In his 41- page booklet biography of the French Conventual Franciscan friar, Père Laurent Receveur, chaplain of Laperouse's second ship, the Astrolabe, Edward Duykers suggests that
"... Receveur celebrated or concelebrated the first Catholic Mass in Australia with Abbé Jean- André Mongez , chaplain on the Boussole".1. This unreferenced opinion is not only wrong but absurdly so and displays total ignorance of the religious and liturgical regimen of the navy of the ancien régime which is well documented. The same writer repeats this egregious error in his Père Receveur entry in the Dictionary of Sydney.2. Duykers was plainly unaware that the concelebration of Mass by two or more priests was a liturgical innovation introduced only in the 1960s which derived from an ancient obselete practice. It did not exist in the eighteenth century on land or at sea. Duykers merely placed current practice, and that only from the 1960s, back in the eighteenth century.
The first annual Père Receveur Commemoration for the bicentenary of the French friar's death in February, 1988 was denied a Mass in the ancient rite of Mass by the late Edward Clancy, the then Archbishop of Sydney, in favour of a hastily confected opposition event. In 1988 and thereafter only from 1992 a bogus Père Receveur event has been mounted as a concelebrated Mass in a modern rite unknown to all members of the Laperouse Expedition and only as ancient as 1969. But that cannot obliterate what actually occurred at Botany Bay in early 1788.
The notion of a "first Mass" in Australia is extremely silly when there had to have been two first Masses, one on each of Laperouse's ships, by the chaplain it carried plus subsequent multiple Masses.
In Livre XV of the royal Ordonnance ... concernant la Marine of 1765 the duties of chaplains (aumôniers) are clearly stated and include as follows:
Prayers will be said aboard ships evening and morning in the customary places and hours, the chaplain pronouncing them in a loud voice and the crew responding on their knees {MXXVI)
the Angelus will be sounded before each meal and everyone will say the prayer (MXXVII),
Holy Mass will be said on ships every Sunday and feast day without exception unless bad weather prevents it and on other days as often as possible (MXXVIII) [this writer's emphasis], the ship's colours will be lowered three times at the Elevations during which time the drums will beat a general salute(MXXIX).
Laperouse's two ships, the Boussole and the Astrolabe arrived in Botany Bay on the morning of Saturday, 26th January, 1788 which was the feast of St. Polycarp and the next day was Sexagesima.. They departed on 10th March which was Palm Sunday.. The Laperouse Expedition's time in Botany Bay included seven Sundays. 3.
Because there were two priests on the expedition it has long been inferred that the first Mass was then said. With knowledge of the liturgical regimen of the French navy of the ancien regime this is simply misleading. Up to the death of Receveur on !7th February a Mass on each ship by its chaplain would have been said at least on Sundays and feast days.
Was Mass said aboard ship or onshore within the bounds of the fortified French encampment? In the 1990's an annual advertisement in the Catholic Weekly for a new rite Mass on the verandah of the Laperouse Museum near Père Receveur's grave and using his name alleged, without adducing any evidence, that it was on the likely site of the first Mass.
Edward Duykers quotes the late Franciscan John Edmund Keane as follows:
"Each year in February French speaking Catholics, Franciscans and parishioners of St. Andrew's Church, Malabar, gather for a Eucharist in memory of Fr. Louis [sic] Receveur in the place where the first Mass in Australia was probably celebrated."4.
This bogus Père Receveur event was hastily organised in 1988 to avoid a Mass in the traditional Latin rite used by both priests of the expedition but not again until 1992 and then for the same reason. The twittering triumphalism of this irrelevant event simply wallows in intellectual and moral dishonesty possibly underpinned since 2011 by the erroneous assumptions of Edward Duykers about a "first Mass". Keane's assumption, like that of the 1990s Catholic Weekly advertisement, that Mass was said ashore ignores obvious questions of personnel deployment, logistics and security. The whole crew of either French vessel, or both crews, could not go ashore and leave the vessel(s) entirely unmanned. McManners notes that in the navy of the ancien régime "a funeral would require a requiem mass with a De profundis and Libera ..." 5. That could have been said by the Abbé Mongez aboard the Boussole for both crews with the Astrolabe moored close by.
Unevidenced modern liturgical mythology replete with Pharisaical ecclesiastical politics cannot substitute for factual accuracy.
Apart from the 1765 royal Ordonnance quoted above the religious and liturgical regimen of the navy of the ancien régime is detailed in the following work:
Jean Boudriot: Le Vaisseau de 74 canons: traité pratique d'art naval;l'equipage;la conduite du vaisseau. Grenoble: Editions des Quatre Seigneurs, 1977
Frank Carleton
Convenor
Pere Receveur Commemoration Committee
NOTES
1. Edward Duyker Père Receveur: Franciscan scientist and voyager with Laperouse. Engadine,
NSW: Dharawal Publications, 2011 p. 24
2 .Edward Duyker 'Receveur, Laurent' www. dictionary of sydney.org/entry/receveur Laurent
3. Breviarum Romanum. Pars Hiemalis. A Dominica prima Adventus usque ad Dominicam primam Quadragesima. Ex Ducali Campidonensi typographeo, Aloysium Galler, 1781 Signatures )( 4 - )( 6
The Roman Calendar in this Winter part of the Roman breviary from the First Sunday of Advent to the first Sunday of Lent covers the months December to March and includes the period the Laperouse Expedition spent in Botany Bay. It is precede by the Tabella temporia which determines 27th January, 1788 as the first Sunday the Expedition spent there.
4. .Duyker op. cit. p.24
5. John McManners Church and society in eighteenth century France. Vol. 1. The clerical establishment and its social ramifications. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998 63-64
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