A Foundation Stone Laid
The official history of the Catholic Church in Australia began on May 3, 1820, when Father John Joseph Therry and Phillip Conolly arrived at Sydney in the ship Janus, as official Catholic chaplains to New South Wales.
Father John Joseph Therry (1790-1864), official founder of Catholicism in Australian. He labored in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania for 44 years. In the foundation period he was the only priest on the mainland.
Catholics greeted their first free, officially-sanctioned priests joyfully and tumultuously. William Davis’s cottage was the priests’ first home. Their first public chapel was the house of John Reddington, in Pitt Street, near the present Market Street intersection.
Governor Darling (1775-1858), who clashed frequently with Father Therry and pioneer Catholics.
As early as June 6, however, restrictions were imposed on their ministry by Governor Macquarie. But he also made the old Court House building available for celebration of Mass.
On June 30, 1820, a public meeting was held at the Court House, which was then a wing of Sydney Hospital in Macquarie Street. The foundation meeting of the Catholic Church in Australia, its object was the raising of funds for the erection of a church.
Tolerant and influential non-Catholics attended the meeting and joined forces with the enthusiastic Catholics.
When, shortly afterwards, Father Conolly went to Tasmania, Father Therry assumed leadership of the Church.
Father Therry soon became a familiar figure, not only in Sydney, but in all settled parts of the colony.
William Charles Wentworth (1792-1872), was one of Father Therry's most influential supporters.
To the convicts he was a friend and intermediary.
He travelled long distances on horseback and performed astonishing feats of endurance. On the same Sunday, he would say Mass at both Sydney and Parramatta.
He was greeted by people of all denominations. Even the bushrangers gave him courtesy and safe-passage.
Men were saved from the gallows by his efforts. He gave final solace to the condemned, acted as judge and arbitratior in domestic disputes, and generally emerged as a giant among a race of giants in the primitive colony.
From his first days in Sydney he began the herculean and heroic feats and achievements that marked his 44 years of service in Australia
He was granted land for a church on the site where St. Mary’s Cathedral now stands. Some believed that the site was chosen because the land was poor and remote - out of sight of the Governor as he went to church on Sunday at St. Philip’s on Church Hill.
Robert Wardell (1794-1834), non-Catholic editor of W. C. Wenworths's "Australian," which backed the Catholic cause.
On October 29, 1821, Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone of the first St. Mary’s Cathedral. Catholic schools were quickly founded at Parramatta and Sydney. In 1824 a schoolhouse was erected near the Cathedral site. By 1839 Father Therry had completed the first church, also adjoining the cathedral-to-be. A presbytery was occupied at St. Mary’s.
While Father Therry found friends in colonists like W. C. Wentworth and Robert Wardell, enemies were not lacking. His greatest enemy was Macquarie’s successor, Governor Darling, who, one June 24, 1826, suspended the lone chaplain and withdrew his salary. His official position was assumed by the newly-arrived Iris priest Father Daniel Power.
The end of the ‘twenties saw completion of a decade of foundation work by Father Therry.
They were the foundations upon which the work of thousands of men in succeeding years rested and still rests.