Philip Ayres is an author quietly going about fixing this. He has written biographies of Malcolm Fraser and Douglas Mawson. His biography of Sir Owen Dixon – still considered Australia’s most influential and revered judge – was published in 2003. Ayres was then commissioned by the Archdiocese of Sydney to write the biography of Cardinal Moran, the Archbishop of Sydney from 1884 to his death in 1911 at the age of eighty. Prince of the Church is the result.

Moran’s importance as a national figure and biographical subject can be summed up in this passage from the book:   

“Sydney’s archdiocese would not have another civic leader worth the description for almost a century – civic in the sense of speaking out on contentious issues across the board from private morality to national politics, courageously debating the secularists, exploiting the print medium, participating in the politics of the constitution … and voicing orthodoxy at the risk of unpopularity.” 

Portents of Moran’s later achievements were seen early on. Born in Ireland, he was taken to Rome as a 12 year old orphan by his uncle, Fr Paul Cullen, who was then Rector of the Irish College in Rome and had offered to take care of his upbringing. By the age of fifteen, Moran was fluent in Latin and Italian (he would go on to be fluent in French, German, Irish, Greek and Hebrew). He was ordained a priest at 22 with a papal dispensation on account of his youth. He soon established himself as a scholar, winning his doctorate at 22 by acclamation and then becoming a professor of Hebrew and scripture at Propaganda College. As a young priest he eliminated scholarly errors and sloppiness from the draft of the bull Ineffabilis Deus, in which Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It is also possible that Moran was responsible behind the scenes for the definition settled upon by the First Vatican Council for the dogma of papal infallibility in 1870. This, however, is the account of Fr Denis O’Haran, who, as Ayres frequently warns his readers, is sometimes an unreliable source.  

It was not as a scholar, though, that Moran made his deepest mark. Ayres narrates Moran’s rise from private secretary to Cullen (who was by then Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin) to Bishop of Ossory, Archbishop of Sydney and the College of Cardinals. Along the way, Moran always maintained a high profile and was never afraid of a fight, content to be hated by his opponents. He was influential during important historical periods, including the fevered Irish land wars and the campaign for Federation in Australia. 

He maintained close relations with politicians in Ireland, England and Australia, always seeking to deepen the influence of the Church. It is interesting to note Moran’s excitement at some of Prime Minister Gladstone’s appointments to his Ministry in 1868, including Edward Sullivan as Attorney-General for Ireland, which pleased Moran since Sullivan was married to a Catholic. Moran possibly never knew that Sullivan’s seven year old son, John, raised a Protestant, converted to the faith at 35 and became a saintly Jesuit priest, astounding for his humility and asceticism. His cause for canonisation is open. 

One person who certainly does not fare well in the book is Moran’s secretary, Fr O’Haran, described by Ayres as an “immensely vain” man, who became the co-respondent in an ugly and high profile divorce suit. Ayres tells the extraordinary tale of conspiracies, intercepted letters, forgeries, peeved priests, code names and Presbyterian fighting funds.  

The reader receives little insight into Moran’s spiritual life other than his deep gratitude for his vocation and devotions to the Blessed Mother and the spirituality of St Francis de Sales, though from the available materials there were probably few insights for a biographer to gain. 

Prince of the Church is a welcome addition to Australian biography. It is to be hoped that many more such works about genuinely important Australians will follow.