AUSTRALIA : 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARCHDIOCESE

CANBERRA/GOULBOURN ARCHDIOCESE REPORT:
This year marks the 150thanniversary of the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn dating back to the formal establishment of the then Goulburn Diocese in November 1862.
A committee has been set up to plan celebrations across the Archdiocese.
The landmark year also marks the 50thanniversary of what came to be known as “the Goulburn strike” when a dispute with the government led to the temporary closing of the Catholic school. Many see it as the catalyst for the introduction of state aid for Catholic schools.
Australia’s bishops have called Catholics to celebrate a Year of Grace starting at Pentecost, and Pope Benedict XVI has proclaimed a Year of Faith for the universal Church starting in October and marking the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II.
“Twelve months may not be quite enough for all that next year holds,” Archbishop Mark Coleridge said.
“But the Christian life is always much more that the great events and celebrations. At its heart there lies the much humbler day-to-day stuff of faith lived in the family and in the parish.
“All of this will be gathered up and celebrated in the many occasions that 2012 will bring, so that these occasions can make the living of faith in the family and the parish a still deeper and richer experience of the encounter with Christ, which alone can make us the more missionary Church we need to become at this time.”
In reflecting on the establishment of the Goulburn Diocese, Archbishop Coleridge said it took authorities five years to find a first bishop.
“The first man chosen, Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan, was an Irish Franciscan who had been the pioneer priest of Melbourne before being appointed Bishop of Adelaide,” he said.
“He was eventually promoted to Goulburn, but died in Dublin before he could take possession of the See. The second man they asked was an Irish priest working in the region, and he simply said no.
“Eventually they settled upon another Irishman working in the region, William Lanigan, and he said yes, serving as first Bishop from 1867 to 1900.
“In 1948, the Diocese of Goulburn became the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, though Archbishop Maguire never moved from Goulburn. It was his successor, Archbishop Eris O’Brien, who moved to Canberra and Archbishop Thomas Cahill who later moved the Cathedral to Canberra.”
Referring to “the Goulburn strike”, he said the Catholic primary school in Goulburn was told at the time by authorities to renovate a dilapidated toilet block but protested that it had no money to do so.
“They were then told that no money would be coming from the government and that they simply had to find the money,” he said.
“This prompted the bold decision to close the Catholic school and send all the children for enrolment at the local Government school. This embarrassed the Government and, some would say, opened the way to State aid for Catholic schools.
“However one interprets it, ‘the Goulburn strike’ was a memorable event worth pondering 50 years on when school funding is being reviewed.
“I might add that the dilapidated toilet block still stands and may need some suitable plaque half a century later.”
On a national level, the bishops have summoned all Australian Catholics to celebrate a Year of Grace from Pentecost 2012 to Pentecost 2013.
“This will be like a year-long retreat when we all have a chance ‘to start afresh from Christ’, contemplating his face and listening to his voice in a way that stirs new confidence and energy among us,”he said.
“It will be a time to refocus, asking the simple but crucial question of every aspect of Church life, ‘What does this have to do with Jesus?’
“A number of events and celebrations will punctuate the Year of Grace, which will replace nothing but gather all things to itself, looking all the time to the Lord crucified and risen who is grace incarnate.
“The Year of Grace in Australia will lead neatly and naturally to the Year of Faith which Pope Benedict has proclaimed for the whole Church from 11 October, 2012, to the end of 2013.
“The Year of Faith will mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, described by Blessed John Paul II as ‘the great grace given to the Church in the 20th century’.
“If grace is God’s free gift to us inJesus, then faith is the human response in accepting that gift. The Year of Grace and the Year of Faith will celebrate the two aspects of the saving encounter which happens once God offers us the gift and we accept it.
“In celebrating that encounter, we will go back to the very basics of the Christian life.
In October, the Synod of Bishops will be held with the theme ”A new evangelisation for the transmission of the faith”.
“It is no accident that this was the theme chosen by the Pope to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of the Council,”Archbishop Coleridge said.
“It is a way of saying that the Council itself was all about a new evangelisation – a new surge of Gospel energy – in the wake of two-part apocalypse of World War I and World War II, after which nothing could be the same.
“The Council was not an introverted affair, looking only to the inner life of the Church. It looked outwards and asked the crucial question, How might we preach the Gospel to the world in new ways, given that Jesus crucified and risen is the only response adequate to the ash-heaps of Auschwitz and Hiroshima? What does a new evangelisation require? What might it look like?”
On the world scene, the International Eucharistic Congress will be held in June in Dublin.
Archbishop Coleridge said the Church in Australia and in the Archdiocese owed “an unpayable debt to the Irish who sowed the seed of faith among us”.
http://www.cg.catholic.org.au/news/view_article.cfm?id=556

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