Significant contributors to Australian Catholic education in Sydney have been honoured with knighthoods in the Order of St Gregory the Great, which were bestowed on them by Pope Leo XIV.
Radiation oncologist and former master at Warrane College in the University of New South Wales Dr Gerald Fogarty OAM, president of the Catholic Institute of Sydney Dr Hayden Ramsay, and rector of St John’s College in the University of Sydney Dr Mark Schembri were given the honours in a ceremony in St Mary’s Cathedral House on 20 November.
The papal awards were presented by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, who congratulated the men on their decades of service to Catholic education in Sydney and beyond and likened them to the knights who found the Holy Grail; Galahad, Percival, and Bors de Ganis.
“All three, in some manner, express the trace of Christian knighthood: pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness; faithful service to their master and their quest; selflessness; purity; charity; and humility,” he said.
“Their highest honour is not some civil or ecclesiastical gong nor some success on the battlefields of life but to witness the rights of the Holy Grail and receive the graces from that plain white medal that is the Eucharistic Lord.”
Archbishop Fisher said the mythological knights showed love “made visible through service” in the offering of themselves up to God and others, a quality Fogarty, Ramsay, and Schembri had also demonstrated.
“Fittingly, the church bestows papal knighthoods on three men who, though not yet saints, have demonstrated some of these spiritual qualities to a heroic degree,” he said.
“Not just in legend, but in the very real work of building up the church, academy, hospital and society, in enlarging the faith and imagination of the young and in serving the good of their various communities.”
Fogarty received his award for services not only as a medical specialist but in his duties within the University of New South Wales, where he provided leadership in the “moral and spiritual formation of young people” as well as his commitment to the church’s mission in higher education and beyond.
Highlighting his years of service as master of Warrane College, he spoke about its origins, which stemmed back to then-Archbishop of Sydney, later Cardinal Norman Gilroy.
“He was asked by UNSW in the late 1950s to build and run a college on the Kensington campus; Vatican II in the early 1960s enabled him to see firsthand residences run by Opus Dei in Europe,” Fogarty said.
“Since then, over more than 50 years, 6,000 young men have passed through the college and many initiatives have come from Warrane, including centres and schools in Sydney.”
He said those who had been to the college, even if they were not Opus Dei members themselves “learned from its spirit.”
Earlier this year Fogarty was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for “services to medical research.”
Ramsay, a philosopher originally from Scotland, reflected on his own educational journey, as he came from a family where all apart from him had left school early.
“I stayed and learned things and loved every bit of it, and I taught people for many, many years, and when I look around the room all I really see is education and the effect of it and the love of it,” he said.
“From the moment we become alive, and certainly the moment we become conscious, and certainly the moment we become intelligent, we start to learn, and that great journey of education binds together everyone.”
Ramsay received his papal award for his service to the church and Catholic education in Australia.
Described by Archbishop Fisher as the “master of the storied castle of St John’s College in the University of Sydney, where he helps form young people of excellent mind, character, spirit and service,” Schembri, who is also a veterinarian and physician, was emotional as he accepted his papal award, saying it capped off “three magnificent years of hard work.”
Thanking his family and friends who were present at the ceremony, the St John’s rector highlighted those who had nominated him for the honour as well as those who were significant to his personal and professional development.