Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
An exploration of the Catholic Church's frontier interaction with Australia's Original inhabitants
Culture
All great powers in history have succeeded in controlling our perception of reality - culture is the medium used to achieve this control
Time-travel
Time-travel is real - i can prove it …
Australia's Original inhabitants time-travelled from 60k year ago to the 18-19 hundreds.
Trick is: it’s not you, the human, who whisks-off through Time/Space, so much as Time/Space comes to you. It travelled to the Originals - it could travel to us from 60 k into some other dystopian future - via aliens/AI/hybrids/what-have-you - it could happen at any tick of the clock …
Time is … only a word - Anaxagoras’s Nous is a better word - but Time, as we know it, was a concept invented by western culture, which defined it by metricizing it:
1. Clocks: tick-tock-tick-tocking their seconds, minutes, hours away for Earth spinning on its axis - makes me dizzy thinking about it … Each revolution one day long - Mon-day-i-got-Fri-day-on-my-mind … We set alarm clocks to it, take it one-day-at-at-a-time, work, knock-off, make dates, eat, watch entertainment, enforce curfews, go to sleep. Spinning is The Days of our Lives. But: Seven days do not a weeketh make. Weeks, months, years, centuries - the higher-ups - that’s a different force of physics entirely …
2. Calendars: 30 Days have September April June & November - all the rest have 31, excepting February … which is a weird fucking month, that should be banned. Calendars are Earth’s lap-times (sensational ones) - calculated according to our revolvement around Sun. Which is a bloody long way. 900 million k’s. Btw, don’t be late. Meanwhile, Sun is also revolving around the centre of the galaxy at galactic speed - ends up you're doing 2mil+ k - sitting on the couch. (If only we could travel that speed in a different direction … you could get to Mars in 30 minutes)
There are two types of humans:
1. Spinners (tree-thinkers - people caught in the daily grind - the minutiae )
2. Revolvers (forests - transcendentalists - big picture thinkers)
That’s crap. I made that up, but spectrum-wise - we have both inside us, one is more, less, or so-so, emphasized. It also fluctuates within us.
Spinning - revolving - both dizzying - are (funda) mental-input-forces acting on us. It’s like, not like, it is, going on two different, scary rides at the Amusement Park at the End of the Universe - happening at insane speeds - at the same time … perpetually … That’s gotta do ya fucking head in … surely …
It doesn’t somehow. Sends you 'round the bend, literally - in a circular motion, it’s all bending - but it’s also the state we blithely exist in. I’m doing it now: typing at millions of k an hour whilst spinning like a top …! Feels slower though. Slow as a snail. I wish i could go faster … Sometimes i do have a spinning feeling when i stand up too quick, so that’s something.
But does it matter? We're accustomed to it - it's innate - we don't feel it - who cares?
Ignore it, carry on is what the experts advise. Understanding beyond that ... ? Does Time even exist as a fundamental of the Universe? I think not. It's a by-product of something else. At best it's a misnomer. Nous or Consciousness gets you a lot closer to the origin of existence than Time ever will
Clocks/Calendars are empirical measurements - they don’t capture Time/Nous’s essence .. they downstream-register its existence on a machine: that’s all
The Originals had a good way of looking at it: the Everywhen
Everything that has happened or will happen or could have happened … but didn’t … wells from the Everywhen … or doesn’t …
One fine day, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a breed-unto-themselves, welled up …
When these universes entwined, the Missionaries assumed the position of the Aliens from the Everywhen - come to Save us in the name of Jesus & The Blessed Virgin.
This book is a look at what happens when Cultures time-travel/collide ...
Culture
Apart from clocks & calendars, there’s another way to register Time/Nous/Whatever’s presence: Culture
But got stuck on one-fucking-word: Culture
It’s central to the MSC story, but what is it? What does it mean? Define your terms …
First there are different levels. You can talk about the Shin Boner Spirit culture at the North Melbourne Football Club - or a full-anthropological immersion into an indigenous buluo - you'll find a lot of difference - that difference is the beauty - but there will still be an arrangement of celebrated values & meaningful participation in both those communities that connects with its members. Culture is that connective stuff.
That's all great, but it led to thinking about Culture as a stand-alone Thing. It results in a pattern - a spectrum - a primary wave/particle influence - that all us humans experience. It's powerful as fuck ... So what is it - when it's stripped back to its core?
