Archbishop of Sydney

Good Work

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
15/7/2007

Catholic schools come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are rich and famous like Loreto, Kirribilli, Riverview and Joey's (St. Joseph's).  Others are small and little known except to their grateful ex-pupils.  Most are co-ed, but single sex schools continue to thrive, as do a few boarding schools.  They educate one in every five young Australians.  I am proud of these happy, efficient communities.

I have now visited more than three quarters of the 167 Catholic schools in the Sydney archdiocese to demonstrate my support for students, teachers and parents and to show the flag by emphasising the importance of faith and the links with other parts of the Church.  It also helps to see for yourself!

Recently a couple of different Catholic school communities impressed me.

The Berne Education Centre was established by the Marist Brothers in 1998 to cater for secondary students who do not cope in regular schools and generally suffer from emotional or behavioural disorders.  About 40 students are presently enrolled, some from government schools.  Naturally the Catholic system has other centres doing similar work too. 

There is a high ratio of staff, mostly lay people, led by Brother Michael Flanagan, who has been in charge since the Centre was founded.

Many of the ex-students have done well, going to apprenticeships and traineeships, while some return to regular schools to complete their H.S.C.  One ex-student had missed most of Year 9 with depression, but responded well to the Year 10 Berne programme, and is now at Sydney University.

Not every story ends so happily but parents of students are grateful for the Centre. 

A quite different school is the Catholic Intensive English Centre, which prepares migrant secondary students, often refugees, to study in the English language.  The sixty students come from countries ranging from China and Korea, through Brazil and Tonga to Sudan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Liberia. 

They looked smart and proud in their different school uniforms as their spokespersons, a senior boy and girl, welcomed me courteously in effective English.

Later I sat down with a group of senior secondary lads from Africa, who had prepared a small booklet detailing in their own words something of their sufferings.  Their stories are different, but nearly always terrible.  They have fled for their lives, lived in camps, and run wild for years with almost no schooling.  They have witnessed murder and bloodshed, come to trust no one and sometimes still do not know whether one parent, or both, is dead or alive.

As well as learning English, teachers encourage them to recognize their grief and anger, develop trust and patience for the difficult task of beginning to learn many things, such as how to shop, budget and travel on a train.

Australia takes a high percentage of refugees in our migrant intake and we should be proud of the second chance we give these fine young men and women.