"Monks, Aborigines and Mega trucks part 2".
One of WA's most unusual architectural sights is New Norcia, a monastic community dating back to the 19th century. This unexpected collection of Spanish inspired buildings in the Australian bush is part if a community founded by Benedictine monks in 1846 with the aim of converting the local Aborigines to Christianity.
With its long and complex history and on the advice of Geraldine (Bunty's historian friend) we sign up for the afternoon tour and along with a handful if others meet Father Chris as directed under the lemon trees.
Father Chris is an Australian Benedictine monk who has lived at New Norcia for over 20 years. He has a cheeky sense of humour and shares his knowledge of this community with humility and honesty not flinching from some if our more challenging questions.
On hearing we are from Devon he tells the group about Buckfast Abbey and how amongst the Benedictine community it is referred to as Fast Buck Abbey as it is so successful at bringing in the bucks!
Whilst the original monastery was founded to convert Aboriginals to Christianity the first Abbot had his own vision as to how to do this. He worked along side the local people respecting their own culture and traditions. He started building little dwellings for them and set up a school for the children. He understood that they were a nomadic people and accepted that at times they lived in the buildings and worked on the farm but at other times they went wandering.
Florence Nightingale conducted some research into why indigenous populations around the world under colonial rule were dying prematurely. New Norcia proved to be an exception to the rule with the Aborigines of good health and normal life span. She held this community up as a model for others to aspire to.
All this changed when the Australian government brought in a policy to forcibly remove aboriginal children from their families and move them to boarding schools or orphanages. The aim was to turn these children into educated and integrated members of Australian society. New Norcia received Aboriginal children from all over the district. The monks ran a large boys school and Nuns moved in to run the girls school. The Abbot at the time tried to include local white boys in the school but the farmers would not send them so a separate fee paying boys boarding school was set up for them. At its peak there were 69 monks living here with Nuns, lay people and all the children that was a lot of mouths to feed. The monastery had plenty of bush land which was cultivated to raise sheep, grow crops, fruit and olive trees. There was a flour mill and bakery, a butchery and apiary a dairy, a forge and much more. All these buildings are still here in for the most part empty now with a ghost town kind of feel to them. Some food production remains. The monks bread sells in some of the best restaurants in Perth (just had some for brekkie - delish), their olive oil regularly wins prizes at The Perth Show and the honey and olive wood products sell in the towns shop.
In the 1970's the government decided that family was the most important factor in society and called a halt to it policy of removing these children from their parents. Things changed over night for New Norcia as all these children were sent back to their families. This was a significant period of Australian history reflected here in this little community. As Father Chris told us it was (is) complex. Every year there is an anniversary for all the Aboriginal people that lived in New Norcia and there are still many that come. Some do see there time here as one of giving them an education and thus opportunities that they would not otherwise have had. Others though still believe that the whole experience was abusive and feel deeply scarred by it. This seems to be reflective of the nations mixed feelings about what happened. Interestingly we saw no Aboriginals during our afternoon at New Norcia.
With the closure of the Aboriginal Schools the fee paying school hung on until 1991 when with dwindling numbers of boys and monks it finally closed and all the staff laid off. The Benedictine monks yet again faced a crisis and prayed for a "miracle". This came in the form a prestigious music school who wanted to use the whole town for a summer school. The acoustics in the large monastic buildings are second to none. The summer school proved a great success and they have just celebrated 20 years of coming to New Norcia. Other schools and organisations followed and the monks now run a busy educational community that can cater for residential groups of up to 200 students at a time. Alongside this they have a guesthouse for personal retreats, a large gothic style hotel a camp site and the Road house and shop. They have certainly reinvented themselves providing a slice of peaceful serenity for a modern world.
The upkeep of all these buildings is a big drain on the monastery purse and the current business seems like quite a burden for the remaining 9 monks. On leaving we wished Father Chris well for the future but felt that another miracle will be required for the community to sustain a long term future.