Few women have played such an important recent role in the Catholic Church as Rosemary Goldie, who died on 27 February at the age of 94, after some years' retirement in the Little Sisters of the Poor at Randwick in Sydney.
From the early 1950s Goldie worked in the Vatican as secretary to Vittorino Veronese (later director general of UNESCO) in the Permanent Committee for International Congresses of Catholic Action (COPECIAL), which was encouraging the development of Catholic Action in various parts of the world.
She saw her work as helping to clarify the new roles for lay activity in the Church and in wider spheres, roles that were strongly endorsed by the Second Vatican Council.
She continued to develop the new direction, not just in her organisational role, but through her extensive range of personal contacts as well as her writings, including in European Catholic journals. She also lectured at the Pontifical Lateran University in later years.
Petite, open and honest in her views, Goldie was nevertheless very professional and conscientious in her work. She was also a gifted linguist, and understood well the theological debates of the time.
At a time when very few women worked at senior levels in the Vatican, Goldie earned the respect of colleagues and ecclesiastics, including the popes of her time. She was one of the few women auditors at the Second Vatican Council, and through COPECIAL contributed to the formation of Council documents on the lay apostolate.
Of special interest to Australians are her role and observations on the debates about the Santamaria anti-communist Movement from early 1954. I owe Goldie a special debt of gratitude because of her help in clarifying the views of the International Secretariat of Catholic Action about the Movement.
Goldie had met Santamaria in the 1940s when he gave some lectures at the Grail training course, 'The Quest', but she left Australia in 1945. While still a member of the Grail, she worked for Pax Romana, the international organisation of Catholic intellectuals. She went as a delegate for Pax Romana to the 1951 Congress of Catholic Action in Rome, but was caught up helping organise its 'chaotic' secretariate.
Her successful intervention there resulted in her accepting what became a long-term position as secretary in COPECIAL, where she also worked closely with Mgr (later Cardinal) Pietro Pavan, one of the leading thinkers in Catholic Action, and later the main author of Pope John XXIII's famous 1963 social encyclical, Peace on Earth.
Pavan was deeply influenced by the thinking of the philosopher, Jacques Maritain (whom Rosemary had heard lecture in France). He insisted on the distinction between Catholic Action, which was properly action undertaken under Church direction, and the 'action of Catholics', which was to be lay people acting independently in their social and political affairs, but with the inspiration of the Gospel and Church social teaching.
This matter had been of concern in various countries, and the international secretariat was intent on keeping the Church's Catholic Action organisations clear of direct political action.
In July 1953, Santamaria wrote to Goldie proposing a social action conference in Melbourne, which he intended to use to extend his model of direct political involvement by a Church organisation throughout South-East Asia. Goldie and her colleagues in the Rome secretariate were alarmed at the implications. She met Santamaria in Melbourne later in the year, but was unable to convince him of the need to keep Catholic Action out of direct political involvements.
Goldie maintained close contact with colleagues in Sydney and Melbourne, and acted as a conduit of information to the Vatican secretariate, as Santamaria pursued his efforts to set up his Pan-Pacific organisation on the Movement model, even after the Labor Split in 1955.
When the Sydney alignment of bishops went to Rome in late 1956 to appeal for Vatican intervention to resolve the Movement dispute, Goldie did some secretarial work for Cardinal Gilroy. The case for both sides of the Movement dispute was presented for the commission of cardinals to judge, and Pavan was nominated to present the case against the Movement model, which he did convincingly. The Vatican directed that the Movement was to cease its political activities.
Goldie continued to monitor the affair as it unfolded in following years, but was mainly involved with her work helping coordinate and encourage Catholic lay movements throughout the world. In 1959, she became executive secretary of COPECIAL, and in 1966 under-secretary for the Vatican's new Council for the Laity.
Goldie had no personal animus against Santamaria, and admired his dedication to defeating the communist hold on key trade unions, as well as his efforts to translate Catholic social principles into practical policies. But she was disconcerted by his refusal to concede the matters of principle involved in the Movement dispute, and dismayed by the Movement's defiance of clear directives from the Holy See.
Goldie blazed a path for other intelligent, committed women in fashioning new roles even at senior levels in Church organisations. Her autobiography was published in 1998, From a Roman Window — Five Decades: the World, the Church and the Catholic Laity (Melbourne: Harper Collins).
Responses to this article:
'Santamaria and the bishops in politics' — Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute, responds to Bruce Duncan's article
'Disagreeing with Gerard Henderson' — Bruce Duncan's rebuttal of Gerard Henderson's letter
Bruce Duncan CSsR lectures at Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne and is Director of the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy.