The most recent Thomas More Centre event in Melbourne had a positively festive air.

For so many years, many of our friends in Melbourne have lived under a type of existential pall. So many factors have come together to weave this cloth. To name but a few of these: the depressing economic and social consequences of the covid-19 era, the dislocations everywhere experienced by the rash of bankrupting public-works programs and the strain of keeping one’s balance in a climate of ideological-think.

Last Wednesday about 60 people joined the TMC team and our special guests at St Peter’s Parish, Toorak for the launch of Professor Tracey Rowland’s most recent book, Unconformed to the Age: Essays in Catholic Ecclesiology (2024).

The event became something of a family reunion of our newsletter readers, some of our inspiring younger priests and religious and some of the loyal supporters of many years.

It was a tremendous honour to have Professor Rowland with us for this event.

Tracey Rowland has become one of the most renowned Australian Catholic theologians. She is currently the John Paul II Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Professor Rowland is an outstanding scholar and author with degrees in law and politics, in political philosophy and German language and doctoral degrees in theology from Cambridge University and the Lateran University in Rome.

She has published eight books and many chapters and articles. She was the Academic Dean for the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family (Melbourne), and is the recipient of many awards including awards from the Government of Poland and a number of prestigious universities.

After a short time of sharing drinks, canapés and much welcomed discussion with the participants, Fr Marcus Goulding, the parish priest of Corio, gave a compelling and wonderfully crafted launch talk.

Fr Marcus has worked in a number of parishes, but as a young man has also given some deep and excellent classes in collaboration with the Anima Women’s Network and the Lamps Alight Project of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia on prayer and the “interior life”.

It was especially fitting that Fr Marcus should prepare this paper, as the book was dedicated to “the young priests and religious who have offered their lives in the service of something other than a multinational bureaucracy”.

Fr Marcus began with a very engaging reflection upon the cover graphic of the book, which is a photo of the beautiful Matthias Church in Budapest, Hungary. He gave a deeply insightful introduction to Professor Rowland’s expertise in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, and in particular on the importance and the hope-giving nature of his profound grasp on the power of Catholic revelation and the Church.

Tracey describes her book of essays as “a kind of sinfonietta on the theme of ecclesiology”, especially in her proposals via the lens of the Church’s rich teaching of an alternative to false manifestations of the Church either as a “secular corporation” or religiously coloured “management team”.

Professor Rowland responded to the talk by Fr Marcus by sharing her memories of her early life and education in Ipswich in Queensland, and her early experiences organising the Thomas More Centre in Brisbane with her husband Stuart.

Thanks especially go out to the TMC Melbourne team: Abigail, Gabriel, Daniel and Ann-Maree; to Fr Dean Mathieson, the new parish priest of St Peter’s, Toorak who made us so welcome and assisted on the evening by offering Mass and in many other ways; and to Peta at Parousia Media who provided us with the opportunity to print and sell this important new book.

You can purchase the book here, or for more information, please call (03) 9816 0800.

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre