The 19th issue of New Norcia Studies journal was launched at the Palms Community Centre in Subiaco earlier this month. Sixty invited guests gathered to hear the Mayor of Subiaco, Heather Henderson (pictured, right), begin proceedings with a speech highlighting the shared histories of Subiaco and New Norcia. Subiaco in Perth was named after the town in Italy where St Benedict founded his first monastery, since it was in the Subiaco (Perth) area that one of New Norcia’s first monks, José Serra, after he became administrator of the Perth Diocese in 1849, brought the New Norcia monks to live where they built a monastery. Abbot John then welcomed everyone and introduced Emeritus Professor Tom Stannage to launch the journal.

Prof. Stannage (pictured, left) gave a history of his own connection with New Norcia, which extends back to 1966, and of the journal itself: Prof. Stannage was the editor of the first issue in 1993. He then described the content of this year’s journal, subtitled ‘Letters, Chronicles and Diaries’. The articles describe and analyse a range of such items: newly translated letters of the French monk who helped found New Norcia; the first years of the monastery’s daily diaries, known as the monastery chronicles, which began in 1901; over ten years of correspondence from one WA priest to Rosendo Salvado; chronicles and diaries of the 1960s and 1970s which reveal the changes at New Norcia brought about by Vatican Council II; and the story of the exhumation in France and return to Perth of the remains of Perth’s first bishop, who brought the first missionaries to WA in 1846, including New Norcia’s founders.

Prof. Stannage also spoke of three ‘scoops’ this issue of the journal contains. It includes the first published photograph of New Norcia’s little-known French founding monk, Léandre Fonteinne, of whom no photograph had been known to exist previously; what is believed to be the earliest photograph of Salvado when he was a fresh-faced 35 year old; and the journal’s first article to be peer-reviewed by academics, which is a recognition of the scholarly research and writing undertaken by the author.

This will be an ongoing feature of future journals, which will raise the standing of the journal in the academic world, while it will remain highly readable and interesting for all.

Copies of New Norcia Studies 19 are $25 and are available from New Norcia’s archives or museum shop.