I first became aware of Paul around
1988 when he wrote a Catholic Worker review of a history I had
written of Sacred Heart St Kilda. I can’t remember where I first
met him. I was a member of the Public Transport Users Association,
where he was President for some time. He was involved to a limited
extent (it was mainly with Patrick O’Connor of the PTUA) in a
campaign against the closure of the St Kilda and Port Melbourne
railway lines.
By the early 1990s we were on a
committee working to save the Central Catholic Library. Established
by Fr William Hackett SJ in 1924 it was now in the doldrums and its
exceptional collection of books, and vision, were threatened. A
mission statement and brochures for the new ‘Caroline Chisholm
Library’ were prepared, a school poster competition launched, and a
seminar arranged with members of the 1930s Campion Society to hear of
their pioneering endeavours in lay Catholic social engagement and
mission. Paul was also keen to launch less formal regular Tuesday
evening discussions to introduce Catholicism to nearby university
students, some of whom were spiritually curious, or interested in
social issues about which the church had said and done quite a bit
more than they realised. But the development of an acquisitions
policy exposed deep differences in the committee, with some opposed
to literature on contemporary ‘social’ issues, or anything whose
orthodoxy might in any way be questioned. Arriving at the 1994 AGM
it suddenly became apparent that there had been a surprisingly
dramatic increase in membership. At the meeting Paul, myself and two
others (including a Catholic Women’s League member) were replaced
by National Civic Council and Thomas More Centre members. As a
lawyer, Paul was of the opinion that the coup was unconstitutional,
and in typical style he was set to change the doors locks. Also in
typical style, he acquiesced to his supporters’ ingenuous appeal
(citing 1 Corinthians 6:1-7) to seek church mediation instead. The
new CCL committee wasn’t so scrupulous: after the window to legal
appeal closed we eked out its view that going to mediation had never
been agreed.
Neither was the more ‘progressive’
side of the church immune from his critique, for example those with a
propensity to easily dispense with traditions such as statues. His
interest in traditional architecture surfaced in his support of the
campaign to rebuild the burnt out St Josephs church in Collingwood.
From his observations on campuses, his
own tertiary YCS experience, and his sociological readings of Fr
Andrew Greely and others, he concluded (years before professional
research had arrived at the same conclusion) that school leavers and
young adults could be attracted to attend Mass, but on Sunday evening
rather than Saturday evening or Sunday morning. This and other more
provocative insights were included in a dazzling 13 page paper
entitled ‘Where are all the Young Adults’, which he presented to
the priest of his youthful inner city parish. Not a word of response
was received, and it was not heard of again.
His forensic and fearless academic and
public advocacy regarding public transport originated I believe in
his concern for the poor, the sick, the young, and the elderly who
were dispossessed by our practise of planning cities and transport
systems around the motor car. He was a noted international authority
on public transport, but chose to stay in Melbourne to fight the
cause, where he was sometimes accused, with a fair degree of
annoyance and sometimes jealousy, of intemperance. His colourful
flourishes, no doubt designed to interest the media, were in my view
essentially the result of his awareness of the powerful vested
interests, and the spin of some in the public service and government,
that conspired against change. They were not some crude need to
amuse; I don’t believe anyone who knew him could contend that his
satire was born of self-aggrandisement. Many would just call it
honesty.
Fellow-activists were initially alarmed
to hear him call them ‘comrade’. He was unafraid of being
described as a ratbag. His participation with a bike-riding PTUA
member in bringing Federal Court action against CityLink, essentially
for constraining competing road and public transport routes to the
airport, created considerable consternation for the company which was
in the process of public listing. Its attempt to charge him for
costs resulted in him scurrying around under cover of a network of
sympathisers to successfully avoid being served a court order.
"His mastery of a range of topics was amazing, from high theology to
train timetables. His reading was prodigious; one of the projects he
had planned was a book in response to Richard Dawkins' The God
Delusion."
Essentially, he valued truth, and
justice. Layer after layer of evidence would be built up, and
occasionally (where necessary I submit) topped off with satire, to
establish an apparently irrefutable case. In the end his brilliance
just seemed common sense.
His company was not only stimulating,
but always pleasant and respectful. For a volatile world, and
church, he was a siren of sanity and insight that we could ill afford
to ignore. I think of him as a Catholic hero.
- David Moloney
I first met Paul Mees at a conference organised by the Australian YCW at the old Manly seminary in Sydney in 1987. I think that was about the time that he was working or about to start work for Maurice Blackburn, the Labor law firm in Melbourne. But when I met him he was active with the Tertiary (University) YCS movement of that era.
Later, I followed his career from afar as he got involved in transport issues, helping transform the old Train Travellers Association into the activist lobby group the Public Transport Users Association.
By the time I next met him he was a Melbourne University academic, who showed me documents from the 1920s illustrating what a great public transport system - a genuine "metro" - Melbourne once had.
In 2007, he joined Kevin Vaughan and myself as we met to launch what has now become the Cardijn Community Australia.
Vale Paul, one of the great lay apostles of the Cardijn tradition.
Stefan Gigacz
