August 28, 2025 • 65 mins
In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Thomas Storck and Christopher Zehnder interview Karl Schmude, President of the Australian Chesterton Society.
Among the questions they ask are the following:
Among the questions they ask are the following:
- Australia is I think the most recent major country of European culture to be established, i.e., in the late 18th century, after a century and more of secularization in Europe, and then for a time was treated as a British prison colony. In what ways does this make Australia different from other parts of the Western cultural world? Is it proper to speak of an Australian tradition given that it was settled at the end of the European Enlightenment?
- Has the significant numbers of immigrants - as you noted, from Italy, Malta, Poland, Lebanon, affected the originally British character of Australian culture? And has the more recent immigration affected this? In particular, has there been significant immigration from countries without any Christian cultural tradition and if so, what effect has this had?
- I have read about the Campion Society of the 1930s, and I was very impressed by their attempt to develop Catholic intellectual, social and cultural life - an effort that I don't know had any equivalent elsewhere. Yet in the end it was not successful? Why was that?
- One gets the impression of an increasing hostile secularist culture in Australia, e.g., the conviction of Cardinal Pell for a crime that seemingly he could not possibly have actually committed, or the Conversion Practices Ban Acts of 2024. Can you comment on such trends and the response of Catholics or other Christians. (In the U.S. Evangelical Protestants still form a powerful political and cultural bloc. Is this the case in Australia?)
- Can you tell us something about Campion College and why it was founded? Does it attempt to carry on the work originally begun by the Campion Society in the 1930s?
- In addition to Campion College, there are several other Catholic higher educational institutions, are there not? How would you describe these? Are any of them authentically Catholic?
- In what ways is the task of both retaining Catholics and evangelizing different in Australia from other parts of the Catholic world?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Open Door with your host Thomas Tork
and co host Christopher Zander and ANDREWS. Rokowski, who is
not with us today sojourneying for a limited time in London.
Let us begin with our prayer in the name of
the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. In men, come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle
(00:29):
them the fire of your love. Set it forth, your Spirit,
and they shall be created, and you shall be you
the face of the earth. Let us pray, Oh God,
who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct
the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same
Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy
His consolations through Christ. To our Lord, Amen the Spirit, Amen,
(00:54):
our guests, are you're pleased to have as our guest today.
Carlos Moude an Australian writer and educator, co founder of
Campaign College in Sydney, which opened in two thousand and six.
His writings about religion and culture, and in particular the
Catholic literary and intellectual revival of the twentieth century have
appeared both in Australia and internationally. He is President of
(01:17):
the Australian chesters In Society an editor of its quarterly publication,
The Defendant. For sixteen years he served as Director of
Libraries in the University of New England and Armadale in
New South Wales, Australia. And I might add that Karl
and his wife were my very gracious hosts on my
(01:37):
two thousand and eight visit to Australia when I spoke
at the Chesterton Conference at Campaign College. So it's very
good to renew my acquaintanceship with him. So good to
have you back, Carl.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Thank you, Tom. It's lovely to be with you.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So tonight we're going to be talking about Australia, the
church in Australia, the prospects for the church in Australia,
some of the things that have been done to address
those problems. And so let's start out talking about Australia itself.
It's kind of unique in a way that it's the
most recent major country of European culture to be established,
(02:21):
that is, at the end of the eighteenth century. This
was towards the very end of the European Enlightenment and
after a century and more secularization in Europe, and then
for a time it was mistreated by the British as
a prison colony. So Carl, what ways does this make
(02:43):
Australia different from other parts of the Western cultural world,
And how can we speak of Anslian tradition given that
it was settled at the very end of the European Enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
That is very good. I've been calced and thank you. Yes,
I think the key to understanding Australian culture and Australian
history is, as you mentioned, the time of its foundation
and the foundational influences at that time. They were obviously
(03:19):
English in the sense that Australia, as you said, was
really established as a prison colony in the late eighteenth century.
And while they would have been in varying degrees Anglican,
(03:40):
the nature of the culture, given that time of history,
and the nature of the society being a prison were
not really conducive to religious impulses or the nourishing of those.
So I think the key thing of Australia is that
(04:01):
it's from the beginning been a secularist culture rather than
a sectarian one. Now a sectarian influences, particularly Catholics against
Protestants and vice versa, have been significant. But it seems
to me that as those tensions have faded with the
great decline of mainstream Protestantism different churches in Australia the
(04:26):
Church of England of course, but also Presbyterianism and Methodism,
the Uniting Church. As those have faded greatly, it's become
clearer what the fundamental nature of Australian culture is secularist. Now,
the other significant thing that's a sort of a counterbalance
(04:49):
to this is that it wasn't just the English who
settled Australia. It was also the Irish, and they were
overwhelmingly Catholic. Of course, they came initially as convert as convicts. Sorry,
so we're not really in a position to exercise influence.
But nonetheless they were always as significant and remain a
(05:11):
significant proportion of the population, about a quarter of the population.
So as a counterbalance, one might say to the to
the secularist nature of the culture, there's been that underlying
Catholic influence mediated through through Irish Catholicism, and as in
(05:33):
the United States, the Irish influence has been very important
historically and I've always found in various ways, given my
many visits and time spent in the United States, at
America and Australia, in terms of comparison and contrast, that's
(05:54):
a very instructive exercise which I've had occasion to write
on quite a lot. But anyhow, I think those of
the two key key things, and then what it meant
as far as the impact on the wider culture is
that proportion of people he produced notable leaders. So early
(06:15):
in the convict colony days, it produced Caroline Chisholm, who
looked after particularly single women who were very exposed of
course in a prison colony, many of them being drawn
into prostitution, and she provided home care and really pioneered,
(06:39):
i think a philosophy of family care in Australia. Mary McKillop,
she was the founder of a religious order and started
a a tremendous set of schools Josephite schools throughout Australia,
(07:00):
in rural Australia. So the these these were were leaders
that came out of out of the Catholic cradle as
it were, and u and registered a wider impact on
the culture. They were important not just for Catholics, are
important for Australians.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
When you talk about being a prison colony. Maybe a
bit of clarification suggested itself to me is when we
say so many is a convict, we don't necessarily mean
as a criminal. In this sense. He's a criminal and
the threat he has broken a lot. How many how
many like what were the percentage how many these people
were actually criminals and how many were the unfortunate poor?
(07:44):
How many of them were maybe political prisoners.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yes, no, that's a good distinction, Christopher, because so many
of them were convicted of petty crimes and the and
and in time, unfortunately they were freed and became again
a significant influence. As they were freed, they were given
(08:10):
parcels of land outside of the main center at that
time Sydney on the East coast of Australia. And you
know learnt to that they were from rural backgrounds anyhow
so they were able to develop as farmers with their
own their own land. But no, the great majority had
(08:36):
not had not committed any really serious offense. They were
just they were shipped off, particularly after the American Revolution,
there was there was another place at the end of
the world where they could be discarded and in effect forgotten.
(08:57):
So a great many were were sent here that were
not in any serious sense criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And some were I understand that Irish patriots who have
been convicted from standing upland.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That's right, that's right. Well, in fact, if you look
at the you know, I think perhaps the impact of
the Enlightenment on Ireland it compared to say, France, England elsewhere,
the it tended to stir democratic impulses and the participation
(09:40):
of the people rather than anti religion or anti faith sentiments.
And again that that was the way in which when
when the Irish did come to Australia, including the ones
who ended up being freed from being convicts, they they
did play a part in developing the Australian democracy from
(10:05):
the late eighteenth century onwards.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Well also, oh go ahead, when did Australia ceise me
a prison colony? How did it change in terms of
the demographics after that?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yes, well it was really by the mid nineteenth century.
It went for a bit over half a century and
eased off as it approached the middle of the nineteenth century,
but it had stopped by that time. And again in
terms of immigration patterns, the Irish continued to be significant.
(10:49):
Many of them came who had, for example, more of
a middle class background, journalists, people in politics, not only
people who came from a rural background. So that there's
there's been a sort of a series of immigration waves
(11:12):
in Australia and the early ones were from Ireland and Scotland.
Apart of course from England, many English people came here too,
and and that was right through really the nineteenth century,
and then the Second World War marked a major point
(11:39):
as far as new immigrant peoples coming to Australia, and
a great many of them came from war to in Europe,
from from Poland and Walta and the as well as
the Middle East. Lebanon, for example, Italy, we got we
(11:59):
got nearly a Median people from Italy as immigrants, which
was a very large number given the Australian population after
World War II. So that was sort of the second
way you might say that it was English speaking, still
Christian in background, in varying degrees, but non English speaking,
(12:25):
and they faced the same challenges as the European migrants
who came to America over the different periods, particularly to
the East Coast, and needed to learn the language and
learn the culture at least with the second generation. And
then more recently we've had a different the last ten
(12:48):
to fifteen years, we've had a different source of immigration.
It's been significantly non Christian, particularly Muslim that those people
have come from the Middle East of course, but places
like Pakistan as well. So that's that's been the pattern
(13:14):
I think of the Australian immigration experience and how that
in turn, at different points in its history, has influenced
the culture and and in many ways I think added
added to the culture.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Has it has it either pressure on the Christian character
of Australia or how is that effect of the religious
tone of the strange society having a lot of non
Christian immigrants.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yes, well, I think it has. It has had an
effect the the The secularism that I mentioned that was
sort of at the route it was was also combined
with sectarian feelings, but as as anti Catholic feelings have
(14:11):
subsided so much among the the the the other churches,
the the need for the I think what what's happened
is that the people a new sort of secularist elite,
(14:35):
if I might call it, that has emerged, particularly in
universities in media, and and that that is distinctly anti Christian,
in particularly anti Catholic. So the strains of anti Catholicism
(14:56):
have been moved, I think from what would have been
a pro listening to elite in the early part of
Australia's history to what is now a secularist elite. By contrast,
I think the churches, both officially and socially Catholics and
ordinary Christian non Catholics have worked well together. I mean
(15:23):
Camping College, just as a small example, attracts students from
other Christian churches, and we have very good relations with
a number of Christian pastors, non Catholic pastors who are
very supportive of what the college is doing. So I
think that has been a characteristic of Australian culture. However,
(15:43):
when you move to the non Christian element, that's now
very obvious its influence and where that is antagonistic is
heightened by the fact that they've tended to congregate in
the cities, in certain cities like Sydney and Melbourne and
(16:06):
live in certain suburbs. And again that's a change because
the original migrants, the English, the Irish, the Scottish, were
quite dispersed. The Australian and Irish were always quite dispersed
as nothing similar to what was characteristic of America, where
(16:28):
various areas were strongly dominated by a particular ethnic group.
But by contrast, as I say, when we moved to
this new era of non Christian influence in the culture,
that's been intensified. I think by the fact that the
(16:49):
people very often congregate for family and social support reasons
and language reasons. But nonetheless that's been characteristic I think
of the last couple of decades m.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Save long immigrants are they are they opposed secularism in
Australia or they sort of ignore it?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
No, I think I think they do. They they at
least in the first generation. This can weaken as as
the generations proceed. But but they certainly to significant extent
(17:37):
practice their faith and visibly mosques for example, have been
built in lots of suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. So
they combat it, if you like, in that in that way.
But but I think it has affected the extent which
(18:00):
Australia has been an integrated society, and that's been partly
strongly really philosophical in the sense that what was thought
to be the early policy assimilationist, as it was called,
was unfair to immigrants. It wore down, it sort of
(18:24):
melted their ethnic identity, and it's best to allow for
that to continue even with language. That philosophy has in
the sense reinforced. I think a greater level of division
in the Australian society than previously prevailed.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
To shift gears a bit. I was when I learned
about the Campian society in the nineteen thirties in Australia.
I was extremely impressed the book that I knew with
that I actually got when I was over there, doesn't
it and it was It seemed to me a remarkable
(19:09):
institution that I'm not aware that anything like that existed
anywhere else in the Catherlic world. Are concerned the attempt
to formulate Catholic study groups, lecturers, debates, cultural activities. Can
you talk about that a little bit because I've found
it faust letting.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yes, I think it is a significant and underrated movement
in Australian history. It began with a group of new
graduates and people going into professional life in Melbourne in
nineteen thirty one and developed in the years leading up
to World War Two very very widely, including into country
(19:52):
parts of Australia. So my own father, for example, he
lived in a border town, New South Wales and Victoria
border each other, and he lived in the town of
Albury and there was a flourishing Campian society chapter one
might call it there, and that's where he got introduced
(20:12):
to such a large extent to great Catholic authors who
were popular at the time, and through the courses that
they ran and visiting lectures, learned a great deal about
Catholic history and literature. Authors like Jessudam and Belloch in particular,
(20:35):
and Christopher Dawson figured strongly, and in fact that was
the influence on my own life. When I was being
brought up as the son of my father, I imbibed
this as it were, at a very early age. So
if we're looking at the fact that it was significant,
(20:58):
I think as a lay movement, it had very very
little clerical or religious order involvement, even though the religious
orders were very strong at that time, particularly teaching in
Catholic schools. There were many Catholic schools, but it was
(21:18):
very much a lay initiative and it had its deepest
influence I think through family and individual members such as
what I benefited from, but it didn't lead to any
institutional form, which is why after that single generation that
(21:45):
founded the Campian Society it didn't last. It was also
greatly affected by the Second World War. Because of the
six years of tremendous interruption from nineteen thirty nine to
forty five, wasn't able to have any cross generational transfer.
(22:07):
So that again was a lesson I think that we
took on board, if I may mention camping in college again,
that we needed to have not just an active movement
and movement that was very involved in Catholic education, we
(22:33):
need that needed to take on some sort of institutional form.
And a further sign of that I can just insert
this tom is that in the nineteen seventies I was
associated with the formation of a group which was called
initially the Fellowship of John the twenty third and very
(22:58):
soon became renamed and is the Campion Fellowship again because
of the inspiration of the Campian Society of the nineteen thirties.
And one of the founders with me is the gentleman
that wrote that book You held up Colin Jury in
Canberra and Colin and I and several others were involved
(23:20):
in establishing what was a similar body that it was
loosely organized. It held occasional meetings an annual conference that
was the main event. But it was aptly named Followship,
which was named after Tolkien's making famous the word. But
(23:49):
again it it didn't last beyond the nineteen nineties. So
again the founding generation of the Campions of the campion
Fi Scholarship in the nineteen seventies, it wasn't able to
be transferred as it were, across the generations. And again
(24:11):
with Camping College emerging out of out of that background
in important ways, it was very obvious more needed to
be done to provide to incarnate the camp be a
movement in Australia if it was going to be able
(24:31):
to survive and thrive.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Did I when you camp in society has discussed Catholic
cultural issues, social issues, I guess can you give me
examples of sort of things, because one could think of
sometimes that Catholics getting together will talk about devotions or
about doctrine or liturgy. What sorts of things that Campain
(25:00):
eighties actually address.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yes, well, I think Christopher they did go beyond that
very much. They were very much an outward looking society.
They were strongly practicing Catholics, and so it would be
devoted in different ways to the devotional life of the Church,
(25:25):
but it was very much influenced so I think by
an outlook beginning of the nineteen thirties, the Great Depression
had just begun. We were not far away from the
Spanish Civil War breaking out. Hitler came to power in
the early nineteen thirties, so there was a tremendous awareness,
(25:46):
I think, of how turbulent the world was. But the
church's vocation it was to address that world, to speak
to it in a way that hopefully could understand. And
being influenced by writers like Justden and Belloc and Dawson,
(26:09):
I think informed that outlook. The courses or many of
which were fairly informal, that the society sponsored, were in
particular in relating to the aspects of the culture in education,
(26:35):
in literature, in history, in philosophy, rather than inward looking
for inward focused. I think that was taken for granted
that the Catholic popular culture as it was then, I
think it was already strong in being sustained by the
(26:57):
Church itself. What was needed allayed people, particularly those that
had new educational opportunities coming out of universities and so on.
Was was an outlook that we would now regard as
one of evangelization, then one of looking looking inward at
(27:25):
the life of the church.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Could you say, what was it?
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Were ever considered enigmatic? And what I mean by that
is it seems to me, at least in our United States,
that we Catholics tend to fall along societal lanes in
terms of political positions, social positions, like we we adopt
a particular political position, and I don't know if you
truly have in Australia, you know, you know, we have
(27:50):
the two party system, and that tends to by people
off from eulogical lanes. So often can be if they
if they're a tender Latin mass of their tenor and
more traditional mast considered to be on the republican side,
hs that they are they're more progressive, they're on the
progressive side. And it's pretty it's almost pretty predictable. Found
(28:14):
it out. So I wouldn't send Catholics for the most part,
right in the United States are enigmatic nowadays? Was canted
to say enigmatic?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Well, given the relative poverty of the Catholic people for
such a long period from the very beginning, they naturally
gravitated to any party that uh would would speak to
(28:46):
their interests and represent them. And what emerged, and again
Irish Catholics played a very significant role in the development
of our other party, which is the Australian Labor Party,
roughly equivalent to the Democratic Party in America. On the
other side, on the so called more politically conservative side,
(29:12):
there's been two parties, the Liberal Party which is mainly
city centered, and a country party now called the National Party,
which has grown out of rural areas, and normally in
government they're and in opposition they've formed a coalition as
a Liberal National Party coalition, so they're roughly equivalent, as
(29:33):
you say, I think, to the Republican Party and the
Labor Party. And Catholics obviously, at least for a long period,
were highly influential in belonging to and advancing the party
both politically and also industrially. The trade union movement has
(29:56):
been very important in Australia. Again Irish Catholics especially would
have been very active in that area. And the industrial
base for the Labor Party in Australia is i suspect
(30:17):
it's more significant than it might be for the Democratic
Party in America. The good thing about that, I think,
until more recent times, is that it's kept the Labor
Party fairly grounded in mainstream values, particularly family values, Christian values.
