Catholic Bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham has invoked Australia’s Saint Mary MacKillip in his battle to demolish the old St Joseph’s convent at Bulli, which others want heritage-listed.
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St Mary would prefer not to see a “disused” old convent retained, and would rather a new building constructed to further children’s education, Rev Ingham wrote in a letter to Wollongong City Council.
This would fit the church’s desire to knock down the convent and replace it with a new administration block.
The bishop also cast doubt on St Mary’s connection with Bulli, saying she “may or may not have visited” the convent, as “it is unclear from the records that she did physically visit there”.
This contradicts information on St Joseph’s Primary School website, which said she visited “several times”.
St Mary co-founded the Sisters of St Joseph order, which established schools in this region and others.
A report to Wollongong City Council in December 2015 recommended a heritage listing for the old convent, and the adjacent St Joseph’s church.
Last March the Catholic Church got a private certifier to approve its plans to demolish the old convent, and work was set to commence.
But a parishioner told the council and the next day an interim heritage order halted the church’s plans.
Rev Ingham, in a letter to council, said the building did not fit heritage criteria, and had not been used as a convent since 1985.
“Any connection to the local community has been lost since then,” he said.
He said it failed several heritage criteria, and said the removal of the cross and other religious symbols meant there was no longer evidence of Catholic association.
And because demolishing the convent could help expand the school, St Mary would have backed it.
“We believe that, as a person who herself strove to commence and continue Catholic education particularly for poor and underprivileged students in the late 1890s, St Mary of the Cross MacKillop would have been one who would rather have seen the children’s education catered for than retaining a disused building which she may or may not have visited (and it is unclear from the records that she did physically visit there),” the bishop wrote.
The Catholic Education Office had received a grant of $1.675 million, which was tied in part to the convent’s demolition and replacement with the single-storey administration centre.
Council is now considering the heritage listing for the convent and church.
