German Missionaries in Australia

Intellectual formation

Anton Strele was born on 23 August 1825 at Nassereit (Tyrol), attended the Jesuit gymnasium Innsbruck and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Graz in Styria the day after his 20th birthday in August 1845. He completed his juniorate at Graz and took his first vows in 1847.¹ According to Dalton he began to study rhetoric at Graz but his training was interrupted by 1848 revolution and he completed his studies at Issenheim (near Guebwiller in Alsace), and then studied philosophy and theology at Laval (France), where he was ordained in September 1854. By this time Jesuits had been able to resettle in Austria, and he returned there to teach at the Jesuit colleges of Mariaschein (now Bohosudov in the Czech Republic), Linz and Kalksburg (near Vienna) from 1856 to 1866. ² During this period he also completed his tertianship year at Baumgartenberg (1858-1859) and took his eternal vows in August 1862.

Sevenhill

Strele arrived in Australia from London in April 1867 and undertook pastoral work while filling a range of offices at the Sevenhill Jesuit college, where he taught rhetoric, philosophy and theology. He became master of novices, superior of the South Australian mission (1870 - 1873), rector of the college (October 1877 - ca. 1883) and mission superior again (October 1880- 1882).³ In later years his former pupils honoured him with a golden chalice inscribed 'Optimo Rectori'.⁴ As superior he oversaw the building of the St. Aloysius church, a residence at Georgetown and the settling of a Polish migrant group at Hill River. ⁵ In the 1860s Sevenhill Jesuit parish priests were covering a vast area of South Australia as far north as Port Pirie and Port Augusta. In expansionist mode, the Sevenhill priests were planning to commence an Aboriginal mission along the model of the Reductions in Paraguay, and Strele embraced this aspiration, but could not obtain permission from the Society of Jesus for another fifteen years (see The Jesuits in the Northern Territory.)

Rapid Creek Mission

When approval was obtained for a northern mission Fr. Strele (age 57) was appointed as vicar general of the Darwin diocese and superior of the northern mission (1882 -1890) and collected £1,200 for the new venture.⁶ His spearhead party, consisting of himself, Fr. Johann Evangelist Neubauer, his former student Fr. John O’Brien and Br. Georg Eberhard, arrived in Port Darwin on 24 September 1882 and commenced a mission at Rapid Creek. Strele determined that it was preferable to acquire and teach in the local language rather than in English, not least in order to close the door on Protestant ministers'.⁷ In 1884 Fr. Strele went to Adelaide to arrange a further lease to make garden plots available for the 'Reduction'.⁸ This was denied because the Rapid Creek Site was too close to Darwin. ⁹ The first solemn baptism of 14 children at Rapid Creek took place surprisingly soon, on 24 August 1885.

Fundraising

With this good news Strele presented a glowing report to the plenary council of the Church of Australasia in Sydney in 1885. He was planning a new mission station on the Daly River and used his southern visit to arrange a lease and raise more funds. However this time the southern Catholics were less supportive and Strele encountered some flat refusals for permission to collect. Fr. Duncan McNab had recently undertaken fundraising for a northern mission, and Strele found that there was so much collecting going on in the colonies that there now were 'experts' offering advice. Cardinal Moran forestalled Strele's attempts at private collection with a resolution at the plenary council that a general annual mission collection would be held.¹⁰ (Their share of this annual collection in 1898 was £70.¹¹)

This was so disappointing that Strele left for Europe and America in May 1887.¹² His Superior General tried to stop him from 'begging in America', but 'God arranged that the .... letter should not arrive'. Not having received an instruction to the contrary from his General through this divine intervention, Strele left for San Francisco, where, alas 'they need everything for the immigrants' and had nothing to spare. Undeterred, he 'collected house to house' among the German and Polish migrant communities, and found a Tyrolean family who donated $1,000 on the condition that a church should be dedicated to the Holy Rosary. This indeed was already the name of the Daly River mission station, and with a camera donated by mission friends in Sydney, Strele was later able to send a photograph of the Holy Rosary church at Old Unyia to the American benefactors.¹³ Strele then visited Europe, where he also found a generous benefactor, and returned to Darwin after 22 months' absence in February 1889.¹⁴

Administrator Apostolic of the Darwin diocese

While Fr. Strele was still in Europe reporting on the Australian situation to raise funds, Dr. Salvado gave up his title as Bishop of Port Victoria-Palmerston and in August 1888 Strele was elevated to Administrator Apostolic (usually a precursor to being erected as Bishop). Strele returned to Darwin with four new staff, bringing the number of Jesuits to fifteen, and a third mission station was opened at Serpentine Lagoon (Sacred Heart station).

On his return to Darwin in February 1889 Fr. Strele commissioned the Stella Maris church in Smith Street seating forty (which is not the current church by the same name, Our Lady Star of the Sea). He revealed that this was funded by 'a pious lady in Prague' (not from the subscriptions raised for the mission). A residence was added, which Fr. Strele occupied with Brother Eberhard as housekeeper and cook. Strele also acquired properties along the Pine Creek railway line in an effort to extend the pastoral care of the diocese.

On his visitations to the missions Fr. Strele inspected their diaries, inserting his 'Vide' below the most recent entry. His comments were sometimes chilling and show no trace of compassion for the distress and privations of the missionaries. Strong SJ describes him as 'a man of intense zeal, great personal holiness and tireless activity'¹⁵, but not as a good administrator of money or people. Strele had been in Adelaide in 1884, in Sydney in 1885, fundraising in the south in 1886-1887, and overseas for almost two years from 1887 to 1889. The missionaries on the Daly River reflected that in the last ten years their mission superior had been absent three times for a year or more¹⁶ and there was a general feeling that the mission was leaderless and mismanaged.

By the end of 1890 Strele's health 'was irretrievably broken'¹⁷ and the financial affairs of the mission went into free-fall. In September 1891 the three mission stations were amalgamated at a new site (New Uniya). Rapid Creek mission was closed, so the government withdrew its subsidy, and in 1892 the mission was bankrupt, residents were starving, and the missionaries were begging for help. Taking matters into their own hand they sent appeals for support to the Ludwigs-Verein in Munich and to the Messenger at Innsbruck in April 1892 and eagerly awaited a response.

Strele's withdrawal from the north

It appears that Strele was at this time incapable of responding to this emergency. In April 1892 the mission diary records that 'a residence has been founded at Palmerston with Fr. O'Brien as superior', so presumably Strele was no longer administering the mission. The South Australian Jesuit superior, Fr. Anthony Reschauer undertook an official visitation (June-August 1892), arriving at the mission just as the mission diarist noted 'there is not a penny in the house'.¹⁸ Reschauer withdrew Fr. Strele, now age 67, and Br. Georg Eberhard as well as Fr. Stephen Marschner, and the Jesuits expected that 'the Residence at Palmerston will probably be closed'.¹⁹ When Fr. Strele left Darwin in October 1892 there was no grand farewell. He left without giving up his position as apostolic administrator, so Fr. John O'Brien occasionally visited Darwin acting in locum tenens. This weakened the Jesuit hold over the diocese.

In 1895 another debacle unfolded and the future of the northern mission was hanging in the balance (see Jesuits in the Northern Territory - Institutional discipline). Cardinal Patrick Moran requested a history of the mission for consideration by the plenary council. ²⁰ Fr. Strele's history, which referred to Moran as 'the Prince of the Church', was focused on the strategic considerations leading to the foundation of the mission, such as the need to forestall Protestant claims on the territory covered by the Darwin diocese. Strele attended the Plenary Council in Sydney in November 1895 where Fr. Adolf Kristen also presented a paper to demonstrate the scholarly progress made on the Malak-Malak language, both seeking to argue for a continuation of the Jesuit mission.

The following month Fr. Strele's health began to decline even further. He died at Sevenhill at age 72 and was interred in the crypt under St. Aloysius church in Sevenhill.²¹ Two months later the diocese was devolved to Geraldton Bishop William Bernard Kelly DD and was lost to the Jesuits, who battled on in the mission until 1899. Dennett JS described the northern missions as 'a valiant and inspiring failure which was not so very far from being a triumphant success'.²²

Brief biographies of the other German speaking staff in the northern Jesuit missions are at Jesuits in the Northern Territory - Jesuit staff in the Northern Territory missions