That's changed very significantly now for a variety of reasons.
(30:38):
But on the other hand, as we did have in
the nineteen fifties what was called the Labor Split, and
that's a complicated story, but essentially it appeared as if
Catholics were developing undue influence in the Labor Party, which
(30:59):
provoked action, particularly in Melbourne in Victoria, and it led
to expulsion of a great many of those Catholics, or
if they weren't expelled, they left in disillusionment. Where they
went to was to create another Labor Party, the Democratic
(31:20):
Labor Party DLP, for a period it has now lasly lapsed,
but that provided a bridge, I think, for great numbers
of Catholics to move from the Labor Party across to
the Liberal National Party coalition, which in turn has attracted
(31:41):
a lot more Catholics. So I think it's a very
mixed situation. Doesn't fit easily into perhaps the clearer distinctions
and divisions that you mentioned about the Republican and the
Democratic parties in America.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
To shift cares a little bit, I'd like to hear
them more about Campian College and why it was founded
and also how why the other there are several other
Catholic institutions of higher education I think in Australia. Why
were they seen as inadequate or no longer orthodox or whatever?
(32:26):
Was the reason that Campion was seen as a necessity.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yes, well, I think inspirationally, as I say, Campion emerged
out of that Campian tradition, going back to the Campian
Society of the nineteen thirties, renewed by the Campian Fellowship
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. But again, the distinctive
(32:52):
thing about Australian university's higher education in general, again by
contrast with the United States, is it began with the
first university, the University of Sydney, in the mid nineteenth
century as a government institution, and all the universities were
(33:13):
established by government and funded by government entirely so taxpayer funded.
So the tradition of private initiative in higher education that
spitomized with the Ivy League universities, the Harvards, thes and
(33:33):
then later times. That only occurred in fairly recent decades
in Australian history. So if you look across the two
hundred and fifty years or so of settlement in Australia,
overwhelmingly the system was government created and funded and run
(33:58):
and therefore by definition secularist institutions. Now, about thirty or
more years ago, forty years ago a couple of Catholic
universities were established that you just referred to their earlier
(34:20):
tom One is the Australian Catholic University ACU, and the
other is Notre Dame Australia, which really took the name
from its counterpart in Indiana, but as a separate institution
separately run now the ACU. The Australian Catholic University emerged
(34:46):
out of training colleges that the Church ran for the
training of teachers and later nurses, so it had that
professional base if you like, They were teaching institutions, so
we're not devoted to research. Notre Dame emerged over in
(35:09):
the West of Australia, in Western Australia, and it was
much more of a lay initiative, but it didn't lead
to a great movement of private universities. There's only one
(35:30):
or two other non Catholic private universities in Australia. The
system of the words remains as it's been overwhelmingly government funded.
So when the idea of Campeon emerged, which for me
came from reading Christopher Dawson in the nineteen sixties when
(35:54):
I was a student at Sydney University and I read
Dawson's The Crisis of Western Education, had a profound influence
on me and I thought, this is the sort of institution,
an institution that could provide a foundational education at the
university level, regardless of what a career path people might
(36:16):
then move into, and would serve the same kind of
role as the liberal arts colleges have served in America
that the Catholic ones, of course, as well as so
many others. But it was very clear that if this
(36:37):
would not get government funding because it simply wasn't any
groundswell of support for it. And I was fortunate enough
to have a good friend who was both wealthy and
very generous, a businessman by the name of James Power,
(36:59):
and we together worked on the planning and development of
Campion College. I left my job as Director of Libraries
at the University of New England and worked full time
for five years on the development of Campinging College. But
(37:23):
it was clear that it needed to be lay developed.
We couldn't really look to the church officially to do it.
By this time. It needed to be independently funded if
it was going to have any distinctive impact on the
(37:45):
culture and provide something that the universities in general were
not providing, including the Catholic ones. There would be subjects
in the liberal arts as we were ard it, but
they weren't brought together an integrated way that camp In
(38:09):
College seeks to do, where the key subjects, the core
subjects of history, literature, philosophy and theology, supplemented by language
Latin and Greek, are taught in a way that respects
the methodological norms of each subject but against the common
(38:33):
cultural and chronological backdrop. So the first year of the
Campian degree is the Ancient world pro Christian leading to Christianity,
the second year is the Middle Ages, the third year
is the Modern era. And the subjects, as I say,
(38:55):
are taught by good scholars in each of the core subjects,
but because they're being taught against that common background of
culture and chronology. They inevitably provoke connections in people's minds,
(39:17):
making connections between the insights that come out of history
and philosophy, the ideas, literature, the imagination at work. And
I think that's what does lead to intellectual maturity, is
the way the mind and the imagination can bring things
(39:38):
together from quite disparate sources. So that's been the basis
of the program. Certainly in the planning years, I was
very much influenced by the American Liberal Arts college model,
but immediate differences emerged. The standard baccalaureate degree in Australia
(40:05):
is three years, not four, and so what we tried
to do to be accommodated satisfactorily within a three year
program so that students would graduate with a Bachelor of
Arts in the Liberal Arts, which is what they do.
So it's been going for twenty years. We have over
(40:29):
four hundred graduates who have gone into various areas of
life and in their different ways. I think in lays
society having an significant influence. It's also produced, I think,
(40:52):
or at least nurtured religious vocations nuns and priests in particular.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
It is a school embraced by Catholic higarchy at all
in Australia.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yes, it's very Again, we haven't sort of sought that
Christopher in a formal way. We don't have canonical status
for example. It's quite independent, but it is very strongly
supported by a great many bishops and religious as well
(41:30):
as of course lay people and lay Catholic families. It
has And similarly, I think, and I've always thought this
was most important, we have a very friendly relationship with
the other universities that I mentioned Australian Catholic University on
the one hand, in Notre Dame Australia on the other
(41:52):
they're both based in Sydney, although they do have campuses elsewhere.
But we have very good relations with so we you know, again,
we see ourselves as having more in common than being rivals.
And quite a few Campion students when they graduate would
(42:13):
go off and do higher degrees which Campion does not
offer higher degrees masters and doctorates at Notre Dame or
a CU. So that's that's been important. I think that
we have we have a good cooperative attitude to our
(42:37):
respective merits and I think I think Campion is respected
for what it does just providing that foundational undergraduate education
upon which the graduate can build whatever they wish to
in terms of further study or or work career paths.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I think Tracy Rowland has gone to Notre Dame. Is
that correct?
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yes, she's yes, She's got the St. John Paul, the
second chair in theology there at Notre Dame. And Tracy
has served on our Campion committees of course, of course
advisory committees. Again, we we very happily draw on the
(43:28):
on the wider expertise of of Australian Catholic scholars in
reviewing our program and keeping it as as sharply attuned
to the needs of people as we can.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Now In the United States, there is a lamentable ignorance
about a lot of other countries. But I think as
far as Australia is concerned, probably most American Catholics, at
least those who would be we might characterize as conservative
what they know about Australia have to do with cardinal
(44:09):
pill and is unjust conviction and so on and later overturned.
Can you I suppose that this would link with what
you were saying before about the secularism in Australia that
he was targeted.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
In this way.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yes he was, and.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
He was, as you've said, Tom, you know, I think
a national figure in the way that in the past
Australian Catholics have tended to be. As I think I mentioned,
they have not only been important for Catholics, they've been
important for the curious, for the wider culture. And Cardinal
(44:58):
pill was a true leader. He had a very clear mind.
He was deeply educated, not only in Victoria's home state
in Melbourne, but also in Oxford, and he had of
course courage, He had a spine as well as a brain.
(45:21):
And he was certainly targeted very strongly. And there's all
sorts of continuing rumors about corruption, including evan from the
Curia in Rome as to whether there was secret funding
that underpinned the efforts. Starting with the police who investigated
(45:44):
Cardinal Pearl even charges had arisen, and then the courts
again in Melbourne, including even the Court of Appeal when
there was an appeal against his conviction. They were all
pretty much of one mind, which again I think shows
(46:06):
the rather perverse unity that the secularist elite have developed
across across the agencies of the society. In this case,
the police the courts, the media and academia. But it
(46:31):
took the High Court of Australia in Australia's Supreme Court
in effect American terms, by a unanimous vote to overturn
that conviction. But by that time the Cardinal had spent
more than a year in jail and solitary confinement. So
(46:52):
I think he's well. He was the last person to
regard himself as in any sense of martyr. He did.
He did undergo a living martyrdom. And somebody who was
just incidentally a great supporter from the very beginning when
he first heard about Campion College. He had a deep
(47:15):
interest and knowledge of universities, not necessarily typical of the
history of Australian bishops, but he was very well informed.
He was very supportive of Campion and yet at no stage,
(47:36):
as it were, tried to tried to influence at unduly
or in any sense run it. He was very happy
to let the lay people who were active in developing
the college to go about their work. But in his honor,
(47:56):
we recently opened a new building and the center piece
of it is a grand hall, and we've called that
the George Cardinal pell Grand Hall. It's a very large
room more like an auditorium for conferences as well as
(48:17):
special dinners, and he himself visited Campion in the years
before he was convicted in jailed as well as as later.
The last public speech he gave actually was at a
Campion College fundraising dinner in Sydney, and he died within
(48:41):
several months of that last lecture. So we do cherish
his memory and feel blessed by his witness. But again
the coming back I guess to the cores in fluence
there it was it was very much the the new
(49:08):
kind of secularist elete and it's it's anti anti Christian
and particularly anti Catholic uh ah views which which have
which have continuing influence really, And so that became a
(49:30):
sort of a test case, I suppose, of just what
once a the idiology took on judicial and uh form
and media media form. It's sort of made clear the
(49:56):
what is that underlying nature of second m in Australia,
which for a long time was quite benign as far
as religion goes. It wasn't so much anti religious it
was and I think the Irish influence was important in
that respect. So again, if we go back to your
original question the time of Australia's settlement time and the
(50:22):
influence of the Enlightenment, what kept the attitude of the
secularists quite neutral on religion and even in terms of
general Christian patterns relating to marriage, the family, to law,
the various laws. It was still reasonably Christian. It was
(50:43):
living on Christian capital. But it did that among the
Protestant churches as well as, of course the Catholic Church.
So as that has waned, and of course it's been
greatly affected by the decline of the Catholic Church institutionally
over that time too. In the in the years since
(51:04):
the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
So I understand that Australia probably suffered the same malaise
that we suffered here in every place it.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
In the sixties.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
Would you say it is blake what you know, like
the United States or is it worse for better in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yes, I think it's in some ways. It was greatly
influenced by the United States, and what was happening in
the terms of the way say the Vatican too was
actually implemented as a stink from from what you know,
what was thought to be the spirit of Vatican two,
(51:49):
as the stink from whatever the letter was. But I
think in some ways it was well. I'd had to
say it was worse than the United States, but it
probably again because what's distinctive about Australia is how despite
(52:13):
the popular image of characters like crocodile dum Due for example,
or other ones from movies, Australia is overwhelmingly urbanized society.
Something like eighty percent of Australians live in five cities,
so only twenty percent live elsewhere, and particularly in country areas.
(52:36):
So the characteristic of many European countries and America, where
there'll be a major city that it's going to be
as it were, supplemented by a fairly significant regional city
as well, is not an Australian pattern. We go from
(52:56):
six million people in Sydney six million people in Melbourne,
so there's you're starting to approach fifty percent of the
Australian population. It's just in two cities. And then you
come to so many country towns that might have one
hundred thousand or fifty thousand, so nothing nothing like you know,
(53:25):
two or three million city that would be far more
characteristic of you. Sinking again of the United States where
after New York City is the biggest, you then would
move to Los Angeles and a number of others, perhaps Chicago,
but and then a great many regional cities I have
(53:51):
significant populations. It hasn't been the Australian pattern. It's highly
urbanized and that has the effect then when it comes
to things like social change that, as I mentioned in passing,
was the most recent way of immigrants from different non
Christian countries, it tends to heighten the developments that take
(54:19):
place there. They're not dispersed. By comparison with the early
period where the Irish were dispersed in the English and
the Scottish. The Scots were very important and they again
they didn't live in ghettos. They lived quite broadly so
(54:40):
in terms of their church practices, those were kept alive
in a religious and devotional sense. But culturally the migrants
participated very actively in the society and we're not getting
and that's been an important change, which in turn has
(55:04):
made the impact of secularism. I think when it's concentrated
in one place, as well as in certain agencies like
media and universities. Again, most universities are in the cities,
then it intensifies the influence of secularism and cultural impact.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
I guess if you don't have very large rural populations,
we don't have that kind of rural conserving characteristic time.
And I live in Ohio. He's the too much loved
than I have. I haven't originally in California. I lived
in rural California. I live in rural Ohio, in the
village of four hundred people. But what I know, especially
in Ohio, is that there are still people talk about
(55:52):
God every day in every day way. They'll say God
bless you. When you know that kind of thing that
they're not ashamedly talk about that I haven't seen they're
all Catholic or that they're religious is particularly deep, but
it's still there. And see how that influence. And I
think that happens in rural areas, which tenally slower to change.
(56:15):
But if you have an urban population like you have,
you have there's no break, it seems. I think that's true, Christopher.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
And I mean I've always noticed about America is how
as you say, how readily you know, people will attest
to their loyalties, both their religious loyalties in all sorts
of ways as well as the national loyalties. I realized
(56:43):
this has changed quite a bit in recent times. But
the American people's love of America and the fact that
they will indicate that flags flying from in front of
their houses, for example, you wouldn't get that in Australia.
It's much more reticent. I think about that, including religious loyalty,
(57:06):
so it doesn't necessarily mean at all. And this can
often be mistaken for apathy that Australians are luke warm
about such things. I think they continue to feel, in
varying degrees, of course, a deep sense of loyalty of faith.
(57:31):
But where they do have a professed faith, but it's
it doesn't run off the tongue, if I might put
it that way, as readily as it would at the
popular level in the United States.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
I wanted to bring up before we start to ask
you about the conversion practices acts of practice, the band's acts,
which was brought to my attention only recently. I believe
at this state level, if I'm not mistaken, and they
have to do with prohivening discouragement of transgender can you
(58:12):
explain those.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
With yes well, as I think is the case elsewhere Erica, England,
and so on. There's certainly been a very strong effort
to confirm the validity, one might say, of a transgender
(58:35):
condition and multiple genders, and which is curious in a
way following the tremendous influence and success in so many
ways of the secular feminist movement affirming the identity of women,
and it's been curious to see how now that that's
(58:59):
become fluid. It's it's not seem to endanger feminism, because
what's the use of promoting women to break through the
glass ceiling in employment if we're not sure whether they'll
remain that way. So it's certainly yes, at the state level,
(59:20):
these these laws that come in which which really ban
and do forbid if it's to try to it seems
to the legislators to talk people who have gendered dysphoria
out of that, out of that condition. That there's there's
(59:44):
certainly a growing backlash to that, and it's you know,
I think it's obvious very much most recently in England,
but I suspect in America and now in Australia where
it's slowly dawning. I think that despite the fashionable nature
(01:00:07):
of this of this new movement, of transgenderism. It's it's
not being cured. In fact, the cure is worse than
the disease by by physical means and physical intervention with
genital amputation and puberty blockers and so forth. So I
(01:00:35):
think that's likely to to to grow in the coming years.
But again it's added to the I suppose the the
anti Christian and particularly anti Catholic character of the secularist elite,
because in media, in business, many of the main corporations
(01:01:02):
in Australia tend to have tried very hard to fit
in with all of these conversion bands and therapy bands.
But again I think it's I think it is gradually
being undermined, and one assumes that that will continue in
(01:01:28):
the coming years.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Christifer, do you have anything causing questions? I don't have anythings, girls,
or anything you would like to add.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Well, just to thank you Tom and Christopher for the opportunity.
I've happily spent a great deal of my time both
as a professional university librarian and in the development of
camping college in the States and as well as some
(01:02:08):
extent in England, and have benefited enormously from from both
the examples that I can see have relevance to our Australia,
Australian patterns, and just the inspiration the fact that again
(01:02:29):
I mean, for example, the private initiative that led so
fruitfully to the American university system right across America. That
inspiration that you can do it. If you're not happy
with what's on offer, do it yourself. Start your own institution,
start your own college or university, start your own classical school.
(01:02:56):
Camping graduates, for example, are quite active in the what
is now I think very obviously a movement of the
Catholic classical schools being established in Australia, and they've had
the benefit of a Catholic liberal arts education at the
at the university level, and they're wanting to make it
(01:03:19):
available at the primary and secondary levels for their children
and other the children of other families. So I think
that inspiration, as well as the concrete example of what
America has offered, is very very important and for which
(01:03:42):
I'm enormously grateful.
Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Well, thank you very much, thank you very much for
this interesting conversation. And let's conclude with a prayer or
the Father hil Mary full of Grass Floridas, with the
lesson of the women lessons.
Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Thank you again, Thank you Tom. Nice to you on
online to Christopher Love.
Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Okay, good night, Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Moseley, author,
professor of theology and host of then Sings My Soul
and Destination Sainthood on w c A T Radio. I
invite you to listen in and find inspiration along this
sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives a
(01:04:42):
masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints. Join me Annabel
Moseley for then Sings, My Soul and Destination Sainthood on
w c AT Radio. God bless you. Remember you're never alone.
God is always.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Thank you for listening to a production of w c
AT Radio. Please join us in our mission of evangelization,
and don't forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Open Door with your host Thomas Tork
and co host Christopher Zander and ANDREWS. Rokowski, who is
not with us today sojourneying for a limited time in London.
Let us begin with our prayer in the name of
the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. In men, come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle
(00:29):
them the fire of your love. Set it forth, your Spirit,
and they shall be created, and you shall be you
the face of the earth. Let us pray, Oh God,
who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct
the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same
Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy
His consolations through Christ. To our Lord, Amen the Spirit, Amen,
(00:54):
our guests, are you're pleased to have as our guest today.
Carlos Moude an Australian writer and educator, co founder of
Campaign College in Sydney, which opened in two thousand and six.
His writings about religion and culture, and in particular the
Catholic literary and intellectual revival of the twentieth century have
appeared both in Australia and internationally. He is President of
(01:17):
the Australian chesters In Society an editor of its quarterly publication,
The Defendant. For sixteen years he served as Director of
Libraries in the University of New England and Armadale in
New South Wales, Australia. And I might add that Karl
and his wife were my very gracious hosts on my
(01:37):
two thousand and eight visit to Australia when I spoke
at the Chesterton Conference at Campaign College. So it's very
good to renew my acquaintanceship with him. So good to
have you back, Carl.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Thank you, Tom. It's lovely to be with you.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So tonight we're going to be talking about Australia, the
church in Australia, the prospects for the church in Australia,
some of the things that have been done to address
those problems. And so let's start out talking about Australia itself.
It's kind of unique in a way that it's the
most recent major country of European culture to be established,
(02:21):
that is, at the end of the eighteenth century. This
was towards the very end of the European Enlightenment and
after a century and more secularization in Europe, and then
for a time it was mistreated by the British as
a prison colony. So Carl, what ways does this make
(02:43):
Australia different from other parts of the Western cultural world,
And how can we speak of Anslian tradition given that
it was settled at the very end of the European Enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
That is very good. I've been calced and thank you. Yes,
I think the key to understanding Australian culture and Australian
history is, as you mentioned, the time of its foundation
and the foundational influences at that time. They were obviously
(03:19):
English in the sense that Australia, as you said, was
really established as a prison colony in the late eighteenth century.
And while they would have been in varying degrees Anglican,
(03:40):
the nature of the culture, given that time of history,
and the nature of the society being a prison were
not really conducive to religious impulses or the nourishing of those.
So I think the key thing of Australia is that
(04:01):
it's from the beginning been a secularist culture rather than
a sectarian one. Now a sectarian influences, particularly Catholics against
Protestants and vice versa, have been significant. But it seems
to me that as those tensions have faded with the
great decline of mainstream Protestantism different churches in Australia the
(04:26):
Church of England of course, but also Presbyterianism and Methodism,
the Uniting Church. As those have faded greatly, it's become
clearer what the fundamental nature of Australian culture is secularist. Now,
the other significant thing that's a sort of a counterbalance
(04:49):
to this is that it wasn't just the English who
settled Australia. It was also the Irish, and they were
overwhelmingly Catholic. Of course, they came initially as convert as convicts. Sorry,
so we're not really in a position to exercise influence.
But nonetheless they were always as significant and remain a
(05:11):
significant proportion of the population, about a quarter of the population.
So as a counterbalance, one might say to the to
the secularist nature of the culture, there's been that underlying
Catholic influence mediated through through Irish Catholicism, and as in
(05:33):
the United States, the Irish influence has been very important
historically and I've always found in various ways, given my
many visits and time spent in the United States, at
America and Australia, in terms of comparison and contrast, that's
(05:54):
a very instructive exercise which I've had occasion to write
on quite a lot. But anyhow, I think those of
the two key key things, and then what it meant
as far as the impact on the wider culture is
that proportion of people he produced notable leaders. So early
(06:15):
in the convict colony days, it produced Caroline Chisholm, who
looked after particularly single women who were very exposed of
course in a prison colony, many of them being drawn
into prostitution, and she provided home care and really pioneered,
(06:39):
i think a philosophy of family care in Australia. Mary McKillop,
she was the founder of a religious order and started
a a tremendous set of schools Josephite schools throughout Australia,
(07:00):
in rural Australia. So the these these were were leaders
that came out of out of the Catholic cradle as
it were, and u and registered a wider impact on
the culture. They were important not just for Catholics, are
important for Australians.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
When you talk about being a prison colony. Maybe a
bit of clarification suggested itself to me is when we
say so many is a convict, we don't necessarily mean
as a criminal. In this sense. He's a criminal and
the threat he has broken a lot. How many how
many like what were the percentage how many these people
were actually criminals and how many were the unfortunate poor?
(07:44):
How many of them were maybe political prisoners.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yes, no, that's a good distinction, Christopher, because so many
of them were convicted of petty crimes and the and
and in time, unfortunately they were freed and became again
a significant influence. As they were freed, they were given
(08:10):
parcels of land outside of the main center at that
time Sydney on the East coast of Australia. And you
know learnt to that they were from rural backgrounds anyhow
so they were able to develop as farmers with their
own their own land. But no, the great majority had
(08:36):
not had not committed any really serious offense. They were
just they were shipped off, particularly after the American Revolution,
there was there was another place at the end of
the world where they could be discarded and in effect forgotten.
(08:57):
So a great many were were sent here that were
not in any serious sense criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And some were I understand that Irish patriots who have
been convicted from standing upland.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That's right, that's right. Well, in fact, if you look
at the you know, I think perhaps the impact of
the Enlightenment on Ireland it compared to say, France, England elsewhere,
the it tended to stir democratic impulses and the participation
(09:40):
of the people rather than anti religion or anti faith sentiments.
And again that that was the way in which when
when the Irish did come to Australia, including the ones
who ended up being freed from being convicts, they they
did play a part in developing the Australian democracy from
(10:05):
the late eighteenth century onwards.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Well also, oh go ahead, when did Australia ceise me
a prison colony? How did it change in terms of
the demographics after that?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yes, well it was really by the mid nineteenth century.
It went for a bit over half a century and
eased off as it approached the middle of the nineteenth century,
but it had stopped by that time. And again in
terms of immigration patterns, the Irish continued to be significant.
(10:49):
Many of them came who had, for example, more of
a middle class background, journalists, people in politics, not only
people who came from a rural background. So that there's
there's been a sort of a series of immigration waves
(11:12):
in Australia and the early ones were from Ireland and Scotland.
Apart of course from England, many English people came here too,
and and that was right through really the nineteenth century,
and then the Second World War marked a major point
(11:39):
as far as new immigrant peoples coming to Australia, and
a great many of them came from war to in Europe,
from from Poland and Walta and the as well as
the Middle East. Lebanon, for example, Italy, we got we
(11:59):
got nearly a Median people from Italy as immigrants, which
was a very large number given the Australian population after
World War II. So that was sort of the second
way you might say that it was English speaking, still
Christian in background, in varying degrees, but non English speaking,
(12:25):
and they faced the same challenges as the European migrants
who came to America over the different periods, particularly to
the East Coast, and needed to learn the language and
learn the culture at least with the second generation. And
then more recently we've had a different the last ten
(12:48):
to fifteen years, we've had a different source of immigration.
It's been significantly non Christian, particularly Muslim that those people
have come from the Middle East of course, but places
like Pakistan as well. So that's that's been the pattern
(13:14):
I think of the Australian immigration experience and how that
in turn, at different points in its history, has influenced
the culture and and in many ways I think added
added to the culture.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Has it has it either pressure on the Christian character
of Australia or how is that effect of the religious
tone of the strange society having a lot of non
Christian immigrants.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yes, well, I think it has. It has had an
effect the the The secularism that I mentioned that was
sort of at the route it was was also combined
with sectarian feelings, but as as anti Catholic feelings have
(14:11):
subsided so much among the the the the other churches,
the the need for the I think what what's happened
is that the people a new sort of secularist elite,
(14:35):
if I might call it, that has emerged, particularly in
universities in media, and and that that is distinctly anti Christian,
in particularly anti Catholic. So the strains of anti Catholicism
(14:56):
have been moved, I think from what would have been
a pro listening to elite in the early part of
Australia's history to what is now a secularist elite. By contrast,
I think the churches, both officially and socially Catholics and
ordinary Christian non Catholics have worked well together. I mean
(15:23):
Camping College, just as a small example, attracts students from
other Christian churches, and we have very good relations with
a number of Christian pastors, non Catholic pastors who are
very supportive of what the college is doing. So I
think that has been a characteristic of Australian culture. However,
(15:43):
when you move to the non Christian element, that's now
very obvious its influence and where that is antagonistic is
heightened by the fact that they've tended to congregate in
the cities, in certain cities like Sydney and Melbourne and
(16:06):
live in certain suburbs. And again that's a change because
the original migrants, the English, the Irish, the Scottish, were
quite dispersed. The Australian and Irish were always quite dispersed
as nothing similar to what was characteristic of America, where
(16:28):
various areas were strongly dominated by a particular ethnic group.
But by contrast, as I say, when we moved to
this new era of non Christian influence in the culture,
that's been intensified. I think by the fact that the
(16:49):
people very often congregate for family and social support reasons
and language reasons. But nonetheless that's been characteristic I think
of the last couple of decades m.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Save long immigrants are they are they opposed secularism in
Australia or they sort of ignore it?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
No, I think I think they do. They they at
least in the first generation. This can weaken as as
the generations proceed. But but they certainly to significant extent
(17:37):
practice their faith and visibly mosques for example, have been
built in lots of suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. So
they combat it, if you like, in that in that way.
But but I think it has affected the extent which
(18:00):
Australia has been an integrated society, and that's been partly
strongly really philosophical in the sense that what was thought
to be the early policy assimilationist, as it was called,
was unfair to immigrants. It wore down, it sort of
(18:24):
melted their ethnic identity, and it's best to allow for
that to continue even with language. That philosophy has in
the sense reinforced. I think a greater level of division
in the Australian society than previously prevailed.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
To shift gears a bit. I was when I learned
about the Campian society in the nineteen thirties in Australia.
I was extremely impressed the book that I knew with
that I actually got when I was over there, doesn't
it and it was It seemed to me a remarkable
(19:09):
institution that I'm not aware that anything like that existed
anywhere else in the Catherlic world. Are concerned the attempt
to formulate Catholic study groups, lecturers, debates, cultural activities. Can
you talk about that a little bit because I've found
it faust letting.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yes, I think it is a significant and underrated movement
in Australian history. It began with a group of new
graduates and people going into professional life in Melbourne in
nineteen thirty one and developed in the years leading up
to World War Two very very widely, including into country
(19:52):
parts of Australia. So my own father, for example, he
lived in a border town, New South Wales and Victoria
border each other, and he lived in the town of
Albury and there was a flourishing Campian society chapter one
might call it there, and that's where he got introduced
(20:12):
to such a large extent to great Catholic authors who
were popular at the time, and through the courses that
they ran and visiting lectures, learned a great deal about
Catholic history and literature. Authors like Jessudam and Belloch in particular,
(20:35):
and Christopher Dawson figured strongly, and in fact that was
the influence on my own life. When I was being
brought up as the son of my father, I imbibed
this as it were, at a very early age. So
if we're looking at the fact that it was significant,
(20:58):
I think as a lay movement, it had very very
little clerical or religious order involvement, even though the religious
orders were very strong at that time, particularly teaching in
Catholic schools. There were many Catholic schools, but it was
(21:18):
very much a lay initiative and it had its deepest
influence I think through family and individual members such as
what I benefited from, but it didn't lead to any
institutional form, which is why after that single generation that
(21:45):
founded the Campian Society it didn't last. It was also
greatly affected by the Second World War. Because of the
six years of tremendous interruption from nineteen thirty nine to
forty five, wasn't able to have any cross generational transfer.
(22:07):
So that again was a lesson I think that we
took on board, if I may mention camping in college again,
that we needed to have not just an active movement
and movement that was very involved in Catholic education, we
(22:33):
need that needed to take on some sort of institutional form.
And a further sign of that I can just insert
this tom is that in the nineteen seventies I was
associated with the formation of a group which was called
initially the Fellowship of John the twenty third and very
(22:58):
soon became renamed and is the Campion Fellowship again because
of the inspiration of the Campian Society of the nineteen thirties.
And one of the founders with me is the gentleman
that wrote that book You held up Colin Jury in
Canberra and Colin and I and several others were involved
(23:20):
in establishing what was a similar body that it was
loosely organized. It held occasional meetings an annual conference that
was the main event. But it was aptly named Followship,
which was named after Tolkien's making famous the word. But
(23:49):
again it it didn't last beyond the nineteen nineties. So
again the founding generation of the Campions of the campion
Fi Scholarship in the nineteen seventies, it wasn't able to
be transferred as it were, across the generations. And again
(24:11):
with Camping College emerging out of out of that background
in important ways, it was very obvious more needed to
be done to provide to incarnate the camp be a
movement in Australia if it was going to be able
(24:31):
to survive and thrive.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Did I when you camp in society has discussed Catholic
cultural issues, social issues, I guess can you give me
examples of sort of things, because one could think of
sometimes that Catholics getting together will talk about devotions or
about doctrine or liturgy. What sorts of things that Campain
(25:00):
eighties actually address.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yes, well, I think Christopher they did go beyond that
very much. They were very much an outward looking society.
They were strongly practicing Catholics, and so it would be
devoted in different ways to the devotional life of the Church,
(25:25):
but it was very much influenced so I think by
an outlook beginning of the nineteen thirties, the Great Depression
had just begun. We were not far away from the
Spanish Civil War breaking out. Hitler came to power in
the early nineteen thirties, so there was a tremendous awareness,
(25:46):
I think, of how turbulent the world was. But the
church's vocation it was to address that world, to speak
to it in a way that hopefully could understand. And
being influenced by writers like Justden and Belloc and Dawson,
(26:09):
I think informed that outlook. The courses or many of
which were fairly informal, that the society sponsored, were in
particular in relating to the aspects of the culture in education,
(26:35):
in literature, in history, in philosophy, rather than inward looking
for inward focused. I think that was taken for granted
that the Catholic popular culture as it was then, I
think it was already strong in being sustained by the
(26:57):
Church itself. What was needed allayed people, particularly those that
had new educational opportunities coming out of universities and so on.
Was was an outlook that we would now regard as
one of evangelization, then one of looking looking inward at
(27:25):
the life of the church.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Could you say, what was it?
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Were ever considered enigmatic? And what I mean by that
is it seems to me, at least in our United States,
that we Catholics tend to fall along societal lanes in
terms of political positions, social positions, like we we adopt
a particular political position, and I don't know if you
truly have in Australia, you know, you know, we have
(27:50):
the two party system, and that tends to by people
off from eulogical lanes. So often can be if they
if they're a tender Latin mass of their tenor and
more traditional mast considered to be on the republican side,
hs that they are they're more progressive, they're on the
progressive side. And it's pretty it's almost pretty predictable. Found
(28:14):
it out. So I wouldn't send Catholics for the most part,
right in the United States are enigmatic nowadays? Was canted
to say enigmatic?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Well, given the relative poverty of the Catholic people for
such a long period from the very beginning, they naturally
gravitated to any party that uh would would speak to
(28:46):
their interests and represent them. And what emerged, and again
Irish Catholics played a very significant role in the development
of our other party, which is the Australian Labor Party,
roughly equivalent to the Democratic Party in America. On the
other side, on the so called more politically conservative side,
(29:12):
there's been two parties, the Liberal Party which is mainly
city centered, and a country party now called the National Party,
which has grown out of rural areas, and normally in
government they're and in opposition they've formed a coalition as
a Liberal National Party coalition, so they're roughly equivalent, as
(29:33):
you say, I think, to the Republican Party and the
Labor Party. And Catholics obviously, at least for a long period,
were highly influential in belonging to and advancing the party
both politically and also industrially. The trade union movement has
(29:56):
been very important in Australia. Again Irish Catholics especially would
have been very active in that area. And the industrial
base for the Labor Party in Australia is i suspect
(30:17):
it's more significant than it might be for the Democratic
Party in America. The good thing about that, I think,
until more recent times, is that it's kept the Labor
Party fairly grounded in mainstream values, particularly family values, Christian values.
That's changed very significantly now for a variety of reasons.
