MSC presence at the 1937 Plenary Council: Aboriginal missions in the Diocese of Victoria and Palmerston, NT, 1905 to 1937

From the history and research by Peter Wilkinson, published in The Swag.

Australian-born Bishop William Kelly of Geraldton had asked to be relieved of the administration of the vacant (since 1888) Diocese of Victoria and Palmerston (NT) at the 1905 Plenary Council. He was given this responsibility in 1898 when the Jesuits could no longer support their Aboriginal missions. After the last Jesuit left the diocese in 1902, Kelly stationed one of his priests there for a time, but when he returned to Geraldton the small local Catholic community had to rely on priests passing through.

At the 1885 Plenary Council, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), with charge of the Vicariate Apostolic of Melanesia and Micronesia, had sought and received approval to establish a missionary seminary in Sydney and in 1904, a novitiate at Douglas Park (NSW). In 1906 they established an Australian province and German-born Fr Francis Xavier Gsell MSC was appointed apostolic administrator of the Victoria and Palmerston Diocese (NT). It was intended that he would resume the former Jesuit mission to the Aboriginals at Daly River and expand Catholic ministry in Darwin.

In 1911, the MSC congregation was offered the Pallotine Beagle Bay Mission in the Kimberley Vicariate, but turned it down. Gsell preferred to open a mission to the Aboriginal people on Bathurst Island instead and the same year organised a multinational group of MSC missionaries for the Tiwi Mission. Unlike the Pallotines, Gsell could rely on a good supply of Australian-born missionaries from the Sydney seminary, and were not subjected to the same strict surveillance during the war years.

Gsell’s mission policy on marriage closely followed that of the Jesuits: Aboriginals should not marry Asians, whether Macassans, Japanese or Filipinos. When racial conflict erupted at Caledon Bay in the 1930s, Gsell became fearful for the Tiwi mission. He sought and obtained permission to open new missions at Port Keats (later moved to Wadeye) in the Daly River district in 1935, at Alice Springs (Little Flower Mission, later Santa Teresa Mission) in 1935, and at Tennant Creek (a Pine Creek parish opened in 1907 had languished) in 1936.

Gsell attended the 1937 Plenary Council as Apostolic Administrator of Victoria and Palmerston Diocese.