On a day in late February 1982, Martin got onto a plane at Coolangatta airport, to go down to Melbourne to join the MSC’s. It was without a doubt one of the most difficult things he had done in his life. He had never been away from home longer than a weekend, and here he was flying to another state by himself. The parting at the airport was very painful; it was one of the very few times Martin saw his father shed a tear.
I didn’t come with him to the seminary. I think he wanted to take me, but he was too embarrassed to bring a teddy bear with him. And besides, at that time my body was getting rather fragile and I probably couldn’t have stood up to the trip; as I mentioned earlier, I have been extensively repaired over the years and I pretty much have a whole new body now.
As a result, I was stuck at home in Martin’s old room while he went off to Melbourne. During that time he was well outside my telepathic range, so for information about his time there, I have had to rely on what he told me later — although I did also get a few updates from a gargoyle on the wall of one of Melbourne’s older churches. Gargoyles, it turns out, are inveterate gossips!
Anyway, my human arrived at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport, where he was met straight off the plane by an older MSC student who had been posted to look out for him. Along with another first year student who had just arrived from Sydney, he was taken to a car and then driven out to the Sacred Heart Monastery at Croydon on Melbourne’s eastern fringe.
There my human’s anxiety was somewhat reduced when he saw a familiar face: Fr Terry Naughton, who was in charge of the pre-novitiate students, had been headmaster of the Daramalan primary school while Martin was there.
There were twelve young men, including Martin, joining the MSC’s that year. This was a very good turnout for that time period, in the middle of the post-Vatican II “vocations shortage”. At 19 years old, my human was one of the youngest of the group.
The group included Gerard, a former teacher from Sydney. He loaned Martin a cassette tape of the English folk band Steeleye Span, and Martin loved it; this led to a lasting interest in folk music on my owner’s part.
As well as the “newbies”, there were second and third year students staying at the Monastery. For their fourth year, the MSC students usually went to Douglas Park in New South Wales for the novitiate, the intense spiritual year that ended with them taking their first vows in the order. After that they would return to Croydon to continue their studies, and there were quite a few of these “professed” older students there.
Several older, retired or semi-retired, members of the order also lived at the monastery. These included Fr Pat O’Carrigan, an old Irish priest who was a gifted artist; one of his paintings hung in the monastery dining room. There was also one older clerical gentleman who had been a pioneering priest in the Northern Territory missions, but who was now, sadly, in a fairly advanced state of senility. These men were a reminder of the order’s history.
MARTIN: And also of our own mortality, I suppose. There was even a small cemetery on the grounds, with the graves of some MSC priests and brothers who had finished their earthly journey.
FERDINAND: For their first week after their arrival, the new students were sent for a “getting to know you” week at a holiday house owned by the order at Shoreham, beside Port Philip Bay.
MARTIN: That week at Shoreham was terrible; I had really awful homesickness, and I think I told Fr Naughton at one point that this whole thing was a mistake and I wanted to go home! He advised me to hold on for a bit longer, and I did feel better after a while.
FERDINAND: Then they all returned to the Croydon monastery, settled into their rooms, and got ready for their studies.
Classes were held at the Yarra Theological Union in Box Hill. This was an institution set up in the 1970’s by a number of religious orders to combine their resources and train their students together. Besides the MSC’s, the orders included the Franciscans, Dominicans, Passionists, Redemptorists, Discalced Carmelites, Divine Word Missionaries (colloquially known as SVD’s from the letters after their name) and others. Large numbers of nuns, lay people, and stray members of other religious orders (such as a solitary Benedictine from the New Norcia monastery in Western Australia) would also come to classes.
At the monastery, life settled into a routine. The day would start with Mass and then Morning Prayer in the chapel; this in itself was the first hurdle for my human who has never been a morning person!! In his first week of classes, he went down to the shops at Croydon to purchase a much-needed alarm clock, which helped a bit. Even so, mornings were a struggle, and Martin was often known to stagger into the chapel for the last few minutes of Mass!
Breakfast would follow, after which they would pile into a mini-bus to go to YTU for classes.
Fr Peter Malone was the master of studies for the MSC’s, in charge of the young men’s academic training. He also gave a class at YTU called “The Mystery of Christ” which was a very general introduction to theology and the history of Christianity. His brother, Fr Philip Malone, also an MSC priest, had been one of Martin’s teachers at Daramalan.
