Archbishop of Sydney

Matthew Talbot Hostel

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
7 August 2005

Matthew Talbot was a nineteenth century Irish drunkard.  He was born in Dublin in 1856, the second of twelve children from a deprived family and obtained little to no education.

His excessive drinking began when he was twelve years of age as he started work in a wine bottling business.  His situation soon went from bad to worse, to habitual drunkenness.

At the age of 28 he “took the pledge”, vowing not to drink for the next three months.  He didn’t think he could last that distance, but within a year he had taken the pledge for life and never drank again.

His Catholic faith coupled with regular prayer and meditation helped his recovery as he followed a twelve step rehabilitation programme, very like that now taught so effectively by Alcoholics Anonymous, formulated fifty years after Talbot’s recovery.

His holiness, his wonderful return from the brink were recognised in 1975 when the Catholic Church gave him the title of “venerable”, the patron of addicts.

On last Sunday the hostel in Woolloomooloo named for him was blessed after a $1.6 million refurbishment programme.  While the N.S.W. government contributes $3.7 million to the annual running costs, the rebuilding was financed entirely by gifts to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the lay Catholic society which runs the hostel and has 116 groups of helpers throughout the Sydney archdiocese.  Many people know of them through their network of shops for cheap second-hand clothing, “Vinnies’ Boutiques”. 

Founded in France in the 19th century by an academic layman Frederick Ozanam, they started in Sydney at St. Patrick’s Church in the city in 1881.

The Matthew Talbot Hostel dates from 1938, when Norman Gilroy, then assistant bishop suggested it to the Society.  Today the hostel provides more than a quarter of a million meals a year, while its beds are used nearly 37,000 times a year by homeless men and the 95 professional staff, (some part-time) are helped by 386 volunteers.  In 2003-4 the expenditure was $6,800,000 and income was $6,425,000.

The refurbishments mean that 60% of the men now have their own room and the others have some privacy in an alcove in the dormitories.  Programmes have also been improved and expanded to help the men on the difficult path back to independent living.

Most of these visitors to the hostel are young, many damaged by drugs and 70% have some form of nervous disorder.  The deinstitutionalization of mental patients has not worked.  Many are lost and alone, on the edges of our society, perhaps in gaol.  One important work of charity now is getting them to take their daily medicine which is often necessary for some equilibrium.

Drugs damage people more quickly than alcohol and our good Sydney weather allows a surprising number to sleep on the streets.

Other Christian groups also do a lot for the homeless, but the Matthew Talbot Hostel is a good example of state-church cooperation.