1820 · Sydney, Australia
First Official Catholic Parish Established in Australia
In 1820, Father John Joseph Therry and Father Philip Conolly arrived in Sydney as the first officially appointed Catholic chaplains in Australia, establishing regular parish life for the thousands of Irish Catholic convicts and settlers who had been without priests for decades.
Catholicism came to Australia in chains. The first Catholics to reach the continent were Irish convicts transported to the penal colony at Sydney beginning in 1788. For more than thirty years, they had almost no priests. The colonial government was hostile to Catholicism, and the few priests who did arrive — some of them convicts themselves — were often restricted or expelled. Father James Dixon, an Irish priest transported for his role in the 1798 rebellion, was briefly allowed to say Mass in 1803 before the permission was revoked after a convict uprising. Catholics baptized their own children, prayed the rosary without clergy, and buried their dead without funeral rites. When Fathers Therry and Conolly finally arrived in 1820, they found a Catholic population hungry for the sacraments. Therry threw himself into the work with fierce energy. He celebrated Mass, heard confessions, baptized, married, visited the sick and imprisoned, and began campaigning for a church building. He fought constantly with the colonial authorities, who tried to control when and where he could minister. He was cantankerous, stubborn, and exactly what the situation required. He laid the foundation stone for St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney in 1821. Over the following decades, more priests arrived, parishes were established, and Catholic schools were built. The Irish convict Church gradually became the Australian Catholic Church — the largest religious denomination in the country today, with roughly five million members.
Why it matters
Established organized Catholic parish life in Australia after decades of deprivation, laying the foundation for what would become the largest religious denomination in the country.
What Happened
In 1820, Fathers John Joseph Therry and Philip Conolly arrived in Sydney as the first officially appointed Catholic chaplains in Australia. They served a population of thousands of Irish Catholic convicts and free settlers who had been largely without priests since the colony's founding in 1788. Therry established regular sacramental life, laid the foundation stone of St. Mary's Cathedral in 1821, and fought colonial authorities for the right to minister freely to Catholics throughout the settlement.
Why It Still Matters
Australia's Catholic Church, now the country's largest denomination, grew from these difficult beginnings. The story of Irish convicts keeping their faith alive without priests for decades, then building a Church from nothing, is one of the most striking chapters of modern Catholic history. St. Mary's Cathedral, which began with Therry's foundation stone, still stands as the mother church of Australian Catholicism. The experience also shaped a distinctly Australian Catholic identity — practical, anti-establishment, and deeply attached to the faith that sustained people through hardship.