The formation of a passionist presbyterian: John Enright in Ireland and Australasia.

Just after midnight on Saturday morning, 4 December 1926, the newly inducted minister of St Enoch's Presbyterian Church, Morningside, Auckland, the Rev. John Enright, died of a sudden heart attack. He left a letter to be opened by his wife after his death: 'In case of death. I die in the Protestant faith as outlined in the Presbyterian church, and ask for the forgiveness of all my sins to my heavenly father and to my neighbours. God bless my two darlings till we meet.' (1) After the funeral, a Loyal Orange Lodge service was read at the graveside. (2) Enright had arrived in New Zealand in September to give a series of lectures on 'Protestant Principles' for the Protestant Political Association. In Sydney, one of his friends had harboured the runaway Sister Liguori. Here, then, was a more than ordinarily protestant Protestant preacher. But he was still in some ways the Passionist preacher he had been for thirteen years before he left the monastery.

Since this article is arguing for continuity between Enright's Passionist and Protestant careers, we need to understand both Passionists and evangelical Protestantism. The Passionists (3) were traditionally one of the strictest orders, with characteristics of contemplatives like the Trappists and of activists like the Jesuits. The vows (poverty, chastity, obedience and promotion of devotion to the Passion of Christ) were perpetual. (4) The Plenary Council of Australasia of 1885 had decided on a strategy of regular parish missions to reclaim lapsed Catholics, and the Redemptorists, Vincentians and Passionists made their appearance in Australia soon after. (5) Three Passionist 'retreats' were set up: St Brigid's Marrickville (1887), Mary's Mount Goulburn (1890) and St Paul of the Cross at Glen Osmond in Adelaide (1896). (6) The bishops were eager to use the Passionist order to reclaim the indifferent Catholics of Australasia by missions as well as by taking charge of a few selected parishes. (7)

Very useful in defining what marks an evangelical Protestant is David Bebbington's so-called 'quadrilateral': Crucicentrism, Biblicism, Activism and Conversionism. (8) Crucicentrism refers to a theological and homiletic focus on Christ's redeeming work on the cross as the heart of essential Christianity. Biblicism relates to the evangelical's reliance on the Bible as the Word of God and thus the ultimate authority in the Church but it does not necessarily indicate a literalist approach to interpretation. Activism describes an energetic, though generally individualistic, approach to religious duties and social engagement, including evangelism, charitable works and social reform. Conversionism refers to a stress on the new birth in Christ, often on one climactic occasion, sometimes referred to as 'being born again'. All four of these marks of the evangelical, especially the first and third, mutatis mutandis, strongly paralleled emphases in the work of a Passionist missioner like Enright.

Thus there were already parallels. At this time, there was more. An even more important factor in the continuity in Enright's vocation is the fact that the era was actually one of both Catholic and Protestant revivalist missions, surprisingly similar in intent and techniques. (9) Not unconnected with this, though with other roots as well, the era was also one of sectarianism. It reached a peak in Australasia from 1868 to the 1920s, especially 1910-25. Enright was slap bang in the middle of both these aspects of his era.

What was clerical 'formation'? There were studies in Scripture, Theology, Sacraments, and pastoral ministry with immersion in communal religious life, including regular prayer, daily Eucharist and spiritual direction. All these were intended to 'form' them intellectually, practically, spiritually and morally for their calling. For Enright, as for most clergy, this process actually began before the seminary and continued after.

Formation as a Passionist

John James Enright was born on 21 May 1863 in Dublin. (10) His whole family seems to have been devoted to the cult of the Passion. His two sisters were in the Sisters of the Most Holy Cross and Passion as Sr Mary &the Cross and Sr Mary of the Passion. His elder brother Joseph wanted to be a Passionist priest but died young. (11) Between October 1871 and July 1877, John was educated by the Patrician Brothers as a boarder at St Patrick's Monastery, Tullow. (12) In 1872, at home in Dublin, he had almost died, confessing under great stress and receiving his first Communion at that time. (13) In Dublin, around 1886, he consented to join the Passionist novitiate in Worcestershire. However, he decided to travel before entering and left Ireland in 1888. (14)

Enright was teaching at Narrabri West Public School in 1890-1891, but entered the Passionists at Mary's Mount, Goulburn, on 25 March 1891. He took his first vows as Brother Andrew Mary of the Immaculate Conception twelve months later. The novice renounced 'all dominion over temporal goods' and vowed to persevere in the order until death. He was vested in the black habit, mantle and girdle of the order, and had a wooden cross laid upon his shoulder and a crown of thorns placed upon his head. The same day, he signed away all his worldly goods and bound himself to the order until his death. (15) The life was rigidly disciplined and intensely ascetic. Quarters were cramped and spartan: there was no electricity (nor heating in the chapel), and in addition to the usual sleep-deprivation and fasting, there was gardening, building paths and grottoes, and working in the orchard or on the 55 acre farm. Cells were furnished with a board bed and straw mattress. (16)

Two days after Enright entered, the community celebrated Good Friday. Novices rose at 7 am, went straight to the choir, thence to 'collation' of weak tea and a hot cross bun, back to the choir, had a procession, then mass, went to the sepulchre they had built in the grounds, had 'recreation', 'repose', back to the choir, had instruction from the Vice-Master, followed the stations of the cross, said their rosary and prepared the altar for the next days. (17) Brothers took it in turn to record all the doings of the week and write a concluding reflection in the 'Novices' Chronicles'.

For four years Enright pursued his priestly studies, including 'Sacred Eloquence', Philosophy, Moral and Dogmatic Theology and Sacred Scriptures. (18) He made a close study of St Alphonsus Liguori on moral theology. With three others, John Enright was ordained a priest as Father Andrew on 30 May 1896 by Bishop Lanigan of Goulburn. (19)

Enright was based at Marrickville (1896-1897), Glen Osmond, South Australia (1897-1905) and Goulburn (1905-1907). He filled various monastic roles, ran parish groups and retreats, was confessor to nuns and brothers, and led many missions. (20) A handbill for one mission in 1900 explains that 'A Mission is a Message from Almighty God to His people to put them in mind that there is "but one thing necessary", ... the Salvation of their Souls.' (21) At a mission at St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide, in February 1899, over 4,000 confessions were registered on what the Passionists called the 'sheep-counter'.

Archbishop John O'Reily seems to have wanted to use the order as pastoral priests as much as missioners. (22) From the beginning of 1897, he put the Passionists in charge of the congregations of Mitcham and Glen Osmond, which were joined to Parkside parish. (23) After 1900, the order in Adelaide sought gradually to withdraw from the parish work and concentrate on missions, so as 'to preserve the quality of monastic life'. (24) Nevertheless, Fr Andrew Enright was parish priest of Parkside from about 1902 to 1904. (25)

Formation as a Protestant

John Enright's formation as a Protestant preacher started while he was still a Passionist. Part of this was his negative experiences as a monk and priest. One of his superiors around 1900 seemed to have caused him and other brothers immense psychological suffering; so much so, that he asserted later that all the brothers 'joined in jubilee' on this Superior's return to Ireland. (26) The minor reasons he later gave for 'secession' were:

1. Tyranny of many of those in power.

2. Hypocrisy of many of the Leaders.

3. Sycophancy of many of the Sub-Leaders and subjects.

4. Jealousy worse than childish and hateful among many of them, otherwise generally pious, prudent and learned. (27) He later wrote that he did not think 'many freeborn and freedom-loving young Roman Catholic Australians would take as meekly to-day what I took from the Canon more than 30 years ago', but he was Irish, a slave to the system. (28)

Confession was the arena in which his intellectual, spiritual and personal dilemmas intersected. The 'production-line' attitude to mission confessions must have contributed to Enright's questioning of penance and confession. (29) The starting point of his later critique was the impropriety of celibate male confessors' interrogating women about the intimate matters of their lives, and the issue came to be linked with his future wife Gertrude's questioning of both confession to strangers and of what she saw as the oddity of priestly celibacy. (At St Raphael's Church, Parkside from 1902, he had instructed her in the Roman Catholic faith and heard her confessions. (30)) His own experience of confession as Father Andrew had disclosed at least one affair between a woman and a priest. He saw it as a tragedy for both of them. (31) His questioning of the tribunal of confession led him inexorably to question in turn the sacramental system, compulsory celibacy, priesthood and papal authority. (32)

Walter McEntee makes a strong case for seeing the Passionist order at this time as unusually open, recognising that their main enemy was paganism not Protestantism. (33) Enright made an effort in his later missions to invite 'Our Separated Brethren' to hear the Roman view and asked Catholics to bring their Protestant friends along. But he also says that he had not then, nor did he later as a Protestant, have a 'desire to proselytise'. (34) No doubt, in strongly Methodist South Australia, the 'Paradise of Dissent', Protestants recognised a revivalist preacher when they heard one.

