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History of the Roman Catholic Church in the Colony of New South Wales - 1800 to 1836
Reverend Jeremiah O’Flynn and Governor Macquarie
Prior to his departure from England, Reverend Jeremiah O’Flynn had petitioned
Earl Bathurst for permission to visit the Colony, and his request was refused.
Despite not receiving the required permission O’Flynn set out for the Colony. He
arrived during November 1817 on the merchant ship Duke of Wellington. After his
arrival in the Colony he was unable to produce the required authorisation to
undertake his priestly office, despite Governor Macquarie giving him ample
opportunity to do so.
Macquarie formed the opinion that O’Flynn’s story was false
and he was an imposter. He also saw that O’Fynn was instrumental in unsettling
the Irish Catholic community.
Macquarie believed that there needed to be “uniformity in
matters of religion” in the Colony. If it was necessary to have Catholic priests
in New South Wales, he suggested to the English authorities that they be
“Englishmen of liberal education and sound constitutional principles”. This
attitude was undoubtedly significant in the later appointment of priests from
the English Benedictine order to the first positions of authority in the
Catholic Church in Australia.
• Attendance of Convicts at Divine Worship
EXTRACT OF DESPATCH FROM GOVERNOR MACQUARIE TO EARL BATHURST IN ENGLAND
– DATED 12/12/1817
‘Catholics are at present very quiet and peaceable, and those of them, who
are convicts, they invariably attend divine worship in the regular protestant
churches in the Colony, where the distance from their homes is not too great,
and I have never known an instance of a catholic convict refusing to attend the
regularly established church. But it is seriously appended that their religious
feelings might be worked upon by a designing artful priest, so as to excite
spirit of resistance, insubordination, similar to what took here (Vintager Hill
rebellion) about fifteen years ago during the government of Governor King, those
disturbances being entirely occasioned by the machinations of a couple of
unprincipled priests’.
[Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Volume 9, p 710].
• Need for uniformity in matters of religion
EXTRACT OF DESPATCH FROM GOVERNOR MACQUARIE TO EARL BATHURST IN ENGLAND
– DATED 18/5/1818
‘Convinced, from the experience I have had of this country, that nothing can
possibly promote or preserve its internal peace and tranquillity so much as
uniformity in matters of religion, I beg leave most earnestly to recommend that
no secretarian preacher or teacher be permitted to come hither.....
If it should at any time be considered advisable to
sanction the Ministry of Popish Priests in New South Wales, I would beg to
suggest that they should be Englishmen of liberal education and sound
constitutional principles, and they should not come hither with any special
authority from the Pope, as Rev. O’Flynn represented himself to have done’.
[Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Volume 9, p 801]
Macquarie took steps to deport O’Flynn from the Colony on 20
May 1818.
• Order for deportation of Reverend O’Flynn
EXTRACT OF DESPATCH FROM GOVERNOR MACQUARIE TO EARL BATHURST IN ENGLAND
– DATED 18/5/1818
‘Several ships having arrived in succession without bringing the promised
authority, I was led to the conclusion that Mr. O’Flynn’s story was false, and
consequently that he was an imposter. I also discovered that, so far from
keeping his promise of not celebrating mass before regular authority should
arrive, that he was not only busily employed throughout the country among the
Irish Roman Catholics (with whom it abounds) in preaching and instructing in
Popery, but also in disseminating principles of resistance to the General Orders
of the Colony, and particularly to those which have for their object the decent
religious observance if the Sabbath.....
I conveyed instructions to him to hold himself in
readiness to embark from hence on board the ship, which brought him hither, and
which was then about to return to England.
This communication I expected would have net a ready
compliance, hut instead of that Mr. O’Flynn retired to some skulking place in
the country, where he could not be found, and from whence he did not return
until after the ship had sailed.......
Some months more having elapsed, during which many ships
had sailed from hence, and finding that he was not embracing the opportunities
they offered, but on the contrary that he was actually making converts among
English Protestants, by means of assuring them that he would cure all their
bodily diseases, which his prayers could only effect by their adjuring their
heresies and becoming papists. I found likewise that he was tampering with the
Soldiers of the 48th. Regiment, which was represented to me by Lieutenant
Colonel Erskine, and on these grounds I resolved on returning him to Europe by
the present opportunity of the ship David Shaw, for which purposes I directed
him by letter to hold himself in readiness to embark in her’.
[Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Volume 9, pp 799-800].
There were then no Catholic priests in the Colony until the official appointment of Reverends Philip Connolly and John Joseph Therry who arrived in May 1820 authorised by both the Church and state. Their arrival marked the official beginning of the Catholic Church in Australia.
Links
Australian Dictionary of Biography: Jeremiah Francis O'Flynn (1788 - 1831)
Catholic Australia: Jeremiah Francis O'Flynn (1788 - 1831)
St.Patrick's Catholic Church: History: Jeremiah O'Flynn
Catholic Enquiry Centre: The Journey of the Catholic Church in Australia
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