Anne Cunningham. The Rome Connection: Australia, Ireland and the Empire 1865-1885.

ANNE CUNNINGHAM. The Rome Connection: Australia, Ireland and the Empire 1865-1885. Crossing Press, Sydney, 2002; ISBN 0 9578291 5 9; xviii + 253 pages.

This book travels over well-trodden ground in the history of the Catholic Church in NSW 1865-85. But to the discussion of familiar issues and people--Polding, Vaughan, Moran, Murray, the Quinns, O'Mahony etc.--Anne Cunningham brings new sources, new perspectives, and new interpretations. She presents her book as an attempt to 'roll back' the results of allegedly 'openly biased' past analyses, while emphasising the role of Roman decisions in Australian developments.

The papers of Bernard Smith provide Dr Cunningham with a major new source and perspective. Smith was an Irish-born Benedictine who spent most of his life in Rome, working as an agent for clients, especially Benedictines, in various parts of the world, including England and the Australian colonies. He was also used as a 'Consultor' by Propaganda, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, Rome's 'Colonial Office'. Smith's alleged crucial influence on Vatican policy in dealing with the Church in NSW provides the central theme of the book. Certainly, the Propaganda dimension has been a neglected one in the study of the history of the Australian Church. But this book too often equates Propaganda with Smith. He was a very significant agent and lobbyist. But, technically, he was not in or of the Congregation, and far less important for outcomes in Australia than Giovanni Simeoni, who had known both Vaughan and Moran from the 1860s. Simeoni was a specialist Secretary 1862-68, General Secretary 1868-75, and the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda (the 'Red Pope') 1878-92. He is first mentioned only halfway through the book yet he, rather than the Benedictine Cardinal Pitra, was the real 'Face of Propaganda' (illustration p.86) in this period, and the decisive mind behind the 'face'.

Notably missing from Cunningham's account is a picture of Propaganda's internal functioning. Here her sources limit what she can do. First, her specifically Propaganda sources are drawn from what is available locally on microfilm: only the incoming mail from 'Oceania', and nothing from separate administrative regions such as Ireland and England. More important, there is no material on the whole process of assessment and decision-making. Second, what is available on Sydney microfilm ends at 1878. The book's limited base in specifically Propaganda material is further narrowed by the fact that working files were often kept separate from archive deposits for several years. Hence important material on 1876-79 developments involving Vaughan is located in 1880s archive volumes.

The book is notable for the vehemence of its diatribes against Archbishop Vaughan, whether in his dealings with the Irish bishops, in his handling of the Armidale scandal, or in his fighting battles over education. He is consistently presented as being anti-Irish. Vaughan's achievements are minimised. There is not a single mention of his building the first stage of a cathedral and opening it debt-free. An extreme point in Cunningham's denigration of Vaughan is reached when she accuses him of being largely motivated in the 1879-80 public conflicts by a desire to impress Rome and advance his own career rather than to advance Church interests (p. 148 and ch.8 passim). These attacks are based on very. little evidence as far as Vaughan himself is concerned. She has made no direct use of Vaughan correspondence with Rome after 1878, with his family, or with his Benedictine friends in English monasteries. (The Downside material on microfilm in Sydney does not include Vaughan files or those of the Presidents of the English Benedictine Congregation). Even with use of the Smith papers, Vaughan is the victim of, at least, carelessness, especially concerning his alleged failure to report to Propaganda on the English Benedictine Congregation and his alleged opposition to the foundation of a Sydney Franciscan community as such.

The book does, however, have many good features. Croke of Cashel's papers are a welcome new (for Australia) source to help explain both why O'Mahony's failure as a bishop in Armidale caused little surprise in parts of Ireland, and why there was widespread opposition to his being given a diocese back in Ireland. Into her narrative Cunningham weaves an important and neglected theme of Vatican concern to conciliate the British government and find mutual advantage in harmonizing interests worldwide. Useful comparisons are regularly made with developments in Canada and the United States. The country dioceses are shown more attention than is usual in most accounts of the education conflict. And, despite preceding harping on 'the cultural barriers' between undifferentiated 'Irish' and 'English', there is final recognition that the 1883-84 change from Vaughan to Moran was 'one of style more than substance' (p.217).

This is not the major, archive-based, study of Propaganda's relations with the Australian Church which is certainly needed. The book's contribution is a more limited one. It is a highly contentious examination of a, rather than the, 'Rome connection'.