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Loretos Downunder, a stirring institutional history

Loreto in Australia Mary Ryllis Clark University of New South Wales Press, Kensington (NSW)

ISBN 9781 74223 031 3: RRP $49.95

`He congratulated Dr. O'Connor on getting us for his Diocese, said he was not so fortunate, though he asked years ago.'

In 1875 Mother Gonzaga Barry recorded in her diary the rueful words of Melbourne's Archbishop as he welcomed her and her sisters from the Loreto Insti­tute in Ireland. The sisters had come to Australia at the invitation of the Bishop of Ballarat. Nothing had come of Arch­bishop Goold's own approaches to the Mother General.

`I suppose she did not think Australia was within the pale of. the civilized world'

The Bishop of Ballarat, it seems, had better connections.

Contrary to what the sisters had expected, they found Melbourne and Ballarat to be prosperous and sophisti­cated cities.

The story of the Order in Australia is told by Mary Clark in a wonderfully engaging and sympathetic narrative enhanced by archival photographs and personal reminiscences of members and friends.

The cover photograph shows two sis­ters, in traditional habit, walking under umbrellas in the rain, wind whipping their cloaks and long skirts. There is a liveliness in their steps and their faces have an expression of such good cheer one might be excused for imagining them being borne aloft by their magical umbrellas.

There is a touch of magic in their story. From the very beginning, in Australia, the schools and convents they established flourished. There was much hard work, but their endeavours seem blessed; their faith directing them just as strongly as their astute financial decisions. There is a delightful story - and I'm sure it must be already famous at Mary's Mount - about a lady who appeared at the Ballarat convent one day, asking if she might be permitted to stay a while. It wasn't long before they discovered that the European stranger was a countess. She came to love the sisters and at her death they received a large bequest. The bequest came at the very time when funds were most needed to complete an ambitious building proj­ect. In Ballarat and in most of the major cities, their schools, established as much for the poor as for the privileged, became synonymous with excellence; the sisters themselves renowned for their personal accomplishments. They drew many of their own talented pupils to their congregations.

Mary Ryllis Clark's account is, for the most part, a chronological history. It is mostly a history of success, but there are some darker elements in the story which she does not ignore. Mary Ward, seventeenth century English founder, inspired other women to a religious way of life based on the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Ahead of her time, misunderstood and censured by the Vatican, she saw her congregations condemned, her houses shut down and herself cruelly excommunicated. She called her exile 'the long loneliness' but she never lost her certainty of the call she had first received.

Mary Ward was finally reinstated in 1909, much to the joy of those sisters devoted to her memory. Initially, I knew little of Mary Ward but reading this story I have been strangely drawn to her. It is as if her spirit walks through these pages.

What may not be known about Mary Ward's congregation is the rift which developed within the order itself in the earlier part of the twentieth century, and which, according to this account, lasted for decades. It was surrounded by issues of jurisdiction and authority; it existed between those who wanted to continue to honour the memory of Mary Ward as their founder and those who acknowl­edged only the later Irish origins. It was a situation which involved Australian sisters in a struggle with forces of control in Ireland, a struggle, which was exacer­bated by the political situation existing between Ireland and England. It was a long and painful episode - one which the sisters, once it was resolved, never spoke of again.

The source for the story is a elderly Loreto sister, in her eighties, who finally felt the need to speak and who did so, apparently, through tears. It is one of the most gripping episodes in the book. According to this sister's account, there was a time when those in power sought to erase all trace of the name of Mary Ward. Sisters loyal to her were removed from positions of influence and replaced with those who conformed. It became a matter of obedience. Sisters, in fidelity to their vows suffered alone and in silence.

Mary Clark allows us to glimpse a story that is much larger than an internal religious squabble. A sense of nationhood was at stake. Ireland was suffering under English oppression, but, in a different way, the Australian sisters, too, were concerned about their own national iden­tity and their own independence from an imperious Irish hierarchy. The author, always courteous, manages, somehow, to transmit the effect of this tension. The name `Rathfarnham' looms less as a place and more as an oppressive presence. In the words of the sister who told her story, the chapter is headed `The terrible years'.

Amongst themselves, however, there was much personal regard, mutual respect and support for one another. One of the personal reminiscences is worth quoting from. It is an account of a young sister who was in the process of leaving the Order. She had been to the bishop's office to sign the release papers and, returning in the taxi, found herself in a state of shock. She had been accompa­nied by Mother Dympna, the Provincial. She writes:

And Mother Dympna reached out to take my hand. In that Order at that time, where the rule said that `they touch not one another, so much as in jest', this dear woman reached out and I took her hand and held it as though my life depended on it, as indeed perhaps it did.

One cannot read this book without feeling affection. An unruly undergradu­ate in my year at St. Mary's Hall in 1964, I recall with gratitude that it was Mother Francis Frewin who introduced me to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and read aloud to me one evening, as though it was part of her,  the beautiful Middle English poem, The Pearl, which I had been studying.

The Second Vatican Council brought major changes. In1968, (the year in which the cover photo of the sisters in the rain was taken) a general council of the Institute was held to re-assess its mission in the light of the new horizons. Mary Ward's original vision had come full circle. Her words are clear. The vision never wavered.

I saw him immediately and very clearly go into my heart, and little and little hide himself in it, and there I perceive him still to be....

Rosemary Keegan Blake

Rosemary Keegan Blake did post­ graduate studies at Regis College at the University of Toronto.

 This Review is from Tinteán Magazine, a publication of the Australian Irish Heritage Network, December 2009.

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