Fr Paul Stenhouse MSC received a posthumous Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day honours. PHOTO: Campion College - campion.edu.au
The extraordinary contributions of Missionary of the Sacred Heart priest Fr Paul Stenhouse to the Church, scholarship, journalism and migrant families across Sydney and the country was recognised with an Australia Day award more than a year after his death, The Catholic Weekly reports.
Fr Stenhouse was one of 845 Australians whose decades of service were recognised in the Australia Day 2021 Honours List, in which posthumous awards are rare.
The long-time editor of Annals Australasia magazine, former chairman of Aid to the Church in Need Australia and international expert on Semitic cultures and languages, was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his service to the Catholic Church in Australia.
Author of a new biography of Fr Stenhouse, Wanda Skowronska, said she was “delighted” to hear that he had made the list of honours.
“It is recognition so richly deserved by this pioneering scholar, journalist and compassionate priest,” Ms Skownronska said.
“He saw beneath the surface of things, and expressed his supple perceptiveness in all his writings, particularly the journal Annals, the longest lasting journal in Australian history. He was outstanding, kind and a humble Australian; a true ‘national treasure’.”
Current chair of Aid to the Church in Need Australia Terry Tobin paid tribute to the many-faceted life of the quiet-natured yet extraordinarily gifted priest.
“Fr Paul Stenhouse was, of course a scholar, at home in Arabic and semitic languages (including Samaritan), who had taught at Sydney University,” Mr Tobin said.
“He was a learned editor who produced Annals, the journal of Catholic Culture, for 50 years before signing off on its very last print edition just before he died in 2019. He was a Christian humanitarian who for more than 20 years was president of Aid To The Church In Need Australia in which time he oversaw, with the Collignon family, the raising of more than $60 million to assist priests and religious in building or maintaining hospitals, schools, seminaries and convents all around the world.
“Above all he was a priest, a true country man, an Australian whose vision reached far beyond our shores. It is good that we honour him and those like him who are such great examples for all of us.”
This article is an abridged form of an article by Marilyn Rodrigues, published in The Catholic Weekly. Read the full article here.