008 :
21 Apr 2012

Catholic Education in Australia: its history & its future Part III In the conclusion to this essay we've been publishing over the last three days, Dr Graham English takes us to the crux of Dr Anne O'Brien's thesis in her study of the development of the modern Catholic Education system in Australia. He names the heroes who helped build the system and the villains who nearly prevented its emergence. Ironically those who nearly wrecked the system have today gained the ascendancy and control of the institutional agenda in this nation and the future is still unclear. Dr English ponders if the present leaders are continuing to blaze a trail or marching into folly? [more]

007 :
20 Apr 2012

Catholic Education in Australia: its history & its future Part II In his commentary today Dr Graham English shares some of his perspectives seen from North of the Murray River that divides New South Wales from Victoria. He explores some of the differences in outlook between the culture of Catholicism in NSW and Victoria and the different approaches taken by Bishops in the two States. It is perhaps ironic, given all the circumstances, that it was the partnership of a NSW Archbishop, in James Carroll, and a Victoria priest, in Frank Martin, that was largely responsible for the structure that eventually emerged firmly rooted in the forward-thinking, outwardly-oriented, spirit of the Second Vatican Council that was still ascendant at that time albeit even then under challenge by minority elements within the lay Church and the Bishops. [more]

006 :
19 Apr 2012

Catholic Education in Australia: its history & its future Part I INTRODUCTION: I was invited by the editor of Catholica to review Anne O'Brien's Blazing a Trail: Catholic education in Victoria 1963-1980. It is a relatively old book having been published by David Lovell in 1999 but I agreed because it is a fine piece of work that anyone seriously interested in the history of Catholic education in Australia especially since World War II needs to have read. Anyone doing research in the area will also need to take seriously what O'Brien recounts and what she thinks it all means. It is about Victoria but what happened there affected what happened everywhere else in Australia. Much of the history of the Church in Australia since the 1960s had its beginnings in the splits, the politics, the power plays and the machinations of the people who were managing, encouraging or resisting change in the immediate post Vatican II Church in Victoria. So I am writing a review essay rather than just a review. The years since it came out mean that I can comment with a wider perspective and I can ask if time has thrown a different light on some of her conclusions. I can also see it as part of a wider theme, something she hints at all through the book but which was not her thesis at the time and so remains a sub-text. …Dr Graham English [more]

005 :
31 Mar 2012

Can Catholic Education stem the drift out of the pews on Sunday? Dr Anne O'Brien was employed in a fascinating position from which to observe the momentous changes that occurred in Catholic Education in Australia beginning in the 1960s when huge sums of taxpayer funds became available to the Church and Catholic parents for the education of their children. At the time she was executive officer to the director of Catholic Education in Victoria, Fr Frank Martin — a man who also sat on the Federal Government's Schools Commission and who played a momentous part in helping frame the architecture of the modern Catholic Education system which a former international head of Catholic Education, Cardinal Pio Laghi, once described as one of the "jewels in the crown" of Catholic Education in the world. She earned her doctorate writing a thesis on the history of the building of the modern Catholic Education system in Victoria and this was subsequently published as a book by David Lovell Publishing in 1999. Until now Dr O'Brien's work has not received significant discussion outside of specialist circles. Today it is our pleasure to re-publish, with the permission of Dr O'Brien, the Epilogue to her book. Titled "Looking Back, Looking Forward", this essay summarizes some of the conflicts that were encountered in building the system and the challenges Catholic education continues to face in the future. While the principal focus of her book was developments in Victoria, much of what she investigates in her book has implications for the whole of Australia and more so since the elevation to Sydney of Cardinal George Pell who today exerts probably as much, or more, influence on shaping Catholic Education in this nation as any of the players did who were influential in the 1960s and 70s. We have added to Dr O'Brien's essay more up-to-date statistical information, and links, that fill out some of the trends since she wrote this essay over a decade ago. …Brian Coyne, Editor [more]

004 :
14 Aug 2008

The legacy of Dr Peter Tannock The recently retired Vice-Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Australia, Dr Peter Tannock, leaves behind an enviable legacy in what he has achieved for the Catholic Church in this country in the realms of the infrastructure of primary, secondary and tertiary education. Today's lead commentary by Dr Michael Furtado was triggered by Dr Furtado coming across the interview the editor of Catholica recorded with Dr Tannock, originally for OnLine Catholics, but now also archived on Catholica [LINK]. Dr Furtado has had a long scholarly interest in the deeper questions of policy direction that have perhaps not been as easily raised and discussed when policy direction was almost single mindedly under the control of one man who was able to sway prime ministers to his vision as easily as he could Cardinals and Archbishops — albeit there might have been many others in positions of responsibility on commissions, governing bodies, and even amongst overseeing bishops, but they largely learned to dance to the Tannock baton with a not surprising appreciation of knowing who had the skills to deliver the funding arrangements without which no ideas can sing. Dr Furtado argues that with fewer of the poor having access to Catholic Education in this country today it is time to start asking some questions about policy direction. [more]

004 :
07 Aug 2008

A reflection on the challenges of belonging to Church today… Dr Graham English has been a Catholic teacher for 45 years. Now lecturing RE teachers at the Australian Catholic University he reflects on the challenges that young people face today in having a sense of "belonging" to the Catholic Church. [more]

003 :
15 Dec 2007

The challenges facing Catholic Religious Education in Australia! In this third major commentary on Catholic Religious Education in Australia we explore the perspectives of an RE teacher, Peter Marendy, working at the coal-face in a Catholic Secondary College. We see this commentary as a "discussion starter" and encourage responses from teachers and educational administrators to the provocative perspectives this commentary raises from what is actually a diverse number of political perspectives. [more]

002 :
24 Sep 2007

Three "very naughty boys"! As part of our on-going series looking at Catholic Education and the responsibilities we as a community have towards our young people we present an extended interview with three young men of approximately 25 years of age, all educated in Catholic primary and secondary schools who no longer have any significant connection with the Church. [more]

001 :
21 Jun 2007

Dr Peter Tannock… Dr Peter Tannock is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame. He is a former chairman of the National Catholic Education Commission and earlier than that could arguably be described as one of the chief architects of the model of modern Catholic Education that was set up by the Bishops of this nation beginning in about 1971. In some respects he could also be described as being influential in framing aspects of national education policy in this country. Despite the enormous influence he has had in the Church and in educational policy he is also a very private man not given to blowing his own trumpet. Brian Coyne set out to gain some insight into what makes Peter Tannock "tick" as an educational entrepreneur and as a lay Catholic facing the struggles we all face. [more]

001 :
04 Jun 2007

Catholic Religious Education in Australia — why and how it has changed... Catholic Education in Australia faced a major crisis in the 1960s to the point where the bishops of the time seriously considered having to close the entire system down because they simply did not have the resources to sustain it any longer. The new system that was established in the 1970s, thanks largely to government funding, is fundamentally different to the system of religious education that had existed in the past. In today's commentary, Dr Graham English, Senior Lecturer in Religious Education at ACU National, explores some of the other social and cultural factors that make Catholic Religious Education today so much different to what it was in the past. [more]