the not-for-profit sector, Andrew occupied various Finance roles in Funds Management, Mortgage Lending, and in the building material industries. Andrew completed his undergraduate degree at the University of New South Wales and is a Fellow of CPA Australia.

MSC Vietnam, Acceptance of  three Pre-Postulants

On the Feast of The Mary- the Mother of the Church, Jun 1^st, MSC in Vietnam happily accept three young men (one is not really young) to the pre-postulancy program. They will have six months to focus on their English skills as well as to edexperience the community life. The three of them come from different background and life style.

Vu is a city boy with a long time working as a doctor and an ex-Jesuit seminarian.

Thang is a doctor with 2 years experiences and a former CMF aspirant.

Khanh is a mechanist and had few year accompanying with MSC aspirants.

Now they are living with other students in the boarding house in Thu Duc. For a short time, they could adjust to student’s life style and of course welcomed by the students there.

We hope three of them will survive until the end of the program and proceed to the next step – Postulant. Please keep these young men in your prayer. 

From Minh, Vocations Director.

Some kind words about MSC Education.  A Monivae story.

Monivae Passing Out Parade 2012, Pat and Mick Dodson as guests

Suddenly, while reading Tony Wright’s column in the Age, Saturday June 6th – on the topical issue of Black Lives Matter and Australian repercussions - this sentence stood out.

“Many of our teachers were missionaries and drilled into us the social and spiritual evils of racial inequality.” Tony Wright is speaking of Monivae in the 1960s.

It was part of a two paragraph reference to Pat Dodson and his brother, Mick, at Monivae – and an affirmation of MSC Priests and Brothers, missionaries and justice.

“At our faraway school, we had begun to take notice of the dreadful state of relations between white and black Australia. Even if our understanding of the subject was unsophisticated, many of our teachers were missionaries who drilled into us the social and spiritual evils of racial inequality.

We had elected an Indigenous boy named Patrick Dodson as our school captain. His brother, Mick Dodson, was a house captain and prefect. Both would become prominent national leaders of Indigenous causes.”

In 2016, Tony Wright had a longer column on Pat Dodson and his family, and his going to Monivae.

Some quotations:

Paddy Dodson might have been just another scared kid on his first night at boarding school ... if he hadn't been black.

He drew the bedsheet up to his nose and pulled his pillow over his head. All the other kids, 200 of them crowded into one huge dormitory, wanted to get a look at him.

All of Australia has since got a look at Patrick Dodson, the bloke with the waist-length beard and the hat with its band of black, yellow and red, who has spent much of his life working for a better deal for Australia's First People.

We're about to see more of him, for he's Labor's new senator for Western Australia. It's a bit of a surprise to those who've known him for awhile.

Paddy Dodson, however, has always been capable of surprising, and at 68, he might be able to teach politicians a bit about seeing things in longer time frames.

Those curious boarding-school kids way back in the 1960s learned pretty quickly that the first Aboriginal student at their school was much more than they imagined.

He didn't know what a bread plate was, or a butter knife, but life had already thrown bigger and harder lessons at him. Born in Broome to an Irish-Australian father, Snowy Dodson, and an Indigenous mother, Patricia, his family had fled across state borders to Katherine, in the Northern Territory, when Pat was a two-year-old baby.

Snowy had been jailed for 18 months, years before, for "cohabiting with a native woman", Pat's mother. Pat had to grow up fast. Aged 13, he and his brothers and sisters – seven of them altogether – were orphaned.

Their father died first, and then their mother, three months later. Pat and his brother Mick, who was aged 10, were in danger of becoming "stolen children".

Their aunt and uncle came and collected the children and took them to Darwin on the back of their Chevy truck.

"The protector of native affairs in the Northern Territory, a fella called Harry Giese, was poised to send me to one of the Catholic Missions," Pat told me.

"Unfortunately the church, as often happens, couldn't find the necessary resource to send me over the Strait (from Darwin to the Garden Point Mission on Melville Island) as the boat that was supposed to take me had sunk."

The Dodson children's aunt and uncle, both of whom knew firsthand about life on missions, battled the authorities in and out of court to keep the little family out of the clutches of authority.

