Fr John Joseph Therry is one of the pillars of the Catholic Church in Australia.
Born in Ireland in 1790, he arrived in Sydney in 1820 as one of two official “Roman Catholic Chaplains”.
It was the beginning of a tumultuous but fruitful apostolate which led him all over New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (later called Tasmania). For five years at the beginning of his ministry he was the only priest on the mainland.
Initially his relations with the colonial government were respectful, even friendly. He was behind the construction of St Mary’s Church at the edge of Hyde Park, near the convict barracks; Governor Macquarie laid its foundation stone in 1821.
But he became frustrated by domineering Anglicans and attacked the notion of a religious monopoly.
Worried about his growing influence in the colony, in 1825 the governor of the day, Thomas Bathurst, withdrew his privileges as an official chaplain. His successor, Governor Darling, stopped his salary.
That event 200 years ago was a landmark moment in the history of Australian tolerance and religious freedom.
A book to be published next year by Colonial Press explains the significance of this 200th anniversary.
Drawing on thousands of rare and previously unpublished letters uncovered in Irish and Australian archives, historian Damian John Gleeson shows that Therry’s “dismissal” had the opposite effect to this controversial decision: it galvanised support for an unconventional and intensely nationalist priest across the religious divide.
With a mixed family heritage, as Protestant mercantile leaders in Cork city over four centuries, Fr Therry also amassed a large fortune, which he dedicated to the fledgling Catholic Church.
Through a supporter base deeply entrenched in the ideals of the 1798 Irish revolution and in an era before Catholic Emancipation, Fr Therry’s legacy was an Irish, not an English Benedictine church in New South Wales.
After decades of heavy drinking, Fr Therry and his Tipperary-born friend, Fr John McEncroe, the Sydney vicar-general, became the leading apostles of temperance in the Australian colonies.
Sternly criticised by Archbishop John Bede Polding, Fr Therry’s extensive personal assets and land holdings spearheaded the substantial growth of the colonial church, including the Irish Jesuits coming to Australia in 1865 to establish parishes and schools, including what we know today as Riverview College, Sydney.
Fr Therry died in 1864; today his body rests in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.
If readers of The Catholic Weekly have documents relating to the church in early NSW, Port Phillip or Van Diemen’s Land and Fr Therry’s connection, Gleeson asks them to get in touch with him at carnew1798@gmail.com or PO Box 343 Goulburn NSW 2580.
