There have been five Diocesan Synods in Sandhurst (1881, 1888, 1893, 1901 and 1948). The first, at St Kilian’s Pro-Cathedral, Bendigo was held to “frame laws for the good government of the Diocese”, and to “define the relationship that should exist between the bishop and his clergy, and again between the clergy and the people committed to their care.”
Clergy arrived on the evening of Monday 19 September and proceedings commenced the following day with “High Pontifical Mass” at 7:30 a.m. After which, according to the Bendigo Advertiser, there were some “very imposing sacred functions”, all spoken in Latin.
Wednesday 21 September, the second day of the Synod, was also the seventh anniversary of Bishop Crane’s installation as the Bishop of Sandhurst. In his Homily at morning Mass, Fr Cahill SJ conjured the words of St Paul, “Obey your prelates and be subject to them, for they watch as having to render an account of your souls to God.”
After this Mass Bishop Crane “affixed his signature to the decrees passed in the Synod and pronounced it concluded.”
Although written in Latin, the decrees reveal a picture of the colony and concerns of the clergy at the time.
For example, the importance of ensuring Catholic education is available throughout the Diocese is a focus, and Mixed marriages, which were not uncommon in the colonies, were strongly discouraged:
“We exhort in the Lord all the missionaries laboring for the salvation of souls in this diocese, that the faithful who are entrusted to them should endeavor to ward off and fight against mixed marriages, so that the gravest dangers which usually arise from them may be completely avoided.” (The “gravest danger” being the imminent danger of the perversion of the Catholic spouse and peaceful education of the children).
The paternal care of women is glimpsed in the decrees, particularly with relation to permission to marry, and humorously, prescribing the type of woman suitable to work for a priest – mature, modest, polite and religious.
The behaviour of priests was also prescribed - they must abstain from public spectacles, such as “the public running of horses, from noisy hunting with horses and greyhounds, from public games and other such things.”
The language used to describe first nations people is sadly typical of the time, but the clergy were serious about ensuing the safety of Aboriginal people, being sensible, they decided that the care of the local Aboriginals’ souls was best be entrusted to a society or relgious congregation.
"The Fathers took care to read in the Synod the letters of the Sacred Congregation on the Propaganda of the Faith, on securing the eternal safety of the indigenous or wild people who dwell in this region; they came to the conclusion that this work should be entrusted to some society or religious congregation. And so, in order to obtain this end, they decided to provide all assistance with some acuity and effort, so as to respond to the solicitude of the Sacred Congregation, and to bring about the wishes of the Supreme Pontiff to a successful outcome."