(30:38):
But on the other hand, as we did have in
the nineteen fifties what was called the Labor Split, and
that's a complicated story, but essentially it appeared as if
Catholics were developing undue influence in the Labor Party, which
(30:59):
provoked action, particularly in Melbourne in Victoria, and it led
to expulsion of a great many of those Catholics, or
if they weren't expelled, they left in disillusionment. Where they
went to was to create another Labor Party, the Democratic
(31:20):
Labor Party DLP, for a period it has now lasly lapsed,
but that provided a bridge, I think, for great numbers
of Catholics to move from the Labor Party across to
the Liberal National Party coalition, which in turn has attracted
(31:41):
a lot more Catholics. So I think it's a very
mixed situation. Doesn't fit easily into perhaps the clearer distinctions
and divisions that you mentioned about the Republican and the
Democratic parties in America.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
To shift cares a little bit, I'd like to hear
them more about Campian College and why it was founded
and also how why the other there are several other
Catholic institutions of higher education I think in Australia. Why
were they seen as inadequate or no longer orthodox or whatever?
(32:26):
Was the reason that Campion was seen as a necessity.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yes, well, I think inspirationally, as I say, Campion emerged
out of that Campian tradition, going back to the Campian
Society of the nineteen thirties, renewed by the Campian Fellowship
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. But again, the distinctive
(32:52):
thing about Australian university's higher education in general, again by
contrast with the United States, is it began with the
first university, the University of Sydney, in the mid nineteenth
century as a government institution, and all the universities were
(33:13):
established by government and funded by government entirely so taxpayer funded.
So the tradition of private initiative in higher education that
spitomized with the Ivy League universities, the Harvards, thes and
(33:33):
then later times. That only occurred in fairly recent decades
in Australian history. So if you look across the two
hundred and fifty years or so of settlement in Australia,
overwhelmingly the system was government created and funded and run
(33:58):
and therefore by definition secularist institutions. Now, about thirty or
more years ago, forty years ago a couple of Catholic
universities were established that you just referred to their earlier
(34:20):
tom One is the Australian Catholic University ACU, and the
other is Notre Dame Australia, which really took the name
from its counterpart in Indiana, but as a separate institution
separately run now the ACU. The Australian Catholic University emerged
(34:46):
out of training colleges that the Church ran for the
training of teachers and later nurses, so it had that
professional base if you like, They were teaching institutions, so
we're not devoted to research. Notre Dame emerged over in
(35:09):
the West of Australia, in Western Australia, and it was
much more of a lay initiative, but it didn't lead
to a great movement of private universities. There's only one
(35:30):
or two other non Catholic private universities in Australia. The
system of the words remains as it's been overwhelmingly government funded.
So when the idea of Campeon emerged, which for me
came from reading Christopher Dawson in the nineteen sixties when
(35:54):
I was a student at Sydney University and I read
Dawson's The Crisis of Western Education, had a profound influence
on me and I thought, this is the sort of institution,
an institution that could provide a foundational education at the
university level, regardless of what a career path people might
(36:16):
then move into, and would serve the same kind of
role as the liberal arts colleges have served in America
that the Catholic ones, of course, as well as so
many others. But it was very clear that if this
(36:37):
would not get government funding because it simply wasn't any
groundswell of support for it. And I was fortunate enough
to have a good friend who was both wealthy and
very generous, a businessman by the name of James Power,
(36:59):
and we together worked on the planning and development of
Campion College. I left my job as Director of Libraries
at the University of New England and worked full time
for five years on the development of Campinging College. But
(37:23):
it was clear that it needed to be lay developed.
We couldn't really look to the church officially to do it.
By this time. It needed to be independently funded if
it was going to have any distinctive impact on the
(37:45):
culture and provide something that the universities in general were
not providing, including the Catholic ones. There would be subjects
in the liberal arts as we were ard it, but
they weren't brought together an integrated way that camp In
(38:09):
College seeks to do, where the key subjects, the core
subjects of history, literature, philosophy and theology, supplemented by language
Latin and Greek, are taught in a way that respects
the methodological norms of each subject but against the common
(38:33):
cultural and chronological backdrop. So the first year of the
Campian degree is the Ancient world pro Christian leading to Christianity,
the second year is the Middle Ages, the third year
is the Modern era. And the subjects, as I say,
(38:55):
are taught by good scholars in each of the core subjects,
but because they're being taught against that common background of
culture and chronology. They inevitably provoke connections in people's minds,
(39:17):
making connections between the insights that come out of history
and philosophy, the ideas, literature, the imagination at work. And
I think that's what does lead to intellectual maturity, is
the way the mind and the imagination can bring things
(39:38):
together from quite disparate sources. So that's been the basis
of the program. Certainly in the planning years, I was
very much influenced by the American Liberal Arts college model,
but immediate differences emerged. The standard baccalaureate degree in Australia
(40:05):
is three years, not four, and so what we tried
to do to be accommodated satisfactorily within a three year
program so that students would graduate with a Bachelor of
Arts in the Liberal Arts, which is what they do.
So it's been going for twenty years. We have over
(40:29):
four hundred graduates who have gone into various areas of
life and in their different ways. I think in lays
society having an significant influence. It's also produced, I think,
(40:52):
or at least nurtured religious vocations nuns and priests in particular.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
It is a school embraced by Catholic higarchy at all
in Australia.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Yes, it's very Again, we haven't sort of sought that
Christopher in a formal way. We don't have canonical status
for example. It's quite independent, but it is very strongly
supported by a great many bishops and religious as well
(41:30):
as of course lay people and lay Catholic families. It
has And similarly, I think, and I've always thought this
was most important, we have a very friendly relationship with
the other universities that I mentioned Australian Catholic University on
the one hand, in Notre Dame Australia on the other
(41:52):
they're both based in Sydney, although they do have campuses elsewhere.
But we have very good relations with so we you know, again,
we see ourselves as having more in common than being rivals.
And quite a few Campion students when they graduate would
(42:13):
go off and do higher degrees which Campion does not
offer higher degrees masters and doctorates at Notre Dame or
a CU. So that's that's been important. I think that
we have we have a good cooperative attitude to our
(42:37):
respective merits and I think I think Campion is respected
for what it does just providing that foundational undergraduate education
upon which the graduate can build whatever they wish to
in terms of further study or or work career paths.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I think Tracy Rowland has gone to Notre Dame. Is
that correct?
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yes, she's yes, She's got the St. John Paul, the
second chair in theology there at Notre Dame. And Tracy
has served on our Campion committees of course, of course
advisory committees. Again, we we very happily draw on the
(43:28):
on the wider expertise of of Australian Catholic scholars in
reviewing our program and keeping it as as sharply attuned
to the needs of people as we can.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Now In the United States, there is a lamentable ignorance
about a lot of other countries. But I think as
far as Australia is concerned, probably most American Catholics, at
least those who would be we might characterize as conservative
what they know about Australia have to do with cardinal
(44:09):
pill and is unjust conviction and so on and later overturned.
Can you I suppose that this would link with what
you were saying before about the secularism in Australia that
he was targeted.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
In this way.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yes he was, and.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
He was, as you've said, Tom, you know, I think
a national figure in the way that in the past
Australian Catholics have tended to be. As I think I mentioned,
they have not only been important for Catholics, they've been
important for the curious, for the wider culture. And Cardinal
(44:58):
pill was a true leader. He had a very clear mind.
He was deeply educated, not only in Victoria's home state
in Melbourne, but also in Oxford, and he had of
course courage, He had a spine as well as a brain.
(45:21):
And he was certainly targeted very strongly. And there's all
sorts of continuing rumors about corruption, including evan from the
Curia in Rome as to whether there was secret funding
that underpinned the efforts. Starting with the police who investigated
(45:44):
Cardinal Pearl even charges had arisen, and then the courts
again in Melbourne, including even the Court of Appeal when
there was an appeal against his conviction. They were all
pretty much of one mind, which again I think shows
(46:06):
the rather perverse unity that the secularist elite have developed
across across the agencies of the society. In this case,
the police the courts, the media and academia. But it
(46:31):
took the High Court of Australia in Australia's Supreme Court
in effect American terms, by a unanimous vote to overturn
that conviction. But by that time the Cardinal had spent
more than a year in jail and solitary confinement. So
(46:52):
I think he's well. He was the last person to
regard himself as in any sense of martyr. He did.
He did undergo a living martyrdom. And somebody who was
just incidentally a great supporter from the very beginning when
he first heard about Campion College. He had a deep
(47:15):
interest and knowledge of universities, not necessarily typical of the
history of Australian bishops, but he was very well informed.
He was very supportive of Campion and yet at no stage,
(47:36):
as it were, tried to tried to influence at unduly
or in any sense run it. He was very happy
to let the lay people who were active in developing
the college to go about their work. But in his honor,
(47:56):
we recently opened a new building and the center piece
of it is a grand hall, and we've called that
the George Cardinal pell Grand Hall. It's a very large
room more like an auditorium for conferences as well as
(48:17):
special dinners, and he himself visited Campion in the years
before he was convicted in jailed as well as as later.
The last public speech he gave actually was at a
Campion College fundraising dinner in Sydney, and he died within
(48:41):
several months of that last lecture. So we do cherish
his memory and feel blessed by his witness. But again
the coming back I guess to the cores in fluence
there it was it was very much the the new
(49:08):
kind of secularist elete and it's it's anti anti Christian
and particularly anti Catholic uh ah views which which have
which have continuing influence really, And so that became a
(49:30):
sort of a test case, I suppose, of just what
once a the idiology took on judicial and uh form
and media media form. It's sort of made clear the
(49:56):
what is that underlying nature of second m in Australia,
which for a long time was quite benign as far
as religion goes. It wasn't so much anti religious it
was and I think the Irish influence was important in
that respect. So again, if we go back to your
original question the time of Australia's settlement time and the
(50:22):
influence of the Enlightenment, what kept the attitude of the
secularists quite neutral on religion and even in terms of
general Christian patterns relating to marriage, the family, to law,
the various laws. It was still reasonably Christian. It was
(50:43):
living on Christian capital. But it did that among the
Protestant churches as well as, of course the Catholic Church.
So as that has waned, and of course it's been
greatly affected by the decline of the Catholic Church institutionally
over that time too. In the in the years since
(51:04):
the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
So I understand that Australia probably suffered the same malaise
that we suffered here in every place it.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
In the sixties.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
Would you say it is blake what you know, like
the United States or is it worse for better in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yes, I think it's in some ways. It was greatly
influenced by the United States, and what was happening in
the terms of the way say the Vatican too was
actually implemented as a stink from from what you know,
what was thought to be the spirit of Vatican two,
(51:49):
as the stink from whatever the letter was. But I
think in some ways it was well. I'd had to
say it was worse than the United States, but it
probably again because what's distinctive about Australia is how despite
(52:13):
the popular image of characters like crocodile dum Due for example,
or other ones from movies, Australia is overwhelmingly urbanized society.
Something like eighty percent of Australians live in five cities,
so only twenty percent live elsewhere, and particularly in country areas.
(52:36):
So the characteristic of many European countries and America, where
there'll be a major city that it's going to be
as it were, supplemented by a fairly significant regional city
as well, is not an Australian pattern. We go from
(52:56):
six million people in Sydney six million people in Melbourne,
so there's you're starting to approach fifty percent of the
Australian population. It's just in two cities. And then you
come to so many country towns that might have one
hundred thousand or fifty thousand, so nothing nothing like you know,
(53:25):
two or three million city that would be far more
characteristic of you. Sinking again of the United States where
after New York City is the biggest, you then would
move to Los Angeles and a number of others, perhaps Chicago,
but and then a great many regional cities I have
(53:51):
significant populations. It hasn't been the Australian pattern. It's highly
urbanized and that has the effect then when it comes
to things like social change that, as I mentioned in passing,
was the most recent way of immigrants from different non
Christian countries, it tends to heighten the developments that take
(54:19):
place there. They're not dispersed. By comparison with the early
period where the Irish were dispersed in the English and
the Scottish. The Scots were very important and they again
they didn't live in ghettos. They lived quite broadly so
(54:40):
in terms of their church practices, those were kept alive
in a religious and devotional sense. But culturally the migrants
participated very actively in the society and we're not getting
and that's been an important change, which in turn has
(55:04):
made the impact of secularism. I think when it's concentrated
in one place, as well as in certain agencies like
media and universities. Again, most universities are in the cities,
then it intensifies the influence of secularism and cultural impact.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
I guess if you don't have very large rural populations,
we don't have that kind of rural conserving characteristic time.
And I live in Ohio. He's the too much loved
than I have. I haven't originally in California. I lived
in rural California. I live in rural Ohio, in the
village of four hundred people. But what I know, especially
in Ohio, is that there are still people talk about
(55:52):
God every day in every day way. They'll say God
bless you. When you know that kind of thing that
they're not ashamedly talk about that I haven't seen they're
all Catholic or that they're religious is particularly deep, but
it's still there. And see how that influence. And I
think that happens in rural areas, which tenally slower to change.
(56:15):
But if you have an urban population like you have,
you have there's no break, it seems. I think that's true, Christopher.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
And I mean I've always noticed about America is how
as you say, how readily you know, people will attest
to their loyalties, both their religious loyalties in all sorts
of ways as well as the national loyalties. I realized
(56:43):
this has changed quite a bit in recent times. But
the American people's love of America and the fact that
they will indicate that flags flying from in front of
their houses, for example, you wouldn't get that in Australia.
It's much more reticent. I think about that, including religious loyalty,
(57:06):
so it doesn't necessarily mean at all. And this can
often be mistaken for apathy that Australians are luke warm
about such things. I think they continue to feel, in
varying degrees, of course, a deep sense of loyalty of faith.
(57:31):
But where they do have a professed faith, but it's
it doesn't run off the tongue, if I might put
it that way, as readily as it would at the
popular level in the United States.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
I wanted to bring up before we start to ask
you about the conversion practices acts of practice, the band's acts,
which was brought to my attention only recently. I believe
at this state level, if I'm not mistaken, and they
have to do with prohivening discouragement of transgender can you
(58:12):
explain those.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
With yes well, as I think is the case elsewhere Erica, England,
and so on. There's certainly been a very strong effort
to confirm the validity, one might say, of a transgender
(58:35):
condition and multiple genders, and which is curious in a
way following the tremendous influence and success in so many
ways of the secular feminist movement affirming the identity of women,
and it's been curious to see how now that that's
(58:59):
become fluid. It's it's not seem to endanger feminism, because
what's the use of promoting women to break through the
glass ceiling in employment if we're not sure whether they'll
remain that way. So it's certainly yes, at the state level,
(59:20):
these these laws that come in which which really ban
and do forbid if it's to try to it seems
to the legislators to talk people who have gendered dysphoria
out of that, out of that condition. That there's there's
(59:44):
certainly a growing backlash to that, and it's you know,
I think it's obvious very much most recently in England,
but I suspect in America and now in Australia where
it's slowly dawning. I think that despite the fashionable nature
(01:00:07):
of this of this new movement, of transgenderism. It's it's
not being cured. In fact, the cure is worse than
the disease by by physical means and physical intervention with
genital amputation and puberty blockers and so forth. So I
(01:00:35):
think that's likely to to to grow in the coming years.
But again it's added to the I suppose the the
anti Christian and particularly anti Catholic character of the secularist elite,
because in media, in business, many of the main corporations
(01:01:02):
in Australia tend to have tried very hard to fit
in with all of these conversion bands and therapy bands.
But again I think it's I think it is gradually
being undermined, and one assumes that that will continue in
(01:01:28):
the coming years.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Christifer, do you have anything causing questions? I don't have anythings, girls,
or anything you would like to add.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Well, just to thank you Tom and Christopher for the opportunity.
I've happily spent a great deal of my time both
as a professional university librarian and in the development of
camping college in the States and as well as some
(01:02:08):
extent in England, and have benefited enormously from from both
the examples that I can see have relevance to our Australia,
Australian patterns, and just the inspiration the fact that again
(01:02:29):
I mean, for example, the private initiative that led so
fruitfully to the American university system right across America. That
inspiration that you can do it. If you're not happy
with what's on offer, do it yourself. Start your own institution,
start your own college or university, start your own classical school.
(01:02:56):
Camping graduates, for example, are quite active in the what
is now I think very obviously a movement of the
Catholic classical schools being established in Australia, and they've had
the benefit of a Catholic liberal arts education at the
at the university level, and they're wanting to make it
(01:03:19):
available at the primary and secondary levels for their children
and other the children of other families. So I think
that inspiration, as well as the concrete example of what
America has offered, is very very important and for which
(01:03:42):
I'm enormously grateful.
Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Well, thank you very much, thank you very much for
this interesting conversation. And let's conclude with a prayer or
the Father hil Mary full of Grass Floridas, with the
lesson of the women lessons.
Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Thank you again, Thank you Tom. Nice to you on
online to Christopher Love.
Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Okay, good night, Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Moseley, author,
professor of theology and host of then Sings My Soul
and Destination Sainthood on w c A T Radio. I
invite you to listen in and find inspiration along this
sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives a
(01:04:42):
masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints. Join me Annabel
Moseley for then Sings, My Soul and Destination Sainthood on
w c AT Radio. God bless you. Remember you're never alone.
God is always.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Thank you for listening to a production of w c
AT Radio. Please join us in our mission of evangelization,
and don't forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.