Archbishop of Sydney

150th Anniversary of the Foundation of the College of St. John the Evangelist within the University of Sydney

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
John 10:1-10

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
13/4/2008

The Gospel according to John presents us at this Mass with the image of the sheepfold, and the gate to the sheepfold is Jesus Christ himself.

"Anyone who enters through me", Jesus says, "will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture". (Jn 10.9)

And we hear in this Gospel another word from Jesus: "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full". (Jn 10.10)

It is especially fitting that we should hear a passage from St. John’s Gospel at this Mass to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the College of St. John the Evangelist within the University of Sydney.

It’s fitting, too, that this passage speaks of a flock gathered together in a sheepfold from where, provided they pass in and out of it through Christ, they will be sure of finding “good pasture”.

For why does St. John’s College exist if not in order to help its members to find the sweetest and most satisfying of pastures, or, as Jesus described it, “to have life to the full”? People come to a university to pursue knowledge – at least we hope they do, and we hope that gaining knowledge will not only be a good thing in itself, good for the student’s own personal and spiritual growth, but that it will be a benefit to human society, that it will contribute to advancement and progress.

Back in 1850’s Sydney, the complex interplay of religious tribal loyalties, politics, and the “Irish Question”, might have obscured some of the higher motives behind encouraging young Catholics to pursue an education at the newly-founded University of Sydney. Knowledge for its own sake is all very well, but St. John’s College was to be a place where Catholics could receive the education needed for Catholics to exercise influence on the public affairs of the emerging colony of New South Wales, now the jewel in the crown which is the Commonwealth of Australia.

The founding Archbishop, Dr. Polding, wrote in these terms in 1857 to the faithful of the Archdiocese about the potential benefits of Catholics attending the University:

"It may be the means of incalculable benefit. If any one indulges in visions of worldly ambition and is smitten with what are in truth the marvellous capacities and prospects of this country; let him reflect, that those capacities can be wielded, and those prospects realized, only then, when by means of such training as Universities can give, the land shall supply its native race of priests and statesmen, of lawyers and physicians, of soldiers, and sailors, and artists."

Polding’s language is cast in the idiom of the Victorian era, but there is a wisdom there, and a sense of vision, which readily speaks to us today. Higher education is still the key to actualize the potential within our young people, our nation, our society and culture. Knowledge, enlightened by faith in Christ who is Wisdom Incarnate, ennobles the men and women who strive for it. This was and is a high ideal, a soaring, inspiring prospect for St. John’s College to make real.

At the same time that we extol the virtues of higher learning, however, we need to recognise that those who seek knowledge, those who study at university, are only human, usually in the younger and less experienced part of life, and as such are subject to all kinds of pressures, influences and emotions as they live their student lives. These hostile pressures from drugs, alcohol and pan-sexualism have increased, and the confusion about self-imposed limits and where they should be placed is probably deeper than it ever was.

Not only are undergraduates subject to the pressures of academic timetables, but they are often a long way from home, separated from the previous support-systems of family, friends and mentors, and encountering new ideas, new people, new problems, new choices. As a Catholic College, a significant part of the reason why St. John’s was founded and continues to exist is to help protect and indeed enhance the spiritual and moral dimension of life. The second Rector of St. John’s, the Rev. Dr. John Forrest, sent a notice to the Catholic clergy and laity around the colony, assuring them that St. John’s would provide for their sons a suitable residence in which their religious education would have its proper place, a place where “their morals would be protected from the corruption and vice inseparable from a large city”.

I don’t know that Dr. Forrest or his successors down to the present time could claim 100 percent success in that endeavour, but surely it would be a breach of trust between the College and its students, and indeed between the College and the wider Catholic community, if we were to give up trying to help our bright young students to grow and blossom as women and men who are intellectually, spiritually and humanly mature.

The venerable denominational Colleges which guard the University campus on three sides are testimony to a similar conviction by their diverse founders that the pursuit of knowledge will be a richer and more rewarding experience when supported by a framework of collegial life, with its elements of faith, friendship, sportsmanship and mentorship.

Like most other institutions it has to be admitted that our St. John’s College does not always achieve the heights and loftiness it should.

The original soaring tower above the main doors, “the gate to the sheepfold”, planned by William Wardell as a clear statement of the College’s orientation to the source of all wisdom, was in practice reduced to the abbreviated form that we know as the “Freehill Tower.” That tower is grand, and is a fine monument to the generosity of Countess Eileen Freehill in memory of one of the College’s early students and Fellows, but it is not the elated upward-reaching noble pile that was first envisaged. One would not want the reduced height of that tower to be in any way emblematic of a reduced faith and commitment by those who live in its shadow – any more than one would want the reduced height of the central tower of this cathedral, also designed by William Wardell and also a victim of thrift – to be emblematic of a reduced faith and commitment by those who live in Cathedral House.

But the curtailed tower of the College may certainly be considered emblematic of the fact that there are things which sometimes do not go as planned, that we do not in fact live in an ideal world, and that the foundation of St. John’s was an audacious enterprise which struggled for a long time to prove itself viable. The number of students was only in the 20s and 30s for many years and while Lindhurst was something of a rival, the basic problem was that most Australians then where not interested in higher education. The challenge of viability in the changed reality of universities today remains, but the new facilities being planned for the College have, we all hope and pray, the capacity to enhance that viability, and indeed to enable St. John’s to be even more effective in achieving its goals. The challenge is for St. John’s to be not only a bigger “sheepfold”, but also one which has Christ ever more integrally as its “gate”.

If the consciously secular nature of the University of Sydney, present since its foundation, should be allowed to have the effect of “quarantining” the academy from religious faith and the search for truth then all of us, not least the academics, would be diminished. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote recently, in the address that he was scheduled to deliver in January at the University of Rome “La Sapienzia”:-

". . . . if reason, out of concern for its alleged purity, becomes deaf to the great message that comes to it from Christian faith and wisdom, then it withers like a tree whose roots can no longer reach the waters that give it life. It loses the courage for truth and thus becomes not greater but smaller."

The presence of the Catholic Colleges within the University of Sydney, and the mutually respectful way in which the bodies corporate of University and College are able to co-operate, in fact help to make the University more truly a university, whose roots can still draw water from the faith and wisdom which enabled it to be planted. That St. John’s College, through its members has been helping to water those roots for 150 years is something for which to be very grateful. Across those 150 years members of St. John’s – including many of you here this afternoon – have made valuable contributions to the life of our nation, our culture, our community. I thank in particular all members of the Council over those years, the long succession of rectors, especially the present rector Dr. David Daintree, a true university man, strong in the faith, who has done a fine job. All the friends of St. John's College need to work to provide foundations adequate for the next 150 years so the College continues to nurture those who seek knowledge and wisdom, giving them the capacity to contribute more and more to the community.

The college's heraldic motto – Nisi Dominus frustra – reminds us, that without the Lord all our efforts will be in vain; without him, we might gain knowledge but we cannot find wisdom; we can have life but not have it "to the full". Jesus Christ is the "gate" to the "sheepfold": if, in the search for knowledge and truth, we pass through Him, we will indeed be sure of finding pasture. May all who go in and out of St. John’s College in its next 150 years be blessed by Christ, the Gate, through whom is found freedom and the fullness of life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.