As his doubts gathered, Enright embarked on a course of private theological study. On holiday in New Zealand in 1904 he spoke to 'Leaders in other camps in Israel'. (35) He sought out books on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, scanning secondhand bookshops, in one of which he discovered 'The Confession of Faith of Count Piero Guicciardini'. (36) He also found helpful works by the Irish priest, Thomas Connellan, who had embraced Protestantism in the nineteenth century. (37) While helping out the parish priest at Upper Hutt, he reflected on the Reformed view of the sacrament of communion. (38) Back in Goulburn, he slipped Guicciardini's Confession under his mantle to read during his walks in the monastery's cherry orchard and found the Count's biblical approach increasingly compelling. He continued to fling himself into mission work, noting that at this stage he rarely preached on dogma, never on Papal infallibility, but always on 'Eternal Truths'. (39)

In Let There be Light (1919), Enright lists minor and major reasons for his 'secession'. (40) The major reasons were basically the same as those he gave the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1912: Papal infallibility, (41) the real presence in the Lord's Supper (42) and communion under two kinds (43) and 'the Tribunal' of Penance or auricular confession. (44) He saw the last as 'one of the greatest barriers to' the reunion of Christendom. (45)

Father Andrew left Goulburn and the Roman Catholic Church on the evening of Wednesday 11 September 1907. (46) Before leaving, he had resolved to devote the rest of his life to 'preaching the 'pure and simple' Word of God in the Free Church'. (47) The next day in Melbourne, he married Gertrude Lee. The newly-weds went together to St Patrick's Cathedral and prayed 'for the complete and speedy Reunion of Christendom, its return, among certain denominations, to the simple teaching of Christ and the equally simple practices of His Apostles'. (48)

In Perth in November, he was introduced to the Rev. W.H. Lewis, Chairman of the Congregational Union of Western Australia. Lewis was very impressed and, within weeks, he was a Congregational minister. He ministered in four WA congregations from 1907 to 1910. John and Gertie's only child, Dorothy, was born on 17 July 1908 in Perth. From 1910 to 1911 Enright served two congregations in Queensland, but the climate did not agree with his wife. He was 'preparing to enter upon the mission or Evangelical Field in America', when he received a call to South Melbourne, serving there from 1911 to 1912. (49)

Enright next applied to join the Presbyterian Church. His reasons for inclining towards Presbyterianism were that the Presbyterian Church had a 'greater spirit of cohesion', the 'blessing of a closed membership' and a 'Board of Control or Centre of Human Authority'. (50) The General Assembly of Australia granted the prayer of the petition subject to conditions. (51)

Enright was in Western Australia by 1913, until early in 1919, when he transferred to New South Wales. (52) From March 1919, he was locum tenens at Cootamundra Presbyterian Church where he also gave lectures and finished writing his first book, Let there be Light. (53) Next, Enright was called to the new charge of Bondi and inducted on 24 February 1920, enjoying his longest and a very successful pastorate until 30 July 1925. (54) He was then called to St Andrew's, Ballina, where he ministered from 30 July 1925 to 31 July 1926. (55)

Was Enright sectarian?

While at Bondi, he completed his second book, Breaking the Fetters: how I left the Church of my fathers: the romance of a monk and a maid (1920), a much more personal story.' (56) In January 1925, Enright finished writing the third book, The Roman Tribunal, or, the Confessional. (57) In this book, he showed concern that Protestant vigilance about Roman claims was slipping in 1925. This coincides with the lapsing of the campaign against Ne Temere. (58)