MARTIN: Peter Malone is also a well-known movie critic and has written several books on the subject. And also, I have to tell you he makes the worst puns in history!
FERDINAND: The other lecturers at YTU included some colorful characters. Among them was a certain Dominican priest who was quite brilliant in the area of philosophy; he used to teach part of the year in Melbourne and part of the year in Rome. He taught first year philosophy and clearly found it difficult at times to come down to the level of his first year students; he had been known to break off in mid lecture and express the wish that he was “back home with a glass of Chivas Regal.”
My human used to write this lecturer’s comments in the margins of his lecture notes. There was a student named John McHugh in this class and for some reason, the lecturer used to pick on him mercilessly. For example: “Take a large, solid object…. Such as John McHugh’s head…” He also once, in exasperation, compared the class as a whole to a row of cabbages.
Although Martin did show some aptitude for philosophy later on, he barely scraped through the first year, and admits that his first essay for that lecturer was “a travesty”, cobbled together at the last minute. In fact, finishing essays in the early hours of the morning would become a regular part of my human’s life over the next few years!
The President of YTU at that time was a Redemptorist who was a fairly well known Australian theologian. He gave a few of the more advanced classes. He was known for certain stock phrases, such as advising his students not to be “intellectual silverfish”, i.e. not to cobble essays together from fragments of other works, and not to be “pious meatheads”, whose hearts were in the right place but had little intellectual grasp of their faith.
MARTIN: There was also a story that somebody wrote an essay for this guy on some abstruse theological problem, and changed his mind on the issue while he was writing the essay. The essay came back to him with a note from the priest saying, “Your last paragraph is a bitter refutation of your first paragraph!” I think I would have kept that essay and framed it!
FERDINAND: Hmmm… My human has developed rather an odd sense of humor, as you may have noticed!
Martin found the studies difficult in the first year – particularly Biblical studies. Another Redemptorist gave classes on the books of the New Testament; he was another notoriously hard marker, and Martin barely scraped through his classes. My human was (in this as in so many other things) a late bloomer and fared much better in his second year.
Classes were generally in the morning, after which they would return to the monastery for lunch. Afternoons were for studying… or sometimes, I am told, an afternoon nap!
Later there was evening prayer in the chapel at 5.45pm, followed by dinner at six. On Saturday mornings the students would do jobs around the monastery. On Sundays there would be a late Mass, sometimes attended by people who lived in the neighborhood. There were regular meetings with the spiritual director, Fr Naughton (both as a group and one on one), and on Friday nights there was usually a more informal get-together in the common room.
MARTIN: Looking back, it was a fairly relaxed atmosphere – except for the tough academic schedule! I do wonder now whether something a bit more rigorous might have been better, to “separate the men from the boys”.
FERDINAND: There was one other major aspect of their training, namely “pastoral work”, some sort of active work where they helped people. This was to get them dealing with people and learning how to help them or minister to them.
In 1982 the monastery opened, for the first time, a refuge for homeless youth in the basement of the enormous building. A couple of homeless and unemployed guys were given accommodation in the basement (which did have plenty of space and light, I hasten to add) and Martin was one of the guys scheduled to keep an eye on them a couple of nights a week – and also, occasionally, during the day.
The refuge was mostly trouble free. However, during one daytime shift, Martin walked in to find one of the fellows tangled up on the couch with a young lady, and my human, who always finds difficulty asserting himself, had to tell them this was against the rules. Martin said afterwards that he felt as if he was in a scene from a movie, arguing with the guy while the girl sat on the couch, ostentatiously reading a magazine.
There was more serious drama later when one of the other lads from the refuge attempted to commit suicide by cutting his wrists and was taken to hospital. Fortunately he recovered, left the refuge and got a job later on; my human was really pleased to see this positive outcome.
The MSC’s had (and still have) “associates”, lay people who were committed to living the MSC spirituality and helped the order out in various ways (along the same lines as the Franciscan and Dominican “Third Orders”). Each year the students would put on a play as a way of thanking and entertaining the associates and their other supporters. In Martin’s first year they put on Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. Martin had a small part as an assistant in a TV studio, in the scene where the two old comedians do a sketch on television. So my human ended up on the stage again!
You could probably say Martin muddled through his first year. As we’ve said, he found the studies difficult; his general lack of organization, and his tendency to leave things until the last minute, certainly didn’t help!
