A HISTORY OF ST. PETER CHANEL'S PARISH - DEER PARK.
In the late 1940's and in the early 1950's many working-class Catholics began to settle in the neighbouring but dispersed regions of Sunshine Heights, Ardeer, East Deer Park and Deer Park proper. In January 1954Archbishop Daniel Mannix separated those areas from the Parish of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Sunshine, to which they had belonged, and created out of them a new Parish. The new Parish was entrusted by him to the Marist Fathers who, in turn, named it the Parish of Deer Park in honour of Archbishop Mannix who was born at a place called Deer Park in Ireland. The Marist Fathers placed the newly founded Parish under the patronage of St. Peter Chanel. St. Peter Chanel, had been a Marist Missionary Priest in the South Pacific and was martyred on the Island of Futuna in 1841. He was canonized by Pope Pius XII.
The Marist Fathers set out to work with a will. They borrowed money from the State Savings Bank of Victoria, purchased four redundant Nissan Huts from the Williamstown Army depot and had them transported to their respective site. Each hut was then fitted as appropriately as was possible to serve as a Church. With more borrowed money they soon built three very basic wooden schools: one in Sunshine Heights, one in Ardeer and one in Deer Park. Those schools had no ‘mod cons’ to speak of. The roofless toilets (which incidentally were used by both teachers and children) were really un-sewered pans. The schools had no fences, no concrete paths, hardly any tree cover and no heating or cooling to speak of. The children's playing areas consisted of mere earth covered with a thin layer of crushed rock.
Much to the satisfaction and joy of the parishioners, on Sunday 27th June 1954, six months after the arrival of the Marist Fathers, His Grace Archbishop Mannix formally opened four Churches (the Nissan Huts) and three schools. The schools in Sunshine Heights and Ardeer were placed under the care of the Brigidine Sisters, while the School in Deer Park was placed under the care of the Marist Sisters.
In those days there was no government funding for Catholic Schools. The first years were therefore extremely difficult, as the vast majority of parishioners were newly-arrived migrants and displaced persons from war-ravaged Europe. They had come to Australia mostly penniless and worked full-time to give themselves and their families some measure of basic security. For the first 20 years the monetary contributions of parishioners to the Parish, although generous, were of necessity insufficient. Consequently, life for parishioners, priests and nuns was very spartan, and progress in setting up a proper parish plant was impossible. The money parishioners were able to contribute to the Church was swallowed by the day-to-day expenses incurred in running the schools and in paying off loans.
By 1973, the population of West Sunshine and Deer Park had grown considerably and for that reason His Eminence James Cardinal Knox, then Archbishop of Melbourne, decided in January 1974 to cut the Deer Park section off from the original Parish established in 1954 and erect it as a separate Parish in its own right. According to the Cardinal's document founding the new Parish: “What had formerly been the Parish of Deer Park was in future to be known as the Parish of West Sunshine”.
West Sunshine, with its Church dedicated to St. Paul, remained under the care of the Marist Fathers. The Cardinal appointed Fr. Karmel Borg, formerly curate at St. Gabriel's Parish, Reservoir, Pastor of the newly-founded Parish of Deer Park whose Nissan Hut Church continued to be dedicated to St. Peter Chanel.
Catholic Schools had survived till then primarily due to the heroic self-sacrifice of religious Sisters and Brothers who taught for very basic financial reward and lived permanently on the bread-line. Migration had brought thousands upon thousands of Catholic people to Australia and that meant that the schools run by the Church became too few. The number of Religious Sisters and Brothers available to teach in Catholic schools was not enough to cope with the increasing number of children being enrolled. New schools needed to be built and lay teachers needed to be hired.
For a time, there was the possibility that lack of sufficient Religious Order Sisters and Brothers and dearth of money would force the Church to shut its schools. The governments of the day, realising that if that happened the children in Catholic schools would have to be catered for in its own schools, and at a far greater expense, decided to allocate financial aid to Church schools.
At first that money was a trickle, consisting mainly of partial contributions to meet some of the costs incurred in the building of essential new science buildings, libraries and classrooms; but slowly it grew to cover the salaries of hundreds of new lay teachers.
With that, a millstone was removed from many nascent Parishes, not only saving them from drowning beneath the waves of insupportable loans and debts, but enabling them at last to construct modem new schools and carry out essential Parish works that had been left undone for decades due to lack of resources.
Enrolments at St Peter Chanel's School increased by leaps and bounds and peaked in the mid 1980’s at 705 pupils. St. Peter Chanel School grew into a three-stream school.
In 1976 Deer Park parishioners were asked to be forthcoming with donations to help erect a new, purpose-built Church to replace the Nissan Hut that had served as a temporary Church since 1954. In just 18 months they contributed $167,000 and without being asked, also increased their weekly contributions, enabling the Parish to borrow a further $125,000 from the Bank to help build a Church that could accommodate 550 people. The Church was opened and dedicated on 10th September 1978 by His Grace Archbishop Frank Little DD.
A new Presbytery including quarters to accommodate three priests, separate quarters for a live-in housekeeper, secretary’s office, interview rooms and a large meeting room was built in 1982.
On 14th January 1992 His Grace Archbishop Little DD blessed and opened the new Parish Hall, large enough to accommodate over 500 people. The hall could also be used as a full scale basketball court.
Two nearby houses were purchased to cater for future expansion. Grounds were asphalted, a large new car park constructed, Church and School grounds landscaped and properly fenced to render the place secure, especially for the large number of children that continued to be enrolled at the Parish School.
From earliest times the Parish community grew in faith, hope and charity. It became and has remained through the years a very tightly-knit Christian community which has been always loyal to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to His teachings and precepts, intensely prayerful, faithful to the traditions and teachings of the Universal Church, active in good works and intent on reaching out in friendship and respect to human beings of whatever race, country, language or religion.
In recent years, huge tracts of land around Deer Park were designated as residential areas and a great number of people moved in to the new suburbs of Caroline Springs, Burnside, Cairnlea and Derrimut. A new Parish Primary School (Christ the Priest) was opened at Caroline Springs by the Deer Park Parish in 2000 and St. Lawrence Primary School was opened at Derrimut in 2010.
The new suburb of Caroline Springs became so populated that it had to be separated from Deer Park Parish. It became a Parish in its own right (St. Catherine of Sienna) in January 2006.
Fr. Borg was Parish Priest of Deer Park from January 1974 till his retirement on 9th September 2009. To assist him in those years the following Priests served as his Assistants:
Fr. Mario Borg (1980), Fr. John Scerri SJ (1983), Fr. Michael Mifsud (1986), Fr. William Attard (1987), Fr. Anthony Girolami (1988), Fr. Kevin Holian SSC (1990), Fr. Gerard Keith (1991), Fr. Joe Grech (1993), Fr. John O'Hara SSC (1996), Fr. Ted Cumbo (1999), Fr. Paul Newton (2003) and Fr. Thinh Nguyen (2006).
Upon the retirement of Fr. Borg from active ministry St Peter Chanel's Parish was placed under the care of the Claretian Missionaries. The Claretians, also known as the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, are a Religious Order founded in Spain by St. Anthony Mary Claret in 1849. The first Claretian missionaries came to Darwin in 1983 from the Philippines.