By the time i got through - well i didn’t get through - but four weeks later i realized i had 4-5 pages about Culture - which is fascinating - but it’s a different book, mate - we’re doing this one - on MSC's influence on NT indigenous people - we need one page max - otherwise it will block the flow of the story. Park it.
But …
Put it in bullet points if you have to - one page or less - on my desk by tomorrow)
Culture, as a force, is ...
( )/a(n):
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Thought: Made from Thought - that’s its primary constituent - which, according to its FB-page, is currently in a Chicken n Egg relationship with Action
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dynamic library of accumulated consciousness: a recording of observed manifestations of human reality - i.e History. As with clocks/calendars, it is a measurement of Time. We measure ourselves against it - it measures us, shapes us. It can also bend Time
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communal mental-image: that amounts to an interactive mind-computer-game - with rules - generated by people. But culture is not a real person as such - similar, but different, a virtual version of a real one. Reality is the interface image between perception/projection
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living entity: same as any other bio-mass - follows the laws of DNA - wants to exist - extend. To that end - it consumes. To do that efficiently, it cooperates, organizes - forms functional societies - same way cells do - except it doesn’t die like we do ...
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manipulatable commodity: which has currency - human power. If there was no culture, there’d be no power. Culture is the magic ingredient that makes the metaphysical world go round. Cultural influence is a finite commodity. The more it is centralized, the less influence the individual has - & vice verca - it's an inverse relationship.
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two-way street: if Culture’s Dynamic is functioning healthfully, it influences you - but you can influence its arse back. The Taiwanese indigenous buluo community is one good example - traditional & modern versions - where the village has real power. It was under attack by Big-culture - fought through it in the 1990s - still going strong today. It’s also at the heart of Aristotle’s polis thinking - the first anti-globalist - he knew the dangers of power centralization having lived in the time of Alexander the Great. The ideal state, Aristotle said, is one encompassed by the range of the town-crier’s voice. That way, if you’ve got a good idea, or a helping hand, or a grievance, you can input it meaningfully into your culture . Try doing that in the New Normal - see how you get along. Indigenous (& non) communities, self-sustaining ones, are vestiges of Aristotle’s polis. If the power/internet goes off in a drawn out war, which it will, these communities will come roaring back into style
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eternal God: outlives us all - true life after death
Manipulation
Of the above, the manipulatable characteristic of Culture is the most pertinent to our story.
There are periods in history, long-ones, where: whoppers told by those with the cultural clout to make them come true … came true … ! Cultural Influencers succeeded in track-jumping Reality onto a non-Truth, alternative universe. Anthrax/Iraq War 2 is one (non-contentious?) example - but there are many others - bigger ones - we'll get there shortly.
That raises some questions:
If Culture can exert mass influence on its human components to create a fake reality, are we living in a Lie-averse, an Unreality?
What happens to the real Reality/Time/Future - that was hi-jacked?
Does that still exist? In some parallel mode? Can we re-connect? Or: that's all gone now ...?
In the culture/time equation, the idea that progression = enlightenment … it's not like that. Yes Time/Nous can travel towards the light, but also sideways, backwards, into darkness … It’s not a fixed-deal … well it isn’t, ... until it is.
Fixing the deal in an interactive game-world is the goal. It's in our DNA to do that. The more you fix it, the better. Moreover, it’s a War - against Whoever-you-project-to-be-a-threat. If you control the Cultural Image of Reality, you control everything, including Time, whatever that means … you get to decide.
Therein lies Culture's time-travelling trick. Orwell puts it best in 1984 (written 1948):
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past
Jesus Culture is a good example of how that works - at scale.
Jesus Time
Time is divided into BC - Before Christ - then AD - After Christ. How many people managed to get Time segregated from the day they were born …?
A few, Sun-Yat-sen, not many, been tried, there are epochs, dynasties, but one time to rule them all … invariably you get usurped. Jesus Time was a usurpation of Founding of Rome Time - which was already at 1278 when it got got by The Church (in 525 AD). Meaning the year now should be/would be 2775 ...
