Recreation: Sunday with the Monks

For someone who went to a Catholic High School, and then after becoming a Christian in my mid-20's I feasted on a lot of so-called Christian literature (eg. Jack Chick) that was decidedly anti-Catholic.

As I have grown in my faith, I have come to accept Catholicism (with all of its faults) as another 'expression' of Christs Church. Over recent times, I have found a greater respect for this denomination after watching great films like (Father) Romero and also spending some time in an orphanage run by Catholics in the Phillipinnes.

Yesterday, I thought as a family that we would just pack the Car and drive to a place that I have wanted to see for a long-time - the monsastory town of New Norcia.

It is a beautiful town and one can only admire the Leadership and Vision of the founder Bishop Rosendo Salvado.

"The first fifty years of New Norcia's history are dominated by the towering figure of Bishop Rosendo Salvado (1814 - 1900). Along with another Spanish Benedictine monk, Dom Joseph Serra, he founded New Norcia in 1846, spending the rest of his life making it one of the most progressive and successful missions in Australian history.
Salvado's original vision was to create, among the indigenous peoples of the Victoria Plains, a Christian, largely self-sufficient village based on agriculture. However, after the decimation of the local populations by introduced diseases in the 1860's, he concentrated his activity on giving a practical education to the indigenous children who were brought to New Norcia from all over the state. Like other missionaries of the nineteenth century, his aim was to 'civilise' and evangelise according to the European ideals of the time, but he did so with a sympathy for indigenous culture that was rare in his day".