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(Article posted 4 January 2011)
The international order of St John of God Brothers, whose full name is the “Hospitaller Order of St John of God”, was founded in Spain in 1540. The order expanded to Australia from Ireland in 1947 and established a boarding institution for disadvantaged boys, called "Kendall Grange", at Morriset, north of Sydney, New South Wales. The order immediately filled up the home with ninety boys, including many from Sydney orphanages such as the Westmead Boys' Home. The SJOG order recruited Australians as trainee Brothers. It was a secure career, with no great educational prerequisites. Research by Broken Rites indicates that the order's Australian branch grew from 15 "fully trained" Brothers in 1949 to 46 in 1959 and 62 in 1966, not counting trainees. This was phenomenal expansion. In the 1940s and '50s, orphanages and children's homes were a growth industry and the Catholic Church was the biggest entrepeneur. The church then was to homeless children what McDonalds is to hamburgers today. From New South Wales, the St John of Good enterprise expanded in the 1950s into Melbourne, where it established several institutions:
The SJOG order also expanded from Australia to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
Names of some BrothersHere are some of the Brothers in the St John of God order in Australia in since the 1950s (these Brothers were listed in the annual editions of the Australian Catholic Directory in various years and/or in other documents):
Br Flannan Delaney Br "Raphael" Dillon (real first name Thomas?) Br Sebastian Lock Br "Pius" Hornby Br John Gibson Br Vincent Skeekey Br "Stanislaus" Murray Br Charles Hodgkins Br Matthew O'Donnell Br "Celsus" Griffin Br "Bede" Donnellan Br "Clement" Br "Xavier" McAdam Br Damian Keane Br Andrew Lynch Br Ignatius Brennan Br Fergal Br "Thaddeus" (William) Lebler Br "Theophane" Quinnell Br Daniel Slattery Br "Benedict" O'Grady Br Ambrose Bradford Br "Ephraim" Br Lyall Forde Br Hugh Delaney Br Rodger Moloney Br Raymond Garchow Br "Norbert" Br John Clegg Br Roger "Gabriel" Mount Several (such as William Lebler and Raymond Garchow) also spent time working in Papua New Guinea. Bill Lebler established the Rohanoka Recovery Centre for recovering drug and alcohol addicts in the Eastern Highlands district of Papua New Guinea. One St John of God Brother (Br "Gabriel" Mount), transferred to Papua New Guinea, where he left the SJOG order and became a diocesan priest — thereafter known as Father Roger Mount. A church website in 2008 refers to Fr Roger Mount of Papua New Guinea, describing him as "an Australian who had been with the Hospitaller Order of St John of God for some 20 years." The website says that Father Roger's Sogeri Parish is on the southern end of the famous Kokoda Track in PNG. Earlier, as Brother "Gabriel" Mount, he had been listed with the St John of God Brothers in the Australian Catholic Directory (for example, he was working at a St John of God boys' home, "Churinga", at Greensborough, in Melbourne's east, in the late 1960s and early 1970s). In the 1971 edition of the Catholic Directory, Brother Gabriel Mount was listed as the Prior (i.e., the superior) at "Churinga", where there were also five other Brothers. One of the longest-surviving St John of God Brothers in Australia is Br Raphael Dillon. His forename, Raphael, was often pronounced as "RAY-fell", but his real first name was possibly Thomas. A bulletin of St Augustine's College in Cairns, Queensland, reported in February 2009:
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