Bicentenary of the First Official Catholic Mass in Australia
St Mary's Cathedral
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
11 May 2003
This bicentenary Eucharist to commemorate the first officially permitted Mass in the young colony of New South Wales, celebrated by Father James Dixon on May 15th, 1803 is a Catholic celebration of Christian faith, hope and love. We have many reasons to rejoice, to be grateful.
Australian society has been good to the Catholic community and in turn the Catholics over more than 200 years have served well on the highways and many neglected byways of Australian life. This tradition of public service has expanded and flourished with the years.
Despite official requests no Catholic chaplain was allowed to accompany the First Fleet. There was an Anglican chaplain, the Revd. Richard Johnson, a dedicated Evangelical who struggled alone against the drunkenness and licentiousness.
A priest from the visiting Spanish expedition of 1793 was astonished that there was not a single church in the colony (an Anglican church was built later that year), adding that the Spanish colonisers always built a house for God before any human habitation and certainly before a gaol. The N.S.W. Governors often fulfilled the role of chief chaplain e.g. decreeing days of prayer in times of drought. Governor Bourke had the best record as heavy rain fell nine days after his intercessions.
Father James Dixon was one of the three convict priests transported from Ireland among the 560 Irishmen so punished after the 1798 Rebellion of the United Irishmen, a joint Protestant and Catholic uprising led by the Ulsterman Wolfe Tone and inspired by the French Revolution principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Father Dixon was described as a "kind and inoffensive man, rather wanting in energy and decision". A priest of Ferns diocese, he was not the stuff of rebels, and was friendly with the local Protestant gentry and clergy.
Protestant and Catholic friends attest that Dixon played no part in the insurrection. He was unlucky enough to belong to a family who were heavily involved, such as his cousin Father Thomas Dixon, who had been suspended by his bishop in 1794 for "drinking, dancing and disorderly conduct". Captain Nicholas Dixon, a rebel leader was his brother and another brother or cousin Captain Thomas Dixon was accused of a leading role in a massacre of loyalist prisoners on Wexford Bridge. This was the background to his condemnation. He arrived in Australia on February 17th, 1800.
The population then was about 5,000 and a couple of thousand larger in 1803. About one third were Catholics. Philip Gidley King was the Governor. He was a decent man of genuine faith, sometimes bad tempered and bibulous, capable of cruelty when his high hopes were disappointed. He had a difficult job running the colony as he battled Macarthur and the Rum Corps. He lamented their "credulous ignorance" and believed "no description of people are so bigoted to their religion and priests as the Irish".
Local Catholics had again petitioned for a priest in 1792 and 1796 and the Governor believed that a steady priest like Dixon would improve convict behaviour and prevent another local rising like that of 1800.
Permission to celebrate the Mass was proclaimed at Government House, Parramatta on April 20th, 1803 and Father Dixon was to receive five shillings a day as well as conditional emancipation.
The site of the first Mass is still disputed; open space, public institution or private home. However local tradition now favours James Dempsey's Kent Street home.
James Dempsey and Father Dixon had been friends in Ireland and the crucifix and candles on the altar today were those used at that first official Mass, passed down through five generations of the Dempsey family and now on a long-term loan with the Cathedral.
James Dempsey was the architect and head stonemason on the original St. Mary's Cathedral which burned down in 1865 and was a generous donor to the Cathedral.
Dempsey family tradition asserts that Father Dixon was forbidden to preach at his Masses and that much of his ministry was underground.
Governor King had hoped that the practice of their religion would do the Catholics "much good or, at least, no harm". He was to be disappointed.
In January 1804 Dixon had been appointed "Prefect Apostolic of all Missions within the territory of New Holland" by the Holy See but on March 4th, 1804, 333 rebels at Castle Hill, under the Irishman William Johnston, began a wild bid for liberty by marching on Parramatta and Sydney. On the next day, Monday, at Vinegar Hill a detachment of 25 soldiers killed nine of the rebels and put the rest to flight. It was all over.
Only the leaders were tried. Some were hanged, others flogged, some reprieved. Although Father Dixon had ridden out with the New South Wales corps and unsuccessfully tried to persuade the rebels to surrender, permission to say Mass was withdrawn and he eventually lost his salary. He had failed to prevent seditious talk among his Mass-goers.
We know little of his activity after this until he received his pardon on George III's birthday in 1809. He returned to Ireland that year, becoming parish priest of Crossabeg in 1819 after working as an assistant at New Ross in South Wexford. He died in 1840.
This is not a story of heroism played out in a grand setting. The first good shepherd to care for his flock in Australia was himself a convict supported by a minority of ordinary folk, convicts, ex-convicts, free men and women. From this small trickle a mighty stream of living water has nourished Australian life.
Today in remembering Father Dixon we pay particular tribute to all those priests who have served God and their people during 200 years in Australia. And also on this Mothers' Day we should not forget the wives and mothers who passed on the faith in their families. We all continue in their debt.
Times have changed for the better since 1803. No longer do we have a small penal colony for convicts transported from the other side of the earth, to a place where floggings and executions were regular events and the worst trouble makers sent on to Norfolk Island where, Dr. Ullathorne later reported, those to be executed often welcomed their release.
Relationships between the Christian Churches in Australia are now excellent, despite occasional moments of strain about moral issues. Interfaith relations are also peaceful and sound, despite the rise of Islamic fundamentalism overseas.
We therefore find it difficult to understand the depth of hatred and bitterness between Catholics and Protestants, English and Irish, convicts and jailers in those days.
We are well rid of such hatreds and must always work to prevent their return.
The Catholic community is no longer a small, poor, almost persecuted minority, but an active, energetic participant in the mainstream of Australian life; chastened by recent scandals, facing many challenges internally and externally, but basically confident, at ease and above all at home in Australia.
We thank God for all this. We pray that we may live worthy of the Christian doctrines that we profess and we pray that we will be able to pass on the treasures we have received to succeeding generations.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