Though the sectarian temperature was high in Australasia during and after the war, Enright's favourite lecture topics do not sound overly sectarian: 'The Gallant Defenders of the Empire' and 'Irish Wit and Wisdom'. While at Bondi, Enright was surrounded by sectarian controversy, but appears aloof from it. There was a campaign in 1920 to deport German-born Passionist, Fr Charles Jerger, who had been at Glen Osmond with Enright. (59) The campaign seems to have begun with parishioners of St Brigid's Marrickville in 1916, but by 1920 had acquired a sectarian tinge. (60) The Sister Lignori case in 1920-21, involved a 'runaway nun' from the Presentation Convent in Wagga Wagga. (61) The man who wrote the foreword to Enright's second book, the Rev. William Touchell (62) of Kogarah, was harbouring the runaway nun, Bridget Partridge, formerly Sr Liguori, while she was suing the bishop of Wagga Wagga. (63) During the 1922 New South Wales election campaign. The 'Democratic Party' was pushing for state aid for Catholic schools, and one of its candidates was elected for the electorate of Eastern Suburbs. The most heated sectarian phase in New South Wales was the controversy over the decree of Ne Temere between 1922 and 1925. This 1907 Papal decree could have affected John and Gertrude Enright personally, because the decree purported to bind those baptised in the Roman Church. The Marriage Amendment Bill (no.2), based on the New Zealand law of 1920, proposed to forbid the allegation that legal marriages were not true or their offspring were not legitimate. But enough Protestants opposed it for it to fail. (64)

Enright was invited in 1926 by the Protestant Political Association to give lectures in various centres in New Zealand on 'Protestant principles'. (65) But the PPA was running out of steam and turning even more political, which did not suit Enright. Though a Loyal Orange Lodge service was read at his graveside (66) and the Ballina memorial service was attended by Orangemen in their regalia, (67) there is no evidence that he was actually a member of the Lodge.

In his supposedly polemical works directed against certain Roman doctrines and practices, Enright's tone is usually devoid of bitterness. Father Bede O'Brien noted that he 'never mentioned the Passionists and even in his book has nothing reproachful against them'. (68) Enright thought very highly of Archbishop O'Reily of Adelaide. He referred to the Sisters of St Joseph as 'an efficient band of Christian Workers' and reflected that they had been 'all through my monastic life among my warmest and most loyal friends. I wanted to thank and bless them, unknown to themselves for their sincere lives of purity and self-sacrifice ... though mistaken on the compulsory celibacy question.' (69) Enright clearly differed from the self-proclaimed ex-nuns, ex-priests who travelled the world giving lurid accounts of their oppression within the Roman Church. (70) He certainly gave lectures and wrote books on the errors of Rome, but his prime occupation continued to be that of a pastor and missioner.

All this was despite considerable vilification by some Catholics. An obituary noted that 'there were many letters of a cruel and disgusting nature which he had received from his former co-religionists which caused him great unhappiness, but which he kept to himself'. (71) One of the standard accusations against Enright was that he was never a real monk or a priest, something he took pains to refute with photographs in his second and third books. The photo of himself as a priest dispensing communion reproduced in The Roman Tribunal was a postcard from 1906 returned by a Christian Brother with an insulting passage inscribed on the back. (72) Enright's comment on this gratuitous insult was, 'What a shock the dear fellow will receive when he beholds me at his side, 'At Jesus' Feet,' both singing, "Our Great Redeemer's Praise."'

While critical of confession and celibacy, Enright continued to praise and honour particular priests and bishops. His books say little about the cult of the Virgin Mary, which was often a big issue with Protestant controversialists. The simpler liturgy, based on preaching and employing strong, evangelical hymns seemed to suit him. It seems that the Passionists had been trying to develop a repertoire of sacred songs to enliven Roman Catholic worship; in some respects, Enright's Protestant career was a fulfilment of that development. (73)

For a Presbyterian, he was a good Passionist

There is distinct continuity between his Passionist and Presbyterian ministries. The controversial content of Let there be Light needs to be read in the light of his dedication:

I lovingly dedicate this book to the

a. Glory of God,

b. The spread of pure evangelism,

c. The removal of certain human-erected barriers between my brethren of the Old Faith and the New, but especially between my priestly and my ministerial brethren. (74)

The photograph in his first book was as a Presbyterian minister, although the pectoral cross was an unusual reminder of his Passionist past. He always emphasised the Gospel over denomination, and recognised Christian faithfulness and service wherever he saw them. For instance, he enjoyed friendship in Cootamundra with the Irish-born shop-keeper Thomas Mangan, a practising Roman Catholic. Enright confided in Mangan that he sometimes had to stop himself making the sign of the cross when entering the pulpit. (75) He related that in 1913, a Catholic lady in NSW had advised her daughter to hear 'Fr Andrew' preach in Perth, even though he was by then a Presbyterian minister. He heard the confessions of Protestants when a priest and the confessions of Roman Catholics when a minister. (76) Years after he became a minister, he would still meet penitents from his Passionist days who were still loyal to 'Fr Andrew'. (77)

The tension between itinerant mission and parish work spanned his whole career. In over eighteen years as a Protestant minister, John Enright's longest pastorate was just over five years. This itinerancy almost seems like a more controlled version of the life of a Passionist missioner. The memorial minute of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand notes, 'He was genial and courteous, and possessed a distinct gift of oratory ... In character he was blameless, and his evangelical fervour and power in preaching never waned'. (78) Enright loved 'mission' hymns as much as a Presbyterian as when a Passionist.

He constantly emphasised the Passion as the 'one thing needful'. He wrote in 1919: 'I cannot forget that which was so emphatically taught me in the Passionist Monasteries, and just as emphatically insisted upon by Protestantism, that "Christ died for all".' (79) He finished his last book: '"Good-bye. Till we meet at Jesus' feet" and let Him decide.' (80)

(1) Obituary, The Outlook [NZ Presbyterian Church], 20 December 1926, p. 15.

(2) ibid.; death notice Auckland Star, 4 December 1926, p. 1.

(3) The Congregation of Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ was founded by St Paul of the Cross in Castellazo, Lombardy in the 1720s.

(4) A. Devine, 'Passionists', The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XI (1911), online edition.

(5) P.F. Moran, History of the Catholic Church in Australasia, Oceania Publishing Co., Sydney, n.d., p. 685: G. Mahony, The Arrival of the Passionists: Sydney 1887. n.p., Sydney, 1987, pp. 5, 8-12.

(6) See M. French, 'O'Reily, John (1846-1915)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 11, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988, pp. 96-97.

(7) W. McEntee, The Contribution of the Passionist Religious Order to the Development of Piety in Australia, 1887-1923, MA Hons Thesis, University of NSW, 1989, pp. v-vi. Archbishop O'Reily seems to have been particularly keen to use the order to build up parishes: M.M. Press, From our Broken Toil: South Australian Catholics 1836-1905, Archdiocese of Adelaide, Adelaide, 1986, p.154.

(8) D. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain from the 1730s to the 1980s, Unwin Hyman, London, 1989, pp. 5-15; D. Bebbington, G. Rawlyk & M. Noll (eds), Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, introduction.

(9) G.M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, Wm B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1991, pp.22-25; H.R. Jackson, Churches and People in Australia and New Zealand 1860-1930, Sydney, 1987, ch. 3, 'Revivalism'.

(10) Shaw's Dublin City Directory, 1850. Birth and baptismal certificates in Enright File and Novitiorum Commentarium of Presentation Retreat Mary's Mount Goulburn 1890-1935, Passionist Archives, then at St Ives, NSW.

(11) J.J. Enright, The Roman Tribunal, or the Confessional, Christian Workers' Depot, Sydney, 1925 [hereafter referred to as TRT], pp. 133, 143 and J.J. Enright, Breaking the Fetters: how I left the Church of my fathers: the romance of a monk and a maid. William H. Beale, Methodist Book Depot, Sydney, 1921 [hereafter referred to as BTF], p. 158

(12) St Patrick's Monastery Boarding School Ledgers, 1871-77 (copies of entries by courtesy of Br Linus Walker, Archivist, Patrician Brothers, Kingston, Galway, Ireland).

(13) TRT, p. 19.

(14) BTF, pp. 152-153.

(15) Retreat of the Presentation, St Mary's Mount, Novitiate Testaments 1891-1920, John Enright's Will and declarations, 18 April 1892, in Passionist Archives, St Ives.

(16) W. McEntee, pp. 68-78.

(17) Retreat of the Presentation, St Mary's Mount, Novices Chronicles, 27 March 1891 (Passionist Archives, then in St Ives). In due course, the Good Friday procession involved up to 3,000 of the faithful. A large set of the Stations of the Cross in Carrara marble designed by an Italian sculptor had been installed in the garden: B. Maher, Planting the Celtic Cross: Foundations of the Catholic' Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, the author, Canberra, 1997, p. 271.

(18) W. McEntee, p. 111; Petition, BB, 1912, p. 97.

(19) W. McEntee, pp. 89-90. They were the first Australian-formed Passionist priests to be ordained. Three of the four were later to depart from the order. These four were the last Passionists to be educated in Australia until 1923, as the Vatican suspended local training.

