Chapter 8 - Sparks from the Bonfire

Many of us were despatched to Whitefriars because it was a Catholic school and the Carmelites were well regarded – quite rightly - as an Order. Religion as a subject featured on the syllabus. It warrants a chapter in its own right.

While I write this chapter as a liberal Catholic, to this day I do not understand what it means “to be taught religion.” One either has an experience of the numinous - and interprets it in a certain way - or not.

The Catholicism that we encountered at Whitefriars was a reflection of its time. In the wake of Vatican II, the triumphalism and tribalism of past generations were in retreat and the rigidity of John Paul II had yet to exert itself. All in all, it made for uncertain times, and the attempts to instil religiosity into the student-mass defaulted to a 'Kumbaya' dynamic which invited neither introspection nor transcendence: derision and apathy were harvest. Upon our arrival in 1978, for instance, there was no chapel at the school; makeshift liturgies were held in the so-called Religion Centre, a bunker-like classroom that sat under the Chemistry Lab. Towards the end of our stay, the Senior Common Room behind the canteen was transformed into a chapel of sorts but even that had a transitory feel to it. In 2010, the College opened a new chapel on the site of the old quadrangle (which necessitated the removal of the portable classrooms 14 -16 which was no great loss). Its opening was accompanied by pomp and splendour. The Federal Member for Menzies, Kevin Andrew, who was shortly to undertake his quixotic campaign to become Opposition Leader, irridated proceedings with his piety, wit and bonhomme. Two reservations surface: the statue of Elijah at the entranceway borders on a caricature, whereas Jesus, as depicted above the altar, looks like he's about to take a jezza on the Main Oval. Such an enormous expenditure of money prompts one to ask: what will be the return on investment be? If any sort of spirituality is to take root, it requires silence, introspection and stillness above all. I like the new chapel but it remains to be seen if it'll shift the dynamic among the students whose lives are so filled with noise and entertainment. To my mind, the real chapel at Whitefriars is still the Bush, ever beckoning.

There were many Carmelites at Whitefriars during our time: Fathers Noel Kierce, Robert McCormack (who taught us Religion from Years 9 til 11), Wayne Stanhope (Religion in Year 8), Maurice Barry (Latin), Peter Slattery, Adrian Jones (Science in Year 7) and Shane O’Connor (the Chaplain during most of our stay), and Brothers Leo Richmond (Indonesia in Year 8), Anthony Moresco (as per Slattery) & Anthony Moffat (Religion in Year 7). They warranted respect. During our tenure, one of the Carmelites who had inaugurated the school - Brother Thomas Butler - was murdered in shadowy circumstances all round. He's buried with Father Shane and Brother Anthony in the cemetery at the Monastery.

Mystics use the phrase 'the Cloud of Unknowing' to articulate their immersion into the One and such a cloud has descended upon our collective memory of Religion as a subject; more earthily, bugger all comes to mind. For instance, I cannot recall a single detail of the year that we spent with Father Stanhope in 1979. A few details are extant. For the better part of the six years, our textbook in Religion was The Way –a publication that attempted to hip-up the Bible. Unlike parallel textbooks in Indonesia and American History, its many photographs were left unsullied as it generated so little enthusiasm.

The late Brother Anthony Moffat O. Carm was our religious teacher in Year 7. He was also the cricket coach. Brother A, as we called him, was a kindly man. Much of his time was spent mowing the lawns. He was, however, unable to control a class and collectively we ran riot. "(I remember) religion classes with Brother Anthony descending into utter chaos. Our detention time was written up on the board - 5 mins. Then Brother Anthony rubbed it out and replaced it with 10 mins and then 15 mins as the chaos worsened. By the end of the class Brother Anthony erased it entirely and told us not to bother about detention."

Father Robert McCormack taught us religion (again, what a ludicrous phrase that is) for three years. Much to his credit, Robert was non-doctrinaire and had mojo. I was not surprised when he later left the Order – presumably to marry: priests invariably attract the attention of ‘Black-Trackers’ – women who are besotted by clerics, and being the good looking man that he was, Robert would've been targeted incessantly. Adrian Jones, a friend of our family, similarly left the Carmelites to settle in the township of Foster. He was a fine man.

Every so often, manfully in a way, a cohort of middle-aged Catholic housewives would undertake a sex-education course with us (my mother, God bless her, regularly participated in such courses elsewhere and I was terrified that one day she'd lob up at our class). They reeked of earnestness. The merits of the Rhythm Method (otherwise known as Vatican Roulette) featured prominently in their discourse. Likewise, the virtues of abstinence and the sanctity of marriage were trumpeted. The response was venomous. The likes of Matt Thomas and Ian Krakeour - no mean adversaries - revelled in their absurdities. Such engagements were entertaining in themselves - much like watching an aerial dogfight, but the seeds, in every way, 'fell on stony ground'. But for all their marksmanship, would it not have been better to respond with the poem that is a neutron-bomb to Moral Theology: Catullus 5?

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us value all the tales of the old (wo)men
to be worth less than a farthing!
Suns rise and fall again.
When our brief light has been extinguished
we must sleep a never ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
Then, when we have kissed a thousandfold,
we will mix them all up so that we've lost count
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
how many kisses we have shared.

But alas we lacked the education, and doubly so.

In 1980, we were sitting in the Religion Centre waiting for Father McCormack to show up. There was an altercation between Johnny Wilkins and Tony di Pietro (evidently, the former used the W-bomb on the latter, who was very conscious of his Mediterranean origins). In response, Tony seized Johnny and threw him over his shoulder, karate-style. Sitting nearby, I heard a god-awful crack – and that was JW’s humerus being snapped in two. John was left in agony(and in speaking with him recently, the discomfort lingers). Tony was frogmarched out of the room and that was the last we saw of him in our livery.

In retrospect, Whitefriars afforded me only two experiences that could be vaguely classified as spiritual. They occurred at the beginning and end of our tenure.

A few weeks after we commenced Year 7, Brother Anthony took us on a tour of the Monastery. It's an imposing edifice. It was constructed in 1937 presumably from donations. We all walked up the hill and were led through the complex (no laggards hid in the change-rooms on this occasion). I remember being impressed by the silence and cavernous acoustic (and to this day, one of my minor ambitions is to gain access to the tower). Time was a different beast in its confines. We came across the occasional Carmelite during our visitation but for all I know, they were ghosts – that’s how ethereal they were, gliding silently through the monastic half-light.

The Monastery also featured in the second experience: I attended Midnight Mass in its spartan chapel and it left one transfigured - "my face close to the points of a star". Walking back to the car, the constellations above were diamond-like, causing one to look momentarily for the Star hovering above the stable. You know - the old story.

For all the investiture of energy, it would be interesting to understand how many of the Class of 1983 would nowadays describe themselves as Catholics. To quote from The Wasteland:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.

Some of my best schoolmates are avowed atheists (with a smile). Others, fewer in number, are dedicated Catholics. Most are inbetwixt and inbetween, and if their religious education has left an imprint, it's evident in their come se, come sa attitude. Such a state can immunise one against horrors: I cannot imagine anyone from our Year, for instance, becoming a fire-breathing Pentecostalist. Mundane though it be, I daresay the divorce-rate among us is much lower than the national average. If, as Hamlet judged, the rest is silence, let us end on that sonorous note and befittingly so.