See, i told you time-travel is possible! The other thing is that the Founding of Rome was a human endeavour - not an individual that can be deified - like Jesus was: born of the Blessed Virgin, crucified for our sins, then, miraculously, ascended into Heaven on the Third Day. From where God the Son watches us … with God the Father & God the Holy Ghost.
Jesus didn’t alter Time himself of course - that came much, much later - 500 odd years later, with the advent of hierarchical religion. Organized global mind-control - self-described - on a mission to convert the world to the Catholic way of thinking. High Priest interpreters of the secret higher-truth began curating/enforcing a manufactured version of Reality - backed by money, military-muscle.
Jesus Time was a stroke of cultural genius - brainchild of Dionysius Exiguus, a Catholic monk, aka Denis The Little. Dionysius was a mathematician/influencer at a point in history when THE Church was already the dominant cultural influence. He saw an MOU opening in Time-branding: next-level entrenchment of Catholicism - whilst accelerating his own pocket-rocket rise through the ranks of that all-powerful universe.
This Time-coup was shepherded through by Pope/Saint John I. Became canon law.
Four years after the BC/AD Papal Decree, philosophy was banned by THE Church in 529 because it: conflicted with Christianity (AC Grayling, History of Philosophy) So having stolen select tenets from Anaxagoras, Aristotle et al, re the existence of a primary universal force, then twisted that to fit its own designs, THE Church, like a ruthless mafia boss, began psychotically eliminating those who knew too much:
We don’t need more enquiries into the origin of existence, the nature of reality, or ethics - we’ve definitively decided all that - we've moved on. Any further discussion on the topic will only undermine our authority.
Welcome to the fifth-century, Ladies & Gentlemen, the dawn … doesn’t sound right … of the Dark Ages! The Downside-up World … A Time-warped world.
The mid-500’s were sliding doors years. When those doors ground shut, with THE Church left with Totalitarian control over western Culture, it was 900 years of Darkness in the dungeons for poor old humanity. I'm not convinced we've yet emerged - we did - but then THE Science dragged us back in ...
It's a reminder for people today - when you surrender human rights to the mind-control experts due to God , THE Science, THE Economy, THE Algorithm, or … whatever … don’t think you’re gonna get em back a few years later in the New Normal …
Once Totalitarianism gets a cultural grip on the script … you’re fucked. That’s why they call it Total. It’s devilishly hard to break free when you’re imprisoned by the cultural plot.
MSC in the NT
MSC permanently altered life/history for one of the oldest civilizations on earth. How did that go?
The Missionaries
At, not the absolute pinnacle of THE Church’s Culture-power, that would be somewhere in the Dark Ages you'd imagine, but still punching at a very decent weight in the global-brain-washing stakes, the first, intrepid Catholic Missionaries arrived in the NT. Austrian Jesuits. At this juncture, we encounter a plot-split in our story:
- THE Church - the immense power of the Higher-ups (backed by governments/info merchants), literal MOUs, pulling THE Levers in the background, actually the foreground. Can't get more Plain Sight than owning the definition of Plain Sight. Self-confessed global mind-control designers-in-chief
- Frontline Actors - some missionary dudes, possibly sexually-confused, who’ve sworn a vow to poverty, chastity, obedience - in return for food, board, good health care - for life. Duties include being thrust stage-Righteousness into the Top End to: civilize the natives/convert them to Catholicism
I want to keep an eye on the former whilst exploring a few characters from the later. MSC tradition demands that its order-members serve 2-years - with at least 12 months at a grass-roots mission posting before moving onto the more relaxing works of Our Lord. These missionary postings were, by definition in the furthest-flung corners of Christian Hegemony on planet earth. That's a nice contrast to the cushy cosplay world of the higher-ups. it's in these communities where the nitty-gritty work of expanding global-mind-control took place - so let’s explore that …
Golden Rule for research: put yourself in someone else’s shoes - if you have any interest in understanding. If you don't, you can safely skip that step. In this story we have:
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The missionaries’ shoes; good sturdy ones, right out there on the frontiers of western civilization - living with the people they’re trying to convert - partially removed from the power wielding reaches of their superiors - & their perception of Reality
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The no-shoes' shoes of the Originals
Firstly, to begin with the second one, if people from 50-60k years into some dystopian future (or robots/aliens/hybrids/what-have-yous - if peeps are extinct) were to suddenly appear & assume control, how would i handle it?
Not great, i imagine. Especially if they told me everything that was of value, my way of life, my skills, knowledge … that was now all meaningless … useless ... here’s some deadly drugs (alcohol) to help you spiral … & oh, btw, we used-up that culture-time to wreck the planet with pollution. Sorry.
It’s this cultural time-warp that sucked Australia’s original residents into its vortex. Like a lot of world-altering events, it wasn't a big-bang in the beginning - it was a soft-bang - not some explosive event - the opposite - quiet - not unobserved, but less-observed.
Soft-bang’s still become seismic in effect - just ask Covid - but it’s the slow-rising tidal wave that envelops you ... slowly, surely, then quickly, You know it's happening, but peripherally, until it's too late, you're swamped
Such was the case with the appearance of MSC Aliens from the Everwhen in the Top End.
The Kiddies
As a wise friend once said when i asked if his new wife knew he smoked pot: Yeah, she knows ... She doesn’t know the extent … I knew MSC was involved in mission work in the NT, didn’t fathom the extent … until i started researching this.
Historically, MSC has been the main religious group conducting missionary work in the NT. That means: MSC was the face of Australia’s interaction with NT’s indigenous tribes re education, religious inculcation, assimilation. All conducted according to government-backed policy.
Pop question: What percent of adult First Nations People were converted to Christianity?
Ans: zero
Yeah surprised me at first, too, but when you think about it …
Hi, i’m some alien guy here to spread the good news that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus who died on the cross to save us1800 years ago - then ascended into heaven!
Yeah … no. We're good, mate - we’ve got our own beliefs - the Everywhen
Maybe that’s how the great Aussie Yeah-no thinking came into being ... ?
The Jesuits, best-in-the-business at connecting to indigenous tribes - learn the language, do the Sunday mass in it, permeate into the culture, incorporate it, the whole bit - they had first crack, naturally … French Trappists, no slouches, also set up shop, separately
They both gave it their best shot … then … gave up ...
Abandoned their humble mission structures - said: it can’t be done …
That left THE Church in a pickle. If your stated goal is world mind-control - you can’t throw ya hands in the air coz a whole continent of First Nations humans says: yeah - no
The responsibility was then delegated by the THE Church to MSC. They didn't want it - their focus was PNG. But you can accuse THE Church of whatever you like, you can’t accuse them of not being a disciplined hierarchy. If you’re told to do something, then it’s like someone said to De Niro’s character in Casino, but more-so: consider it a papal bull …
MSC, reluctantly, through the agency of Francis Gsell, took on the job - then, depending upon your criteria, succeeded in converting large numbers of First Nations People …
The adults were still a dead-end of course, in fact trying to convert them was banned from the Hgher-up-ers as a waste of resources. The magic trick?:
Get into the kiddies
aka: the Stolen Generation (1905-67)
The MSC missions in NT were the Vocational Training Camps for stolen kids. They were their main customers. Although Govt/MSC child-stealing was officially discontinued as a policy in 1967 (lingered into the 70s, unofficially), kids taken in the 60’s would have been 11-years old through to teenagers from the mid-seventies to eighties - so that formative years impact-zone stretches into recent history. That shit doesn't go away, btw. Those people, now late-50+ years-old, are still dealing with the impacts ...
Stolen-generation was mainly about removing mixed-blood children from their parents. The (misguided) thinking was that in order to protect a dwindling pure-blood population from extinction, the half-castes needed to be segregated & assimilated into the White-population.
But when that program was discontinued, it then became Aboriginal children in general that were brought under the protective umbrella of the Catholic Church. The Church will argue that they were not stolen as such - Francis Gsell bought them with tobacco, steel (for weapons), & various trinkets. The children were then offered accommodation/education at the missions where they were raised as Catholics. In effect, the elder-system, which had run for 60k years, was severed. I was replaced with The Church.
As such, MSC missions would serve as a melting-pot for the children of different skin groups, united in the love of Jesus …
How did that work out? Let’s take a look …
MSC Report Card
The MSC higher-ups that directed the NT Aboriginal program in the 70s-80s were:
Bishop John O'Loughlin (NT diocese)
Father Malcolm Fyfe, Provincial Superior, Director of Catholic Education, Vicar for Missions
Given their main roles were to direct the education of First Nations children, let's flip-the-script and assess the report cards of the Educators for the period they were in charge.
Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, 2007:
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involves both female and male victims - from the very young to adulthood
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is committed by non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal males of all ages – with a proportion (polite for a lot) of assaults being committed by offenders who are themselves children
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has led to inter-generational cycles of offending – such that victims have subsequently become offenders and, in turn, created a further generation of victims and offenders. (P59)
Ohr, that sounds: not good. As a Legacy Report Card.
The key word above is created. MSC created a reality that (a) didn't previously exist (b) didn't have to exist - could easily have been something else - better ... With Creation comes Responsibility. Especially when you force your creation onto others, ban/vilify alternative approaches.
For an organization whose central tenet is (a Catholic) God's creation of the world, it's worth looking at what MSC's intervention created in God's name.
NT Report: (T)he Inquiry accepts that sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is common, widespread and grossly under-reported .. abuse is rife. p17
Hell! Like Hell-on-earth-style. For the subject of Protection of those Under-your-care, sorry John & Malcolm, gotta give you … : F
If i was your father, Reverend Fathers, i’d scold you. Don’t worry - you won’t have to drop your daks - in case you’re wondering …
With combined roles of Bishop/Director of Catholic Education/Missions/Religious Superiors, you two were, in effect, Australia’s Experts-in-Chief at the coal-face of Aboriginal Affairs in the 70’s-80’s. The executive power. The NT , twice the size of Texas, was their O'Fyfe-dom.
Their reign was marked by a culture of peak-dismissiveness of other cultures. Meanwhile back at The Ranch, rampant perversities from your own corrupted culture were being covered up like there was no tomorrow … which there wasn't for the child-victims. Not the tomorrow that was taken away from them, anyway.
MSC's reign in the NT amounts to Hegemony in Action, basically, full-fledged. Anyone questioning their Superior wisdom - presenting relevant information, they saw that as information to be stamped out - going forward … or backwards … to be replaced with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Before we had algorithms to suppress truth on behalf of THE Science, we had THE Church doing it through Culture. Both are projected as impenetrable uber-human intelligence systems - where the system is in control. As with now though, there were/are still real people making decisions to direct the systems.
There was dissent towards Fyfe/O'Loughlin's policies, from real MSC missionary actors at the real-coal-face, living amongst the communities. They were ignored. Shut-down. The big-picture decisions were still made by the higher-ups.
Bottom-line:
Charged with transitioning/assimilating First Nations People to the Western/Catholic way of thinking, the end legacy was:
an entrenched culture of child-sexual-abuse
The Report emphasizes the prevalence of anal rape - & that: many sexual offenders were, in fact, children themselves. That’s the community atmosphere MSC created for these stolen kiddies, a culture of normalized sexual violence. With a lot of anal rape. Good job Malcolm & John. That's on your watch.
It’s way more nuanced than that, of course, we'll explore that later. In short: The missionaries were trainee priests doing their 2-years national MSC service. Upon completion, most choose the cushier school/parish/admin appointments, a rare few decide to stick with it. Of the stick-with-its, which takes a certain type, all of them, including Leary, Burke, Pat Dodson (who we will look at in detail), conflicted with the MSC higher-ups - namely Fyfe/O’Loughlin - who overruled them.
Naturally, Fyfe (who is still alive) will say when presented with this report card: Oh, i had no idea! Really? but the NT Report reports that the abuse was so rife that it leaves little room for Fyfe, who had previous form in covering up sexual abuse at Monivae College, Victoria, to again plead ignorance.
NT Report: The person (victim/survivor) said that Aboriginal law had started breaking down at the time she was abused and had now deteriorated to such an extent that young children in the community were sexually abusing one another.
So you’ve broken down one culture, replaced it with your child-social experiment, it’s resulted in (stolen) young children sexually abusing one another …
What on God’s earth was going on in those top-end missions you were running, John & Malcolm?
Daly River
To get a clearer idea of what went down in the missions, we can refer to Father Tony Caruana, MSC, who did a one month relief stint at the Daly River mission in the early 80’s on his way back from a Papua New Guinea posting. This is around the time Fyfe was in charge of the Daly River mission - all the missions for that matter. O'Loughlin, meanwhile, was a fixture as Bishop.
(note: Bishop as a piece in chess was also a Catholic culture-power-play - it used to be an Elephant in the original Indian game, but THE Church saw a re-branding opportunity in the mid 1200s, juiced-up the power while it was at it. Not as momentous as the earlier BC/AD coup, but typical of the cultural Catholicisization of human thinking.)
Father Caruana was interviewed for a thesis titled For the Love of God (PDF) on MSC’s NT mission work. Caruana's observations, as an outsider, ring alarm bells …
For the Love of God (Beresford-Maning):
Tony Caruana .. was singularly unimpressed when he was welcomed to Daly River by a group of young girls who volunteered to ‘come home with you, Father, and look after you and give you anything you might want’.
When Father Caruana declared that he would look after himself the offer was repeated, and again rejected. The girls were clearly affronted and thereafter he was ignored by the greater part of the community for the duration of his stay. Father Caruana’s refusal of their offer was based on his understanding that the girls were offering sexual favours rather than housework. (p210) (author conversation with Caruana)
Was reading this the first time, thought to myself: guess they picked the gay-one! - then thought: no, don’t be flippant - maybe Caruana, was the one MSC with a conscience who was genuinely appalled by this off-the-rails sexualized culture happening at the missions …
Let's see ...
Father Caruana
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Curious, i search Father Tony Caruana MSC ... Page 1 results:
ABC: Paedophile priest Anthony William Peter Caruana has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing boys as young as 12 at a NSW school. (Chevalier College) Caruana was convicted of 26 offences against 12 students.
(He) committed his crimes when he was the school's dormitory master, rugby coach and bandmaster. .. One of the victims was subjected to abuse of escalating severity after band practice (whereby) Caruana orally and anally raped the student and forced him to engage in sex acts while telling him: "You know God will like it if you please a man of God."
The first complaints against Caruana date back to the early 1970’s during his time at Daramalan College MSC, Canberra, before his stint at Daly River in the early 80s. That’s now a civil case.
So to recap this unholy MSC missionary position, what have we got so far?
- a legacy of rampant child sexual abuse - both adult-to-children & children-to-children - who were following the example of the adults - as children do.
- Caruana’s welcoming at Daly River was a sexualized event involving young girls - indicating that pedophilia had become normalized at the missions. The girls were clearly affronted when Caruana rebuffed their offers - from which we can deduce they weren’t used to being knocked back by MSC males. Subsequently, Caruana was ostracized by the community for refusing to participate - indicating an entrenched culture at the mission - not a few rogue girls
- Tony goes off to resume his own brand of sex-crimes at Chevalier College, which he’d first begun at Daramalan in the early ‘70’s. This shows the extent to which sexual-perversion had taken root throughout the MSC system - to the point where there were competing types of sexual abusers - something we also saw with Frith reporting on Mamo at Monivae.
- around the time this breakdown in morality was happening, Malcolm Fyfe was in charge of overseeing the culture at the missions
The Legacy Years
We brushed on the bifurcation within MSC between:
The Missionaries (Leary, Burke, Dodson et al)
The Higher-ups, (Fyfe, O’Loughlin et al)
This extract throws some light on that dynamic …
For the Love of God: Brother Burke recalls that he had more than one confrontation with the then-Principal of St John’s, Brother Paul Brooks on the subject of boarders. Once the Boarding House complex was completed Brother Brooks was keen to fill it. Brother Burke, on the other hand, maintained that simply to bring in the greatest number of Aboriginal boarders, without hand picking them, could be more of a disadvantage than an advantage.
Brother Burke .. knew that randomly to dump a concentration of Aboriginal boys from a mixture of different ‘countries’, different languages and different skin groups together would be to ask for trouble. P330
Yeah, that makes sense - if you have someone with understanding of the situation on the ground … listen to them.
Especially when the other option, the chosen path by the Sacred Heart of Jesus’s higher-ups was:
open-slather with a ban on cultural awareness.
Thinking being: Aboriginal culture - it’s not real culture. This is Big-picture assimilation stuff - we’re not here to tip-toe around.
Between the above options, i wonder if common-sense prevailed … ?
For the Love of God: And so, when he (Burke) was overruled, it turned out. Not only did the students often turn to fighting each other, but their presence in large numbers often deterred significant numbers of non-Indigenous Catholic students from choosing to go to St John’s.