(20) Petition to the GA of PCA, 7 August 1912, BB, 1912, p. 98.

(21) Handbill, Catholic Archives, Adelaide.

(22) W. McEntee, p. 145.

(23) D. Hilliard, Catholics in Kingswood: The Catholic Church in the Mitcham District 1869-1994, Kingswood Catholic Parish Council, Kingswood SA, 1994, p. 10. The author is indebted to Dr Hilliard for his assistance with this article. (24) M.M. Press, op. cit.

(25) See D. Hilliard, pp. 9-14.

(26) J.J. Enright, Let there be Light. why I withdrew from the Church of my Fathers. Lothian, Melbourne, 1919 [hereafter referred to as LTBL], pp. 30-31.

(27) LTBL, p. 29 ff.

(28) TRT, p. 183.

(29) ibid., pp. 118, 122.

(30) ibid., pp. 85-87. Gertrude Lee (b. 1883) secretly fell in love with him and prudently moved to Perth in 1904. They continued to correspond, though he claimed later that he did so purely as her confessor and that he did not encourage or deceive her. In his writings, Enright is somewhat careless about dates and duration of time, making it difficult to pinpoint when particular events happened. For instance, in BTF, p. 17, he says his future wife was brought to him 'exactly nineteen years ago' at the age of 16; his wife was 16 in 1899 but 19 years ago was 1901, whereas he seems to have been parish priest from 1902. His burial record shows his age as 59, but he was actually 63 (Waikumete Cemetery Auckland, record by courtesy Auckland City Library).

(31) ibid., pp 171-172.

(32) BTF, p. 20.

(33) ibid., pp. 122, 124-128.

(34) LTBL, pp. 17, 19. No doubt, as Jackson shows, some Protestants were 'converted' as a result: H.R Jackson, Churches and People, p. 75.

(35) ibid., p. 124.

(36) LTBL, pp. 221-23 I. It was contained in The Christian Treasury (1849). Guicciardini was banished from Florence with some friends in 1851 for reading the Bible in Italian.

(37) LTBL, p.6; e.g., T. Connellan, Rev. Thomas Connellan to his dearly beloved brethren, the Roman Catholics of the Diocese of Elphin, George Herbert & William McGee, London, 1889, 11 pp. Connellan had a Protestant bookstore in Dublin when James Joyce was a lad.

(38) LTBL, pp. 119-124.

(39) BTF, p. 35.

(40) He did not use the term 'conversion', for he always believed that both his Protestant and Roman Catholic friends were part of the one true Church.

(41) LTBL, chs VI-XI.

(42) LTBL, chs XII-XVIII.

(43) LTBL, chs XIX.

(44) LTBL, chs XX and XXI.

(45) LTBL., p. 218.

(46) The monastic 'Arrivals and Departures' book for 11 September 1907 simply reads 'Fr Andrew left - ??'. Arrivals and Departures, Mary's Mount, Passionist Archives.

(47) Petition, BB, 1912, p. 98.

(48) BTF, pp. 203-204. The marriage certificate shows that they were married by a minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Mr Mackie seems to have a very busy celebrant who didn't ask too many questions. Enright also understated his age by tour years.

(49) BB, GA of PCA, 1912, p. 99.

(50) ibid. It is interesting that Baptist ministers seeking admission to the Presbyterian Church in the 1920s sometimes commented on its 'open membership'! He also said he was 'about 45 years of age', when he was really 49 (see notes 30 and 48 on Enright's chronological carelessness).

(51) BB, GA of PCA, 1912, minute 48. He was not re-ordained by the Congregationalists or the Presbyterians.

(52) Year Book of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, 1912-20 and BB, PCWA, 1913-20. BB, NSW, 1919.

(53) R Caskie, Cootamundra 1901-1924: Past Imperfect, Cootamundra, 2000, pp. 282-285. I am grateful to Allan Grocott and Patricia Caskie for information about Enright's time in Cootamundra.

(54) C.A. White, The Challenge of the Years, p. 473.

(55) ibid., p. 443.

(56) BTF, p. 6. The use of the sub-title 'the romance of a monk and a maid' echoes the titles of two pamphlets written by a New Zealand Roman Catholic controversialist in 1900 against the ex-priest Joseph Slattery and his ex-nun wife who toured the antipodes in that year, but Enright makes no mention of them: H.W. Cleary, Joseph Slattery: the romance of an unfrocked priest. NZ Tablet, Dunedin, 1900 and Mrs Slattery: the romance of a sham nun. NZ Tablet, Dunedin, 1900.

