Catholic Diocese of Broome

Notre Dame Graduation, Broome WA
28 July 2006

Address given by Fr Ray Hevern SAC – Provincial of the Pallottines in Australia

The circumstances of the Pallottine arrival in the north west probably mirror those of a lot of congregations who were swept up in the mission of the Church in the

latter part of the nineteenth century. The Pallottine outreach to aboriginal communities happened only gradually, across 54 years. In 1916 Fr Droste, who had previously visited Lombadina and met Thomas and Agnes Puertollano, moved to their community permanently to replace Fr Nicholas Emo.

Later, with the three coastal communities settled [including Kalumburu], Bishop Raible considered it was time for a move inland. In 1934 Fr Francis Hügel, and two brothers, Joseph Schüngel and Henry Krallmann traveled by truck to Rockhole Station, 30 kms west of Halls Creek. Beagle Bay people Paddy Merindjam and his wife Bertha, George Kelly and his wife Maggie and two sons, and Phillip Cox accompanied them. Five years later, after a reconnaissance trip into the country south of the Salt Lake this venture was relocated to the Great Sandy Desert region where, following enormous difficulties in establishing a secure water source, it evolved into the Balgo [or Wirrimanu] community.

On New Year’s Day 1955 the government handed over responsibility for La Grange [Bidyadanga today]. Fr Francis Hügel was again on the front line, again with aboriginal people from Beagle Bay, Lawrence and Maggie Williams, Nellie and Albert Dann, Ernie Sarah and his wife.

As the sacramental needs developed with the gradual increase in population Pallottines were also called to serve in the emerging towns. Records indicate that Fr White left Beagle Bay to minister to the people of Broome in 1903. After WWII the commitment expanded not only to Derby but eastwards. The first permanent priests were appointed to Wyndham [in 1960], Halls Creek [in 1962], and Kununurra [in 1967].

Returning to the thirties Bishop Raible recognised that it was imperative to engage local Australian personnel. In 1937 the Vicariate purchased a property in Melbourne. The first applicant was John Hennessey and, including a 19 yr old Joseph Kearney, the novitiate opened in Feb. 1940. They were joined three years later by another 19 yr old - Kevin McKelson. He was initially Fr Ernest Worms’ curate in Broome where he honed his natural skills in languages under an experienced master. He recalls that, as his father was a hatter, he arrived with a felt hat which he soon changed to a straw one!

It is important to acknowledge that Pallottines were by no means the first, nor the only bearers of the good news in this region. Many religious congregations walked with us, and inspired us – the St John of God Sisters from as early as 1907. Many quite exceptional lay people likewise, some supplementing the predominantly manual work of the brothers, some the educational and health care and administrative work of the religious. Such were their numbers that volunteer training centres were established in Victoria and NSW.

One story yet to be fully recorded is the involvement of aboriginal people themselves, particularly those from Beagle Bay, who reached out for generations to their own people. They shared the sacrifices, they shared the hardship and the isolation that went with pioneering and being on the front line.

And it is important to recognise that that sharing, and that support of the ministry of priests and religious, was not just with their hands but with their words and pre-eminently through the witness of their own lifestyle to people who had never heard of Jesus, especially in first contact situations. My reading of the origins of this tremendous faith outreach is that it has principally two centres – Beagle Bay and the Derby Leprosarium. There are many wonderful stories of the people from those two places accompanying the newcomers as they ventured out into distant and unfamiliar places. Perhaps some of you are aware of the amazement of the priest from Kununurra in the early seventies who arrived at Texas Downs on his initial station run, only to discover that the community had set aside a simple building, just like the ones they were living in, as a chapel where they gathered for the Rosary every Sunday. It had been ten years since a priest had visited! Women in that community had learnt to pray the Rosary with the Sisters during the time they were patients at the Leprosarium.

So it was the aboriginal people were surely the first lay volunteers. Not just in the sense of being of practical assistance, which was invaluable – they became integral to the Church’s mission, actively engaged, often leaving their communities for long periods, and became models to their own people in the witness of their own deep faith. Perhaps the extraordinary richness of modern day aboriginal Christian art is both an expression, and extension, of that. As also is their option for faith based education for their children.

Today we applaud all the students who are graduating.

In the context of their history for the aboriginal students this is an incredible achievement.

Many of you will be able to trace family connections back to those already mentioned, but there are many others besides. Their influence reached around the Kimberley, but also to Port Hedland and beyond. In reflecting on your own achievements acknowledge too the wonderful legacy you have inherited and, in becoming academically qualified, use your own gifts and your own skills – and your innate spirituality – to reach out energetically in your own circumstances to bring about the kingdom of God in today’s world.