Open and virulent anti-Catholicism in the media has hardly vanished in the early 21st century, as the case of Cardinal George Pell proves. But it cannot hold a candle to the fevered prejudice of a hundred years ago, when Catholics and Protestants sometimes engaged in violent clashes.
Dr Jeff Kildea, an honorary professor in Irish studies at the University of New South Wales and author of Tearing the Fabric: Sectarianism in Australia 1910-1925, recently gave a lecture in Sydney to the Catenians and the St Thomas More Society on five astonishingly controversial cases.
The most notorious of these was the lurid Sister Liguori case, which is the topic of Kildea’s most recent book, which was published last year. It was tried in the NSW Supreme Court in 1921. “Each morning hundreds lined up, often in the rain, hoping to get a seat” in the court gallery, said Kildea.
Sister Liguori was an Irish-born nun named Bridget Partridge living in a convent of the Presentation Sisters in Wagga Wagga. One frosty night, barefoot and dressed only in her nightgown, she fled from the convent and sought refuge with sympathetic Protestants. She accused the nuns of trying to poison her.
The local bishop invoked the Lunacy Act and had her committed to an asylum, but a court found that she was sane and she was released. Then she sued the bishop for wrongful arrest. It became a cause celebre, with militant Protestants baying at militant Catholics.
But the Protestant judge, says Kildea, “was determined, in the best traditions of the administration of justice in New South Wales, to ensure that the case would be decided on the law and on the facts relevant to that law”.
A jury found in favour of the bishop, which 10,000 Catholics and Archbishop Michael Kelly celebrated at Town Hall with shameless triumphalism.
This story has refused to die, unfortunately. As recently as 2023, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article headlined “Pregnant to a priest, nun on run defied church over child”. It was based on family traditions recalled by an elderly man whose grandparents had allegedly sheltered Partridge.
None of his recollections was true, observed Kildea. The Herald’s article was “a throwback to a time when anti-Catholic bigotry was commonplace in the press, a time which is best left in the past.”
What kept Sydney from descending into sectarian warfare was the integrity of the judiciary, said Kildea. Notwithstanding the febrile atmosphere of religious animosity, judges, nearly always Protestants, consistently maintained the impartiality of the legal process.
It may be difficult for contemporary readers to appreciate the strength of character which must have been needed to act with integrity. Australians on both sides of the sectarian divide were fierce and passionate.
A case which came before the courts in 1900 and 1901, Coningham v Coningham, drew hundreds to the courts every morning.
It was as salacious as it gets. Arthur Coningham, a former Australian test cricketer, accused Msgr Denis O’Haran, Cardinal Patrick Moran’s private secretary and the vicar general, of seducing his wife and sued for divorce and damages. What made the case altogether extraordinary is that the wife supported her husband’s allegations.
A first trial failed to reach a verdict although the judge was, as a contemporary journalist wrote, “most absolutely impartial and put the legal and other issues before the jury without the slightest coloring of any opinion of his own”.
After a second trial, Msgr O’Haran was exonerated and Catholics again celebrated triumphantly.
However, this is not to say that they all behaved honourably. The NSW Postmaster-General at the time, “Paddy” Crick, was a Catholic thoroughly versed in villainies like jury-rigging and evidence tampering; he arranged for the Coninghams’ correspondence to be intercepted and submitted as evidence in the Monsignor’s favour.
Two other cases which Kildea examined centred on World War I controversies. One was the arrest in 1918 of seven Irish Catholics who were accused of supporting Germany.
They were deported by Prime Minister Billy Hughes but the calm and impartial way in which the judge dealt with the case kept it from turning into a witch hunt against Irish Catholics.
The other involved a Passionist priest with a German background, Fr Charles Jerger, who had allegedly preached against enlisting to fight for the Empire. “Protestant loyalists took up the cause against Jerger as, in their eyes,” said Kildea, “it vindicated their claims that Catholics were disloyal.”
The government sought to deport him and ultimately succeeded in May 1920. This provoked a protest meeting in Moore Park attended by 150,000 people – an astonishing number even today.
Kildea concluded his speech by declaring that impartiality and fidelity to the law are crucial.
“Just because sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants no longer blights our society does not mean the courts will not find themselves in the middle of controversies that excite the public and threaten the peace and social harmony of the community.
Judges and lawyers must therefore remain vigilant to ensure that the judicial system avoids being sucked into the vortex of the zeitgeist.”