(57) TRT, pp. 132, 147.

(58) ibid., p. 191. 'And now that the birds are almost quiet, now and again, a tired chirrup ... I wonder ... if I were to pay the price of my zeal and great desire in penning this volume, how would it tare with nay two darlings my wile and child? Would Protestantism be alert enough? Organised enough, strong enough to shield them from the danger? I wonder! You know that an army that is half asleep all the time, is invariably overtaken and overwhelmed by the army that is fully awake all the time.'

(59) Australasian Catholic Directory for 1905, Sydney, [1904]), p. 79.

(60) G. Henderson, 'The Deportation of Charles Jerger,' Labour History, 31 (November 1976), pp. 61-78.

(61) P. J. O'Farrell, The Catholic Church and Community: an Australian History (rev. ed.), NSWUP, Kensington NSW, 1985, pp. 348-349: M. Hogan, The Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1987, pp. 190-191.

(62) On Touchell, see G.L. Lockley, Index of Congregational Ministers in Australia, ts., Uniting Church Records and Historical Society Archives, North Parramatta.

(63) N. Turner, Catholics lit Australia: a Social History, vol. 1, Collins Dove, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 313-316. See also K. Swan, A History of Wagga Wagga, Wagga Wagga City Council, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 1970, pp. 167-168 and Z. Denholm, 'Partridge, Bridget (1890-1966),'ADB, 11, pp. 151-152. The case was for damages over alleged unlawful imprisonment. The judge hi the case, who directed a verdict for the bishop, was Sir David Ferguson, a Presbyterian.

(64) See A. Devereux, Till Death or the Priest do us Part: The Controversy over Ne Temere, 1922-1925, BA Hons Thesis, ANU, 1988, esp. pp. 3, 28, 57-59. I am grateful to Emeritus Professor Campbell Macknight for lending me a copy of this thesis.

(65) New Zealand Herald, 6 December 1926, p. 12. The author is grateful to Mr David Verran of Auckland City Library for newspaper and other references to Enright's time at Morningside.

(66) ibid.: death notice Auckland Star, 4 December 1926, p. 1.

(67) The NSW Presbyterian, 10 March 1927, p. 446.

(68) Taken from notes of Father Bede O'Brien kept in Provincial Archives, Enright File, Passionist Archives, then at St Ives, NSW. The comment is actually inaccurate, but it is fair to say that Enright's comments on the order in his three books are fairly balanced.

(69) BTF, pp. 95-96.

(70) Such as Maria Monk in the 1830s, Dr Achilli in the 1840s, Edith O'Gorman in the 1880s, Charles Chiniquy from the 1860s to 1899 and Mr mid Mrs Joseph Slattery in the 1890s. See H. Thurston, 'Imposters,' The Catholic Encyclopedia, on-line, <http://newadvent.org/cathen/07698b.htm>, viewed 23 October 2001.

(71) The NSW Presbyterian, 6 January 1927, p. 294.

(72) TRT, frontispiece & p. 7. 'How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed. They that fed delicately have died in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced the dung-heaps.

'All that passed by have clapped their hands at thee; they have hissed and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem; saying: "Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth!'" 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, be converted unto the Lord thy God.' The passages come from Lamentations 4:1,5 and 2:15 (Douai-Rheims version, not perfectly quoted), with the last line front the Tenebrae service. The photo was sent by the Irish-born Br Louis (Michael Aloysius) Aungier (1869-1947) who, according to Br Athanasius McGlade who knew him, had a particularly deep devotion to Our Lady.

(73) W. McEntee, p. 114.

(74) LTBL, p. 2.

(75) Mrs Loretta Coates, a descendant of Mangan, pets. corr. 31 January 2002.

(76) LTBL, p. 212.

(77) ibid., p. 208.

(78) BB, PCNZ, 1927, p. 60.

(79) ibid., p. 27.

(80) TRT, p. 192.

Dr Malcolm Prentis is Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University, Strathfield NSW, where he teaches Australian and Pacific history. He has written extensively on the history of Australian immigration (especially the Scots), Aboriginal-white relations, religion and education and is currently researching trans-Tasman church links. He is editor of Church Heritage, a Uniting Church historical journal.