Brother Burke recalls that at one stage, in order to minimise the vandalism and destruction being caused to the school buildings (as opposed to the boarding houses) a metal fence was erected around the boarding house with spear tipped railings.
The students saw these as being ideal weapons and ripped them off the fence to use them as such.
Ok. We’ve talked about the MSC culture running off the rails - this is ripping the rails off to be used as ideal weapons.
It’s hard to imagine more damning evidence of the deleterious effects of MSC’s crusading social-experiment. Effects that resulted from a deliberate course of action - despite frank warnings not to do it that way.
It was fairly common during this period that the boarding houses themselves were routinely vandalised – and the turnover in boarding house supervisors was unsurprisingly high.
Others who have worked with Indigenous students have reinforced Brother Burke’s view that they should be handpicked to optimise the value of the education they receive both for their own sakes as individuals and for the sake of their home communities. P331
I’d like to know how handy that hand-picking process was, but Brother Burke was right in that it was a disaster waiting to happen … not waiting, actually
Also: Not to forget the sakes of those who inevitably ended up as collateral-damage-victims from these violent, out-of-control, laxly supervised social-experiment kids. The ripple-out effect. But we do forget them.
The professional historian who wrote For the Love of God, forgot. It was probably not the right time to talk about it. Either that or: we’ve all moved on …
Those outcasts caught in this sleight-of-hand twilight-zone belong in a different book: the Not for the Love of God’s. Good luck waiting for a Professional Historian to write that one …
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
What does that even mean?
Who are we?
Before we take a walk on the wild-side of being a missionary in the NT, let’s take a quick look at MSC the Catholic order.
The most famous battle-cry at MSC schools is: Huu-waa, Huu-waa- Huu-waa We? We are the boys from MSC!
So what is MSC an acronym for? The order's English name is Missionaries of the Sacred Heart - which is 2 out of 3 - so what’s the C-word?
Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis (Latin)
As the name implies, MSC, at its Cordis, is a missionary organization. When you talk about religious zeal - it doesn’t get any zealier than MSC.
The order was founded in France by eccentric priest, Jules Chevalier in 1855. In researching this, i read an excellent (though flawed, imo - will explain as we go along) thesis by Professional Historian at Osbaldwick Consultants, Wendy Beresford-Maning - have reffed it a few times already. It’s a slanted version the MSC’s adventures in the NT, titled, For the Love of God. It’s a valuable resource, in that it collates a substantial collection of primary resources, the best kind. She adds to this with her own interviews with elderly key-participants in the MSC order in Australia. This for example:
Very few of the MSCs, in fact, seem to be particularly aware of Chevalier’s charism. .. During a conversation with the Administrator of St Mary’s Cathedral, Darwin, Father John Kelliher MSC, and the current Northern Territory MSC Superior, Father Malcom Fyfe, both commented that they were not surprised that there was not much sense of connection to the founder since, even within the order, there had been little emphasis on this or other aspects of MSC history or theological orientation during the time that Leary, Merritt and Burke (1950’s -’80’s) would have been seminarians. p100
Right, so Aussie MSC had broken free - doin it for themselves… That’s fine … if you’re a missionary in the farthest flung corners of the known earth, you are the expert, on the spot. It’s all DIY. No-one’s there watching over you. Who gives a shit about Jules Chevalier in France?
Reading Fyfe & Kelliher’s frank admission, at first i thought, so what? It’s a simple statement of fact: Stuff France, we’re Aussies - we’ll do it Aussie-style
Later though, after reading on, i wondered whether Fyfe was commenting in opprobrium - a crafted piece of MSC-speak re Leary, Merrit, Burke. Especially Leary.
There was historical tension between them - clear battle-lines:
Fyfe & O’Loughlin from HQ on one side …
… the on-site Missionaries on the other side
Was Fyfe trying to pull up the draw-bridge on a dark-chapter of MSC’s history …? Explain it as a straying from the path … that we've all moved on from? That period - Leary especially - is a good yarn - sounds like he may have gone a bit Kurtz-esque up on Daly River. Father Caruana's report of being propositioned by a group of young girls at there - Daly River Mission - that was Leary's baby - as was Port Keats. Is this the Sacred Heart of Darkness…? I don't know, yet. But as part of understanding i'm keeping alive the possibility that Fyfe trying to politely distance MSC from that?
Or: Had MSC-Aus-management itself, unlinked from their founder? Not only some rogue missionaries operating on the fringes of society - the whole Aussie MSC Order had disconnected from its roots ... ? Fyfe does say: even within the order, there had been little emphasis (on Chevalier).
Unmoored or not, this is a tale about MSC, so as the spiritual source of the order, Jules Chevalier, he’s gotta be in it. Let’s give him some love … even if MSC Australia did lose touch …
Jules Chevalier
The Good News: MSC re-connected with their founder! Their website now provides great info on Jules Chevalier. The setting is the mid 1850’s in France. Let’s take a look …
MSC website: As a priest, Jules first served as curate in three different parishes in quick succession.
Hell! Hope Jules wasn’t being bounced around like … Risdale-style …
MSC: At the age of thirty (same age as Jesus) he was sent to Issoudun, which was regarded as the most dechristianised town in the whole region.
Cool. You don’t get to pick & choose as a missionary priest, btw. You go where you’re told. History doesn’t make it clear if Jules was sent to Issoundun as a punishment or: they thought if anyone can re-christianize those Issoundun heathens - it’s Jules. (Song idea: Hey Jules … don’t make it bad …)
The other curate in the parish was Fr Emile Maugenest, one of a small group of his companions in the seminary who had shared Chevalier's vision.
For context, Catholicism was, at that time, a large powerful group. Not that they didn't have internal, rival Christian orgs to deal with.
At Issoudun the two priests became determined to found a religious congregation of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. However, aware that they could be deluding themselves they wanted a clear sign that this was what God wanted.
Ok …. heavy. Points for acknowledging this could be a delusional thing - how did …?
Over a period of nine days, they prayed asking Our Lady to intercede for them in having God provide this sign.
As you would, i guess, if you're super-religious expialidocious spectrum … Then … lo n behold:
The following morning one of the parishioners called at the presbytery with a letter announcing a gift of 20,000 francs from an anonymous donor.
Wow! Ask & you shall receive!
The donor's preference was for a house of missionaries to be established in the area with the approval of the Archbishop.
So serendipitous!
The Archbishop agreed as long as they had some means of financial independence and support.
Shit - there’s always a catch …
Another period of prayer resulted in another anonymous benefactor promising to give an annual gift of 1,000 francs which was enough for both of them to live on.
Man, that prayer shit really pays off … !
They now had the sign and the means to begin the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
There you have it: the secret sign from God at the heart of the sacred heart … was … 20, 000 francs.
With the original 20,000 francs the two priests purchased a rundown vineyard with a sound house and tumbled-down barn in Issoudun. The house became their first community house and the barn was renovated as the first chapel, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Such a nice story … fully-restored in MSC internet puff-piece-speak.
This was in 1855. From these simple beginnings has come a whole family of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart - priests, brothers, sisters and lay associates.
Great. One big happy family! Fathers, brothers, sisters, all without sex, supposedly - or is that what you mean by lay-associates?
Later, because of national tensions in colonial areas where missionaries worked, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart were founded by Fr Hubert Linckens MSC with the approval of Jules Chevalier,
Lot going on in that sentence. Why was there an order of women founded because of colonialism tensions? Were the priests kicked out?
Within twenty-five years of their small beginnings, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had spread in Europe and to North America. Before his death, Fr Jules Chevalier was to see his 'family' working in Central and South America, the Philippines, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Their concern was global .. the fulfilment of a dream that Fr. Chevalier already had as a seminarian.
Nice dream. Probably didn't envisage the NT Reports finding that that dream resulted in a culture whereby: sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is common, widespread and grossly under-reported .. abuse is rife
The spirit of Jules Chevalier/MSC?
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The Blessed Virgin: Strong-to-creepy link to Our Mother-figure … inspiring Celibacy. Doubles as an objectification of women.
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The Lord speaks in mysterious ways … but sometimes it’s obvious ways too - like money
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Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Assuming it’s not the physical organ, i’m guessing the innate goodness of Jesus - who identified with the downtrodden, uplifted them … by speaking truth-to-power … arguing with the experts in the street …
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Most unchristianized places on earth: No challenge is too great
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Global mind-control: One God, one culture - to rule them all.