He enjoyed the comradeship of his fellow students, and the feeling of being part of something that was much larger than himself. While saying Morning and Evening prayer, he enjoyed the thought that priests and brothers and nuns around the world were saying the same prayers.
However, celibacy— or, to be more exact, Martin’s guilt at having the occasional (or more than occasional!) sexual thought was a problem. One morning he woke up in his room (they did all have their own rooms; they didn’t sleep in dormitories like the medieval monks, thank goodness) to find he had stained his sheets having a “wet dream” and, in a classic attack of Catholic guilt, he tried to burn the sheets, putting them in the incinerator.
MARTIN: Yeah… Ahem, very embarrassing.
On a lighter note — student priests or not, we weren’t above playing tricks on each other. I remember one night a lot of us watched The Exorcist on television (I can only assume most of the priests were out – I’m sure they wouldn’t have let us watch it usually!). One of the other first year students, a guy named Paul, was obviously getting very scared and freaked out. So when the movie ended one of the second year students ran up to Paul’s room and hid in his cupboard. When Paul came back to his room, the other guy jumped out at him. We heard Paul’s scream echoing throughout the whole monastery!
FERDINAND: Charming! By the end of the year Martin was feeling quite stressed, and beginning to wonder if he could cope with another year of that life. He went back home to his parents in Queensland for the usual annual holiday. He watched the movie ET during that time, which helped to take his mind off things (ironically, he felt that ET’s glowing heart in some scenes reminded him of images of the Sacred Heart!). Although he felt quite unhappy and uncertain, he returned to Croydon for the second year.
By this time, the 1982 group of twelve (the “Dirty Dozen”, as some people called them) had been reduced to four: Martin, Gerard, and two others, Chris and Brian. Several of the older professed and non-professed students had also left, and there was a much smaller group of new first year students. So the previously full monastery was starting to look a bit empty.
Things definitely became harder for Martin as the second year progressed. The studies became more difficult and a lot of the time he felt he was barely coping. He was given a different pastoral work assignment: visiting Ozanam House, a place for homeless men and particularly alcoholics, in North Melbourne. He would go there once a week to help serve the meals, and talk to any of the men who wanted to chat. Martin would go into the city by train, up to North Melbourne by tram, and back again when he was finished.
MARTIN: That could be enjoyable at times, especially if the guys wanted to talk. Heck of a long trip on public transport, though.
FERDINAND: Other issues also made the second year difficult. The cooking situation had become a problem. In 1982, the standard of the food had been excellent, but in ‘83, a brother was put in charge of the kitchen that did not want the job, and he made no secret of it. The community suffered as a result, as he generally put in the minimum of effort. Legend had it that even the monastery dogs refused to eat some of his creations.
Obviously this had an effect on morale. Napoleon Bonaparte once said that an army marches on its stomach; Martin now feels that religious communities do as well!
Martin turned 21 years old during 1983, and the monastery did put on a special meal. The troublesome brother was given a lot of assistance in the kitchen, and the results were spectacular. Martin’s parents had come down to join him for the occasion, and Fr Terry Naughton gave a speech, reminiscing about how they first met at Daramalan.
MARTIN: That was a happy occasion, in what was otherwise a pretty difficult year!
FERDINAND: Martin again took part in the annual play for the associates. This time it was a play by Noel Coward. Martin played a female character, and apparently, there is a photograph of him in “drag”.
MARTIN: You promised not to mention that!
FERDINAND: And there was another embarrassing experience later that year, when he was caught by the start of Daylight Saving Time, and went down to the chapel an hour after everyone else.
During this year, my human attained his greatest proficiency as a bass player. He had bought a bass guitar at home in Queensland, and played it in the chapel a couple of times, most notably when one of the older students was ordained deacon by one of the auxiliary bishops of Melbourne. Afterwards one of the priests had a word with Martin for having a preparatory “twang” while the bishop was talking!
MARTIN: Oops! Anyway, I have to say that after leaving the MSC’s I pretty much gave up on my musical ambitions. I regret that now.
FERDINAND: In this, his second year of studies, Martin was able to move to a larger room in the monastery. He tried to brighten his new room up by, among other things, buying a fantasy-themed poster, which showed a strange vessel being towed across the sea by two creatures resembling sea serpents. When Fr Malone, the master of studies, visited his room one day, he looked at this poster and said darkly, “Both Freud and Jung would have something to say about that!”
As 1983 progressed, my human was feeling increasingly stressed. He often felt that there weren’t enough hours in the day do everything, and he was also uncertain about his own future, especially the next year.
MARTIN: And I had nightmares, probably reflecting my anxiety. One night I dreamed that the monster from the first Alien movie chased me all round the monastery and out into the cloister!
FERDINAND: Nice! It also didn’t help that there was a definite decline in morale in that second year, due to people leaving, the cooking situation, and probably other factors as well.
In their third year, the MSC students were supposed to do a year’s work in a school or parish, before doing the novitiate in their fourth year. Martin did not really feel ready for this, and clearly Fr Naughton felt the same way; one day he called Martin into his office and gently suggested that he leave at least temporarily at the end of the year, and see how he felt after a year off. Martin was certainly disappointed, but understood why this was happening, and so he prepared to leave.
MARTIN: At some stage during 1983 I had a couple of interviews with a nun who was a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist. Towards the end of the process this lady said she felt that I had an anxiety problem. That actually came as quite a shock to me. I just thought that the way I felt most of the time was normal! It took me quite a few more years to understand the bad effects of anxiety in my life. And, to be honest, I still need to be careful about stress, though I have (hopefully) become better at dealing with it over the years.
FERDINAND: Martin stayed at the Croydon monastery until classes finished at the end of 1983, and then he left to begin still another chapter in his life. So… How do you feel looking back on your time with the MSC’s, Martin?
MARTIN: Oh, you’re really enjoying this amateur psychologist thing, aren’t you?
FERDINAND: I’m just trying to help!
MARTIN: Okay… To answer your question, I would like to think there was (and still is) a real desire in me to get to know God (or the divine, or whatever you want to call it) and to serve it if possible. But of course that does not necessarily entail becoming a priest or monk or whatever. And I now think some other factors entered into my joining the MSC’s that really shouldn’t have.
FERDINAND: Like what?
MARTIN: It’s obvious I’d had a very unstable life until this point, with all the moves from country to country and then within Australia. I now think that in joining a religious order I was seeking some sort of stability — wanting to have my life mapped out for me, and wanting a firm structure.
But the most ironic thing is this: I have realized since then that religious life isn’t a stable lifestyle anyway. An MSC or Jesuit or Dominican might be assigned to a school one year, a parish a few years later, and sent off to the missions a few years after that! The only real exceptions are monks, like the Benedictines or Cistercians, who are committed to staying in one monastery for life. In real terms belonging to most religious orders is not a stable existence at all — you don’t get the chance to put down roots in one place for very long. So staying with the MSC’s would have seen a continuation of my nomadic existence anyway!
There was also the simple desire to do something with my life and escape what seemed to be a fairly meaningless existence on the Gold Coast. Perhaps there was also an unconscious desire to please my adoptive parents, who would have been delighted to have a priest for a son… although, to be fair, I must say they never criticized me for leaving the MSC’s.
And also — we’ve already mentioned this — the fact that I had no girlfriend and saw no likelihood of getting married or anything like that. So there were undoubtedly more wrong reasons than right ones for me trying out for the priesthood.
FERDINAND: Actually, this might be a good moment to share some of your thoughts on celibacy.
MARTIN: Certainly. I feel strongly that the “Latin Rite”, which is most of the Catholic Church, can and should rethink the celibacy rule for priests. I have to point out that priests in the Ukrainian Rite (which is in union with Rome and is not just limited to the Ukraine) can get married; and also in the 1980’s Pope John Paul II introduced a rule (known as the “Pastoral Provisions”) whereby Anglican clergy who converted to Catholicism could become Catholic priests and still keep their wives, and even retain some aspects of Anglican worship. Later, Pope Benedict XVI expanded on this, creating more permanent structures called “Anglican Use Ordinariates” or “Personal Ordinariates” for these priests.
But, that being said, I feel strongly that a priest who has made a commitment to celibacy should keep that commitment. And as for priests who molest children — the most vulnerable of the people entrusted to their care — well, they most definitely belong in jail, and serious questions also need to be asked of the bishops who protect them. And in fact, in my angrier moments, I sometimes think that such priests should be operated on in such a way that they could never molest anyone sexually again!