A CATHOLIC PIONEER

Evening Star, Issue 20132, 23 March 1929, Page 11

A CATHOLIC PIONEER

LATE REV. BROTHER D. F. BODKIN This week’s Xcw Zealand ‘ Tablet ’ reprints from the ‘Catholic Press’ a memoir of the late Pev. Brother 1). T’. Bodkin, who died last month at CJlontarf Orphanage, West Australia. He was approaching his eighty-sixth birthday, and had spent more than sixty years labouring on behalf of Catholic youth in Australian and New Zealand. He was the (irst director of the Christian Brothers’ School, Dunedin. Brother Bodkin was born uearTuam, County Galway, on duly 22, 1842, and attended tho Christian Brothers’ School in that town. He entered tho novitiate of tho Christian Brothers, Dublin, in his sixteenth year. Alter his period of training ho taught in several schools in Ireland, but principally in Waterford, tho cradle of the Congregation. Here he was associated with the companions of the founder, and imbibed the spirit which that saintly man had left to Ids order. Being distinguished for his singleness of purpose and love for his life’s work, he was chosen to accompany to Melbourne .Brothers Treacy and Lynch. _ These pioneer brothers had many difliculies to face in their new home. When they disembarked at Port Melbourne they had not sufficient to pay the price of the cab fare to a hotel. No house had been provider! for them, and no funds were availalile. But, acting on the Archbishop’s advice to throw themselves on the generosity of tho people, they soon hall two schools in working order, and a splendid monastery erected in Victoria Parade, East Melbourne. This establishment is the mother house of the brothers in Australia. Soon new houses and schools sprang up in various parts of Australia, and to-day there, is scarcely a large centre in the _ Commonwealth that has not its Christian Brothers’ School. In that development Brother Bodkin had a direct personal share, for he assisted in founding schools in Now Zealand, Queensland, and West Australia.

During bis long career in religion varied duties fell to his lot, but none were more congenial to his nature and Ids preferences than those lie engaged in among the orphans of Clontnrf, West Australia. With them and for them lie spent the last thirty years of his life.

Air P. Hally writes to tho Tablet.’ in the course of an appreciation of the late brother:—“He was well known and recognised as a lending authority on educational _ matters in Australia- before arriving in New Zealand. Ho was a- mathematician of very high standing and a master of many languages. The simple rules and methods employed by him in imparting his knowledge of those ami other subjects to his pupils showed that he was a teacher of outstanding ability.”