Father Peter Smith has been the parish priest of St Columba’s Leichhardt North for the past 12 years. He hung up his surfboard, now he rides a BMW1200.
I was born in 1958 and spent the first years of my life in a little flat in Bondi, before we moved to Beverly Hills in Sydney’s south.
Dad worked for the Postmaster-General (PMG) and Mum was of the generation when women didn’t really have a career.
We were very much brought up in the faith. My Dad volunteered with St Vincent de Paul, going out into parishes and visiting the poor, from when he was about 16, until he was 80. He was awarded a Dempsey Medal for his service.
I learnt the piano for about eight years, from the time I was in second class. I had absolutely no talent; I was tone deaf. My older brother on the other hand had perfect pitch. I hated him.
I grew up at a time when you’d play in the streets with your mates, and all hang out together in the school holidays. Mum didn’t want to see us until it was dark. I remember I really liked the pinnies (pinball machines).
As I got older in high school I started surfing. At Cronulla mostly. I started off on a longboard and ended up with a McCoy twin fin. These were the days of the Catholic Youth Organisation (CYO). So on Sundays a whole lot of us would traipse off and find a good surf spot—like Narrabeen.
My last four years of school were at St Aloysius at Milsons Point where I had a scholarship. I did my HSC in 1976 and got a cadetship with AGL—the Australian Gas Light Company—to study economics at university.
What made me decide to be a priest? Studying economics! I thought, this is just not for me. I remember driving home from Macquarie Uni one night and thinking, this isn’t what I want to do with my life.
I dropped out of university and told my girlfriend I’d decided to go into the priesthood. She took it quite well at the time, but her mother and sister were very upset. They thought it might have been a bit more serious.
In 1979 I became a seminarian. The seminary was up on the headland at Manly. It was very strict. We weren’t allowed out for the first year, so I’d sit up there at my desk at night studying, looking down over the beach, thinking, “man, look at that break!”
In my final year, I took up wind surfing with another guy from the seminary. We’d head up to Narrabeen Lakes and hire a board. Eventually I got my own board. Actually, it belonged to a cousin of mine who loaned it to me. He never got it back.
I was ordained in 1985, and my first appointment was to Bossley Park. I’d never heard of the place. I drove up and down the street a few times and eventually found a little old wooden church in the middle of a paddock and thought “oh my goodness what am I doing here?”
In the three years that I was there we built a whole new church and school. The population grew exponentially, mainly migrants…Italians, Maltese. I did 14 baptisms one Sunday. I made lifelong friends there.
From there I went to Cronulla for a couple of years, and Liverpool for three years. After that I took a year off to write my thesis on moral theology and utilitarianism. Then it was back to Manly again, followed by Malabar, Strathfield, Woollahra, Auburn, and Lurnea, where I was the priest for 11 years.
Finding space in your life these days—this work-life balance we all talk about—its very difficult as a priest too. Devices have made us always available. If the phone rings late at night, I don’t know if it’s somebody who is actually in need of a priest, or just someone who wants to know what time Mass is next week.
I’m a big reader. I don’t only read theology and philosophy, I read novels which I don’t think most priests do these days. I read the long list of the Booker every year. I like good writing.
I hung up my windsurfer about the same time I started my appointment at St Columba’s. Nowadays I ride a BMW 1200. It’s a great bike to pilot through the twisty bends of the Royal National Park.
