By Brian Coman
Most people assume that the name Australia, assigned to the island continent by European explorers, is simply a modified and shortened form of terra australis incognita – ‘the unknown south land’. This Latin title is often seen on ancient maps and dates back to antiquity. Some say that the Greeks postulated the existence of a great land mass in the south to ‘balance’ the land mass of the northern hemisphere. But australis is not the same as Australia, so why the difference?
In fact, the name Australia almost certainly has its origins with the Portuguese explorer Captain Pedro Fernando de Quiros, who had sailed in search of the ‘great south land’ in 1606. Unlike most other explorers and adventurers of that era, de Quiros was motivated almost entirely by spiritual concerns – saving the souls of those who lived in lands where the Christian message had not hitherto been received. These natives in the south, he said, were not savages, but our brothers and sisters who stood in need of the saving message of Christianity.
Captain Quiros was in the employ of the Spanish monarch and set sail in late 1605 to discover this fabled south land and claim it for Christ. The names of his three ships gives some indications of his religious zeal. The first ship was the San Pedro y Pablo (St Peter and Paul), the second the San Pedro, and the third, Tres Reyes Mayos (the Three Magi). Quiros had carved heads of the saints on the prow of each ship, ensuring that wherever they sailed, the saints would be leading them! The captain of the Tres Reyes Mayos was Fernando Torres, the first European (as far as we know) to sail that stretch of water which now bears his name.
Most history books will tell you that de Quiros did not reach that continent we now call Australia but rather, had landed on the largest of those islands we now know (collectively) as Vanuatu (formerly, the New Hebrides). One historian begs to differ and that historian was none other than Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, the very same Cardinal who formally blessed and opened our Sacred Heart Cathedral in Bendigo in 1901.
As an historian, Moran was no slouch. He produced the first real history of the Catholic Church in Australia and was well regarded by his peer historians. However, when he wrote a paper (delivered to the Historical Society of NSW) claiming that de Quiros had landed at or near Port Curtis (now Gladstone in Queensland) it was ‘a bridge too far’, and most of his non-Catholic colleagues dismissed the idea out of hand. But the Cardinal was undeterred and even published his claims in a small pamphlet put out by the Australian Catholic Truth Society (ACTS). Older readers will well remember these ACTS pamphlets, usually housed in racks in the narthex or portico of the local church. From my own memory they were priced at something like threepence or sixpence. Even so, they were not big sellers and I can remember brown and curled pages, long held in their little niches of wood.
I will return to the Cardinal’s claim a little later but would first like to give a little more information on de Quiros and his discovery. When he made landfall on what he thought was the shores of the Great South Land, his first action was to have a ‘church’ erected (no more than a crude canopy over an altar constructed by Franciscan monks who were part of the expedition) and a wooden cross raised. Then he took possession of all the land, south to the pole, in the name of the Holy Trinity, The Catholic Church, St Francis, St John and, lastly, the Spanish Crown. Included in this solemn dedication was special mention of Our Lady of Loreto, whose shrine in Italy de Quiros had visited prior to his journey. Here it is worth remembering that our own Sacred Heart Cathedral has a special interest in Our Lady of Loreto, with symbols representing the Marian Litany of Loreto on the wall of the Lady Chapel. No less than four Masses were said on that day in 1606 and it was altogether a most solemn occasion.
De Quiros named the new land Austrialia del Espiritu Santo (to this day, the main island in Vanuatu is called Espiritu Santo or just ‘Santo’). The name ‘Austrialia’ was chosen because it refers to ‘The House of Austria’ from which came the Hapsburg monarch of Spain, Phillip III. This was later mistakenly rendered as ‘Australia’ and when Matthew Flinders produced his charts, he suggested this as a more suitable alternative to ‘New Holland’ or ‘Terra Australis’. Even so. The name did not achieve full recognition until 1830 with the publication of The Australia Directory in England.
For all his undoubted skills as a sailor and navigator, de Quiros had little knowledge of human psychology. He had supposed that the natives of the new land would welcome him and immediately embrace the Faith. Not surprisingly, they regarded the new arrivals as intruders and actively tried to repel them. This was the first problem. The second problem concerned his own men. Although greatly moved by the religious ceremonies associated with their landing, many of the crew of the three ships soon became somewhat disillusioned with the whole business and de Quiros was not good at public relations in the secular realm. Eventually the whole enterprise fizzled out and the ships left for home. There is some possibility of a mutiny, but we shall never know. We know only that de Quiros was forced to leave and was never to return. This is despite his many later attempts to raise money for a further expedition.
One of the best-known scholars of the Spanish expeditions into the South Pacific is Celsus Kelly (1900 – 1975). He was born in Shepparton, and we can rightly claim him as having come from our Diocese. He later became a Franciscan monk and devoted many years to researching the role of the Franciscans in these early exploratory journeys. He was the first to translate the journal of one of the monks associated with the expedition of de Quiros and is an acknowledged expert in the field of European exploration of the South Pacific.
And now, back to Cardinal Moran. His claim that de Quiros had landed on the Queensland coast is not altogether without substance. I cannot here recount all of the arguments but suffice to say that many of the descriptions given by de Quiros seem to fit poorly with the geography of Vanuatu but fit much better with the coast around Gladstone. However, there are problems. The descriptions of the native inhabitants and their common foods fit poorly with the Australian Aborigines but much better with the South Sea Islanders. Moran’s argument here is that de Quiros was referring to the natives in toto – that is to say, of all the people he had encountered during the voyage south. It is not a particularly convincing argument. Modern day historians reject the claims made by Cardinal Moran but the truth is that we will probably never know for certain if his claims are true. Perhaps we should leave the last word to Patrick O’Farrell (History of the Catholic Church and Community in Australia):
It was no mere antiquarianism which led Cardinal Moran to assert … that Australia was first discovered … by de Quirós. De Quirós had made his voyages into unknown seas in the belief that he had been chosen by God to discover ‘terra australis’, … and to bring its inhabitants into the true church under the patronage of the Holy Spirit. Moran saw himself, and his Irish church, following in the wake of that holy voyage, with the same vast missionary hopes to capture a new world for Christ’.
We might reflect that our own Diocese formed part of that missionary hope.
There is one final connection to our Diocese worth noting. In many of our Parish churches, some of the older and more popular hymns chosen are from the pen of James MacAuley (1917-1976). He was an Australian poet and a convert to Catholicism. He wrote a very long poem called Captain Quiros, now rarely quoted but eminently worth reading. Here is a snippet:
Terra Australis, heartland of the South,
In the Great Lauds your myriad creatures raise
May there never be wanting the singer's mouth
To give words to that canticle of praise
Which from all beings pours forth to the Spirit.
And from our broken toil may you inherit
A vision to transform your latter days.
A suitable reflection in the spirit of Laudato Si'.
Online resources
For those interested in pursuing this matter further, here are some online resources:
