An analysis of recruitment literature used by orders of Catholic religious teaching brothers in Australia, 1930 to 1960: a social semiotic analysis

Abstract

The general focus of this paper is on religious teaching brothers, a very much neglected group within the body of historical scholarship on Catholic education generally. Notwithstanding the existence of an extensive body of literature of a hagiographic nature – much of it commissioned by male religious orders – as well as a small number of academic theses, brothers occupy a field wide open for research on many fronts, internationally and using a wide variety of research approaches. The paper concentrates on a particularly neglected area: the recruitment practices of the orders. It does so in relation to the situation in Australia from 1930 to 1960. First, the broad background to the work of Catholic religious teaching brothers from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century is considered. This is followed by a general overview of three of the four principal ways in which the orders sought new recruits: through the influence of the Church on the Catholic home, through the work of the Catholic school, and through the efforts of special recruiting agents. The paper then moves to the central area of concern – namely, a social semiotic analysis of the special recruitment literature produced by the religious orders and used by them in Australia from the 1930s to the early 1960s. The analysis draws on an analytic approach based on a theory of social semiotics. What the analysis reveals is the sets of practices and textual mechanisms through which the orders enticed young men to join their ranks.

Keywords:

• religious teaching brothers
• recruitment
• Catholic
• Australia

Notes

¹Patricia Wittberg, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 53.

²Ibid.fd

³Eric O. Hanson, The Catholic Church in World Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 34.

⁴Edmund M. Hogan, The Irish Missionary Movement: A Historical Survey, 1830–1980 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992), 55–61.

⁵See Thomas O’Donoghue, Upholding the Faith: The Process of Education in Catholic Schools in Australia, 1922–65 (New York: Peter Lang, 2001).

⁶Ronald Fogarty, Catholic Education in Australia: 1806–1950 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1959), 257–303.

⁷See Thomas O’Donoghue, Upholding the Faith, 22–7.

⁸Pope Pius XII, Sacra Virginitas: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on Consecrated Virginity, March 25, 1954, http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12SACRA.HTM.

⁹Osmund Thorpe, Ecclesiastical Vocations (Sydney: Pellegrini, 1944), 40.

¹⁰This theme for the New Zealand context runs through Jim Sullivan, Catholic Boys (Auckland: Penguin Books, 1996).

¹¹Thorpe, Ecclesiastical Vocations, 36.

¹²Ibid.

¹³Ibid.

¹⁴Ibid., 19.

¹⁵See Congregation of the New Zealand Dominican Sisters, Constitutions (Auckland: Dominican Sisters, 1933), 34.

¹⁶Julian Morris, Moon in My Pocket (Sydney: Australasian Publishing Co. Ltd., 1945), 20.

¹⁷Ibid.

¹⁸Marist Brothers of the Schools, Common Rules of the Institute of the Marist Brothers of the Schools (1947), 68.

¹⁹Ibid.

²⁰Ibid., 328.

²¹Patrick Connole, “Strathfield Revisited: A Look at Recruiting,” Educational Record 36, no. 2 (1963): 69.

²²Ibid.

²³Morris, Moon in My Pocket, 18.

²⁴. John Redrup, Banished Camelots: Recollections of a Catholic Childhood. A Celebration and a Requiem (Sydney: Bookpress, 1997), 227.

²⁵Chris Geraghty, Cassocks in the Wilderness: Remembering the Seminary at Springwood (Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 2001), 5.

²⁶Ibid.

²⁷Anne Chapman and Tom O’Donoghue, “The Recruitment of Religious as Teachers: A Case Study from 1960s Australia,” Cambridge Journal of Education 37, no. 4 (2007): 561–77.

²⁸Ibid. See also Tom O’Donoghue and Anne Chapman, “A Social Semiotic Analysis of the Discursive Construction of Teacher Identity in the ‘Book of Rules and Customs’ of the Australian Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” History of Education 40, no. 3 (2011): 391–407.

²⁹Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Routledge, 2002).

³⁰M.A.K. Halliday, Language as Social Semiotic (London: Edward Arnold, 1978).

³³The Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God. Modern Samaritans (Christchurch, New Zealand: The Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God, 1958), 8.

³¹Tony Schirato and Susan Yell, Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000).

³²Passionist Brothers, Help Wanted: Good Sincere Catholic Young Men to Labour for Jesus Christ as Passionist Brothers (Marrickville, New South Wales: Passionist Brothers, n.d.), 9.

³⁴Passionist Brothers, Help Wanted, 9.

³⁵Ibid., 6.

³⁶J.L. Lemke, “Ideology, Intertextuality, and the Notion of Register,” in Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Volume 1, ed. J.D. Benson and W.S. Greaves (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1985), 275.

³⁷See Chapman and O’Donoghue, “The Recruitment of Religious as Teachers,” 570.

³⁹Ibid.

³⁸The Society of Jesus, Jesuit Brother (Melbourne: The Society of Jesus, n.d.), 2.

⁴⁰The Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God. Modern Samaritans, 9.

⁴¹Blessed Sacrament Brothers, The Vocation of the Blessed Sacrament Brother, 3.

⁴²Ibid.

⁴³Passionist Brothers, Help Wanted, 9.

⁴⁶Ibid., 124.

⁴⁴Robert Ian Vere Hodge and Gunther R. Kress, Social Semiotics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).

⁴⁵Ibid., 123–4.

⁴⁷The Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God. Modern Samaritans, 6.

⁴⁸Blessed Sacrament Brothers, The Vocation of the Blessed Sacrament Brother, 5.

⁵⁰Ibid., 4.

⁴⁹D. Donnelly, Have I A Vocation (Dublin: Irish Messenger Office, 1935), 3.

⁵¹The Society of Jesus, Jesuit Brother, 4.

⁵²Congregation of the Mission, Meet the Vincentians (Eastwood, New South Wales: Congregation of the Mission, 1959), 2.

⁵³Ibid.

⁵⁴Ibid.

⁵⁵Chapman and O’Donoghue, “The Recruitment of Religious as Teachers”; O’Donoghue and Chapman, “A Social Semiotic Analysis.”

⁵⁶O’Donoghue and Chapman, “A Social Semiotic Analysis,” 406.