The Gospel formed man

When I was young, I often wondered how it was that my father, Francis Xavier Duffy (1927-99) – a father of 11 children with a travelling full-time profession, a garage full of furniture repair and making, and a garden that was as close to self-sufficient as one-fourth of an acre in the city could afford – also found time to read and to write.

He was what we might call today a “wordsmith”. He penned many a memorable letter to his family, to our teachers and even to municipal council minions. I also remember him pipe clenched between his teeth, hunched over a tiny green Olivetti typewriter writing scripts and short stories. According to him, one or two of these were adapted into episodes in one of the innumerable American TV series that flourished during those years.

I also remember browsing through my father’s bookshelves.

He admired many writers: Ernest Hemingway for his pithy sentences; Archbishop Fulton Sheen for his wit and doctrinal clarity; G.K. Chesterton for his truth-hitting humour; James McAuley for his Australian lyricism and a disparate collection of reformers of land and economy such as Dorothy Day (1897-1980), Louis Bromfield (1896-1956) and E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977).

My dad, like Bromfield, shared not only a love of writing but a deep concern for the preservation of land and soil conservation.

On these same shelves were a few thin brochures as brown and brittle as autumn leaves. These were publications of the National Catholic Rural Movement (NCRM) in which my father, his brother and father and many of his close friends had been involved.

The NCRM was formed in 1938 in Australia and was inspired by the research and writing of the Australian National Secretariat for Catholic Action, for which B.A. Santamaria was a rising influence and writer. It was built on the idea that Christ had called not only the apostles as “church leaders” but the non-ordained as vital and baptised “apostles” among laymen and women.

Years before the use of the terms “new evangelisation” or “co-responsibility” appeared in papal documents, the NCRM “manifesto” of 1944 (a clever answer to the Marxist and fascist manifestos of the time) declared:

“The laity, as unordained apostles, do the self-same work (as ordained apostles) on their farms, in their homes, in their districts and country organisations, among the friends and neighbours, changing their outlook, making them more Christian, bringing them closer to God.”

The NCRM offered advocacy, research, practical support, adult education and community building methods to assist in the growth of civic awareness amongst Catholics and other Christians. It also aimed to offset the draining of Australian rural communities and towns into the anonymity of the growing cities, and the slow rot of alienation of people from each other and their faith.

The NCRM came up with many creative projects, such as assisting in the settlement of migrant farmers in Australia, creating credit unions and organising joint conferences for farming families.

Although many of its goals were concrete and the world has changed in many ways, at its core, the NCRM had a deeper and loftier vision about the need to engage in the development of the person and the attention to the conditions in which people and their families lived.

The 1944 Manifesto declares:

"It is not enough to make Christians of the men and women around you. You must go farther, and make the whole environment—the habits, manners, circumstances, all the factors which shape their lives—so Christian that it will be no longer next to impossible for them to live a normal Christian life."

It struck me at the time, as now, that the handbooks and courses offered by the NCRM were so thoroughly focused on the place of Christ’s words and actions in the Gospels and their importance to the members’ formation and in its social typology. The Bible and the Gospels were part of the study and prayer of the NCRM members. My father continued to read and pray early in the mornings in this vein.

It is significant that in his last encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI also touched upon the scriptural and theological roots to the Christian notion of “integral human development” and social action. All of it is based on love – not simply our imperfect, over-emotive, wavering and often misdirected loves but in God’s concrete, transforming and personal charity in Christ.

He wrote: "I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility." (Caritas, 2)

Reflecting upon the work of Pope Paul VI, Benedict XVI confirms that one of the deep crises in contemporary lives is the loss of an integrated and charitable “thoughtfulness” about inherent human dignity and about relationships.

He advocates as a starting point: “Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. This is a task that cannot be undertaken by the social sciences alone, insofar as the contribution of disciplines such as metaphysics and theology is needed if man's transcendent dignity is to be properly understood.” (Caritas, 53)

TMC is therefore very pleased to take part in some “thoughtful” charity by being part of the Democratic Conference 2025 and especially in exploring the unique Gospel-informing of social conscience in children and young people with the new TMC Kids.

The great Gospel of God-given charity and relationship is the Gospel of St John and we were delighted to have had our first live short course yesterday with scripture scholar and TMC Queensland organiser Mark Makowiecki. This free interactive seminar series, Reading with John, is an eight-session course held fortnightly in Brisbane between January and April 2025.

A blessed and promising 2025!

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre