ABSTRACT
Australia holds a romantic grasp on American imagination through such colorful icons as Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin. But in reality, few Americans know very much about Australian daily life, its people and their national culture. Australian Catholic schools have modern facilities and well-educated professionals within the schools, but function within the same materialistic, consumer society prevalent in the USA and Europe. The vocation of Catholic educator is embraced through a meticulous process of formation propagated by Br. Kelvin Canavan, FMS who served as CEO of Sydney Catholic Schools for some 35 years. Australia is not a mirror image of the USA, nor Europe, but a nation with a unique history and cultural challenges with their Aboriginal people that are just gaining adequate acknowledgement—a relationship that challenges Catholic and secular educators. Australia’s national culture includes a calculated reaction to their questionable early settlers. Those so-called criminals were often Irish Catholics.