Pat and Mick, however, and a brother and sister, Patricia and Jacko, were declared "wards of the state", but in the care of family, though they were split up.

Monivae Magazine

Eventually, a couple of priests from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart stepped in and decided to help the orphaned Pat and Mick to get as far away from the Northern Territory as possible.

They arranged scholarships for Pat (and later Mick) to fly south, to Hamilton in far-west Victoria, to board at Monivae College, run by the MSCs.

And so, in the early 1960s, an Aboriginal boy found himself in an alien world, trying to hide in his bed down the end of a dormitory as 200 boys jockeyed to get a look at the most exotic student they could imagine.

Paddy, as he quickly became known, didn't hide away long. He emerged as a hard-studying and quietly powerful character, aware of high expectations thrust upon him at a time when no one knew anything about Indigenous affairs.

"There was always the search as to who was going to be the 'first' of this and the 'first' of that as if that was going to be the only ever achievement in this country," he remembered.

He won the diligence prize five out of the six years he was at Monivae, became a middle-school prefect before Australia had even held a referendum concerning recognition of Indigenous Australians and formed tight friendships that endured.

By the time I arrived as a student at Monivae in 1967, Pat Dodson was captain of the school, captain of the all-but unbeatable First XVII and Adjutant of the Cadet Corps. He was an undisputed leader.

Everyone knew the Dodson boys would make a name for themselves. But we couldn't have guessed that Pat would become known as the Father of Reconciliation and win the Sydney Peace Prize, or that Mick would become Australian of the Year, and much, much else.

From little things....

Passing out parade 2012 – with Paul Castley MSC who was on the Monivae staff for most of the 1960s.

MSC Magazine out now

The current issue of the MSC Magazine has just been published – with stories of how each community in the Province has been living with the covid-19 lockdown.

There are also features, including articles on members who have been celebrating Golden Jubilees of ordination, some stories of Vietnam, a social justice feature on the Synod for the Amazon – and quite a number of photos.

The Australian Province has two principal sources of news – online, our website which you are visiting and our print magazine. The website has its own archive which can be accessed for information. The magazine continues the tradition of the Province Newsletter, all back issues in the Province archives.  Plenty of material for research.

Two Significant NT Women, RIP, Imelda Palmer and Doris Ford 

Malcolm Fyfe MSC, Vicar General, Darwin, has sent this news and photos of the two women.

IMELDA PALMER RIP

A very significant Arrernte personality has passed from this world to the next.  Imelda Palmer died on Monday evening, June 1^st. 

Imelda had been suffering from ill health since 2015.

I imagine that everyone who has even a minimal knowledge of the Santa Teresa Mission has heard her name.

Imelda Palmer commenced working at Ltyentye Apurte Catholic School at Santa Teresa as a young Assistant Teacher in 1974. When the Marist Brothers arrived in 1978, she was soon identified by the new Principal, Brother Cletus, as someone with great potential. Imelda undertook studies in Teacher Education from 1991 - 1993. As both an Assistant Teacher and as a Teacher in the school, Imelda worked closely with the Brothers and was appointed Deputy Principal in 2001.  Imelda was happy to work with the children, educating them in the faith and providing them with a sound foundation for future success in life. Imelda was a woman of integrity, devoted to her faith, a fine role model for her community, a strong and proud Arrernte woman.

She was well respected by the other members of the Community for her passionate appreciation for the Arrernte language and culture. She was always an active member of the parish – a strong leader not only in the school but in the parish community as well. She had a deep devotion to Mary.

After retiring in February 2016 due to ongoing health issues, she continued to focus on culture, language and supporting Religious Education. Even in retirement she was a wonderful gift to the school and to the Arrernte community.

The Diocese of Darwin is conscious of the sense of loss that the Community must experience at this time and extends condolences to members of Imelda’s family, especially her daughter Taylor-Rose. With Imelda’s passing, the Santa Teresa Community has lost a true elder and a fine educator.

May she rest in peace.

(With thanks to Brother Daniel Hollamby FMS for providing much of the background.)

And for those interested in a little history:

“The Santa Teresa Mission, begun in 1953, can in fact trace its roots back to the earliest days of the Church in Alice Springs.

Father Paddy Maloney msc had set up the first Mission to the Aborigines in 1936 at Charles Creek, a mile or so from Alice Springs.

Six years later, with the aim of moving the Aborigines further out, Arltunga Mission, some eighty miles from Alice Springs, was established in 1942.  The Arltunga Mission had always suffered from a water shortage, but the thought of a third start for the Mission to the East Aranda tribe was not something to be undertaken lightly.  However, in 1953 a reluctant decision was made.

Fifty-six miles to the south east of Alice Springs, the NT Administrator leased to Bishop O’Loughlin a four hundred and eighty square mile block of land suitable for cattle grazing on the Phillipson River – normally only a dry creek bed.  In the dry season it was a great red dust expanse broken only by spinifex, wattles and desert oaks.  Given a couple of days of rain, it was a blaze of colour.  And, more to the point, it had a plentiful underground water supply with a government bore already sunk and the possibility of sinking others. 

The new mission was to be known as Santa Teresa.”

From “ NT Dreaming” by Sister Ann Thompson 1988 Page 56.

(The School at Santa Teresa was initially administered by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and later by the Marist Brothers who, in 1979, established a Religious Community at Santa Teresa.  MPF)       

DORIS FORD RIP

Doris Marjorie Ford OAM passed away peacefully of Saturday, May 30^th, aged 99. Doris was the wife of Martin dec. (of whom more below), mother of Jim and Lynne, grandmother to eight, great-grandmother to sixteen, with one great-great-grandchild.

The following information is available from “Territory Stories”:

Born in Townsville March 19,1921, Doris arrived in Darwin April 1946 to join her husband Harold Martin Ford - we knew him as Martin (MPF) - who held a position with the Department of Northern Territory Administration. Doris was a member of St Mary's School Mothers' Club holding positions of Treasurer and Secretary. Doris was a founding member of the Catholic Women's League and President from 1965-1967. She was appointed first President of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women's League of the Northern Territory in 1974 until 1977. Doris chaired the first two Diocesan conferences held in Darwin in 1976 and 1977 and attended three National biennial conferences of the Catholic Women's League as an official delegate and later executive member as treasurer and was elected president in 1977. She was elected to the Board of the YWCA in July 1974 and was an executive member since 1976. Doris was assistant general secretary and acting general secretary of the Australian Red Cross Society 1965-1970. Doris was a hard-working voluntary background campaigner for social causes for many years for community- minded organisations.

Doris’s husband Martin was, for quite some time, Director of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Like Doris he was a very committed Catholic. He was the “go to” person whenever Church personnel (myself included, from ’78 to ’83) had some need of assistance from the NT Government.

Doris Ford’s Honours and Awards:

         Red Cross Service 1968
        Life Membership to the Catholic Women’s League 1983.
        YWCA Long Service Award to Darwin 1987.
        Order of Australia Medal Community Service 1979

We can be sure that Doris Marjorie Ford, after her lifetime of service to the Catholic Church and to the wider community in the Top End, is now enjoying an eternal reward in the company of her equally iconic husband Martin.

________________________________________

South Sudan, an OLSH mission. And a film about Sudanese refugees in Sydney, Hearts and Bones.

South Sudan seems very remote from Australia.  The Chevalier Family has a strong reason for knowing about it. For many years, international OLSH sisters have worked there, including Mary Bachelor in the past,

Rita Grunke in the present.

The MSC Mission Office has for a long time contributed to welfare in South Sudan.

To bring something of this home, we recommend a new film about a war photographer who befriends a Sudanese refugee in Sydney, a different focus for Australian audiences more familiar with asylum seekers from Asia and the Middle East.

A review of the film from the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.

 Heart and Bones is a very impressive film in many ways. It offers its audience, in Australia and worldwide, a 21^st-century Australian story, growing Australian consciousness, a challenge to the Australian conscience.

The film opens strikingly with an overseas ambush, war photographer Dan Fisher seeing a crashed car, dead occupants, his taking photos, frightening a little girl on the other side of the car, her running away, Dan pursuing and falling, his associate warning that there were landmines, Dan photographing the little girl, her running away, an explosion.

In fact, this is the main part of the film, at least visually, which focuses on the title theme of bones. There will be other photographs. There were the other very sad stories, especially from uprisings and massacres in South Sudan. The rest of the film concentrates on the title theme of hearts, emotional stories, probing of the past and coming to terms with it.

Australian audiences who watch films and documentary television programs on refugees and asylum seekers know more about those who have fled from Asia and the Middle East. There is not such a concentration on refugees from Africa, from countries like South Sudan. (In cities like Melbourne, federal politicians and some media have tended to demonise and overstate the activities of young Sudanese members of gangs – and, in a sequence where Dan Fisher is interviewed by Fran Kelly on Radio National Breakfast, she asks him, quoting the Minister for Border Control, whether he thinks his photos are ‘misery-porn’).

Hugo weaving plays Dan Fisher, a striking performance, intense, communicating, often wordlessly, the impact of his decades of war photography, post-traumatic stress disorder, on his physical and psychological health, his relationship with his partner, Josie (Hayley Mc Elhinney). The sequence where he reacts to Josie telling him she is pregnant is a study in itself of a man who is shocked, remembers the past years when their little baby died, his reaction is self-centred, moving into panic attack makes quite an impact on us.

Which means, that this is essentially a film about the life of the war photographer, his being celebrated, his weariness, his having to face his relationship with his partner, come to terms with his avoiding of doctors and counsellors, to probe his psyche and come to terms with himself.

But, there is a whole other dimension to the film with the character of Sebastian (Andrew Luri in his first film, credible and persuasive), a man who has been allowed into Australia, a refugee from terrors in South Sudan, the brutal loss of his family, but finding a new home, love and devotion from his wife (again, a moving performance from Bolude Watson), a baby girl, her being pregnant, his plans to buy a house and renovate iy, believing that to have the land is to have his own home.

Sebastian hears Dan on the radio, buys his book of photos, comes to ask him to photograph a group of African men who have formed a choir. Initially Dan refuses, collapses, Sebastian taking him to hospital, then feeling some obligation, going to hear the men sing and being impressed. In the meantime, an exhibition of Dan’s photos is being organised and Sebastian askeds him not to exhibit some of the Sudanese photos, not to exhibit such pain and sorrow.

And, yet there is more, some moral strong complexities to the plot, challenging the audience and its sympathies and moral judgements.

Many in the audience will be hoping for some kind of resolution, even a happy ending for both parties. But, life is not entirely like that. Happiness is to be hoped for, to be worked for with some kind of self-sacrifice. And so, the audience, having been moved by the stories of both men, the war and refugee context, the implications for Australians welcoming refugees in friendship, in work in collaboration, will find that endings cannot always be clean-cut, clear-cut.

This is a film to be recommended.

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart believe that all lives matter – and, in the context of current events, protest and championing causes, BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, and members of the Chevalier Family, are members of all races. Our Superior General, Abzalon, himself from Guatamala, has just changed his Facebook photo.

We felt a moment of affirmation in our ministry with Age/ Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Tony Wright, who went to school at Monivae in the 1960s, when he wrote, June 6th 2020: the second sentence has been italicised for emphasis,

“At our faraway school, we had begun to take notice of the dreadful state of relations between white and black Australia. Even if our understanding of the subject was unsophisticated, many of our teachers were missionaries who drilled into us the social and spiritual evils of racial inequality.”

Tony Wright has frequently noted Monivae – referring to it as ‘our faraway school’. Our post in the coming weekend will have more of his writing on race themes and Monivae in the 1960s.

5th Phase of the COVID-19 Mission Response: a Filipino MSC photo story.

June 4, 2020

Our MSC Fathers and Scholastics helped in repacking about 350 food packs to be distributed on June 5, 2020.

This week's statistics for the Philippines.

We sincerely thank all those who have supported this mission up until this phase. May God bless you all the more.