The people of Wadeye (Northern Territory) recently had much to celebrate as Deacon Boniface Perdjert, Australia’s first permanent deacon, celebrated his 80th birthday.
A man well known to Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) who have worked in the Northern Territory, Boniface is senior elder of the Kardu Diminin clan and Murrinhpatha language speaker, and the traditional owner of the land on which the town of Wadeye (Port Keats) is built.
He was born on 14 May 1936 as the son of Perdjert and Pilimbi at Werntek Nganaiyi (Old Mission), and just short of a year after the first Mass had been celebrated at Old Mission by Father Richard Docherty on 23 June1935.
His mother, Agatha Pilimbi, last year celebrated her 100th birthday and still resides in the aged-care centre at Wadeye. Boniface is the eldest of two brothers and two sisters.
He was the first child to be baptised at the Old Mission on 28 June 1936 by Fr Richard Docherty MSC, with Brother Quinn MSC as his godfather.
On completing school, Boniface began work as a catechist with the mission and worked very closely with Fr Richard Docherty and, later, Fr John Leary.
In an interview with Fr Martin Wilson in 1978, later published in Tracks, Deacon Boniface spoke of his work as a teacher and later as an Aboriginal deacon.
He told Fr Wilson that he planned to be an MSC Brother but then married Bridget Narpur in 1958. They had three daughters: Florence Minggi, Margaret Rose Nguluyguy, and Mary Concepta Demngurrtak, and he is now the proud grandfather of 11 grandchildren and has several great grandchildren. Bridget died on 21 August 2002.
Boniface’s desire to work for the Church continued and, when the possibility to do so as a permanent deacon became apparent, he pursued it. On another occasion, he has said that Fr Brian Healy spoke to him about working for the Church in this capacity.
He says in the interview that he was only able to do this after permission was granted from his clan elders and his wife, as well as the encouragement from the parish priest of the time, Fr John Leary.
Apart from preparations with Fr Leary at Port Keats, Boniface undertook a three-month preparation course at St Paul’s National Seminary Sydney in early 1974 under the direction of Fr Peter Hoy MSC.
He was ordained the first permanent deacon in Australia at Port Keats on 19 July 1974 by Bishop John O’Loughlin, the Bishop of Darwin.
In 1975, Deacon Boniface, with some 35 other Indigenous Australians from Port Keats and the Tiwi Islands, and accompanied by Fr John Leary MSC, Br John Pye MSC, Sr Laurentia OLSH and Pat Regan, travelled to the Holy Land and to Rome. The pilgrims had some 20 minutes then in a meeting with Pope Paul VI.
It was not to be the only meeting that Boniface would have with a pope. In November 1986, he assisted as a deacon at the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in Alice Springs when Pope John Paul delivered the famous address to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. He again assisted Pope John Paul at the beatification Mass for Mary MacKillop in Sydney in January 1995, and led the smoking service that began the Mass.
In 2010, Deacon Boniface travelled again to Rome for the Mass of Canonisation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and took Parish Priest, Fr Leo Wearden MSC, with him. He had also passed on a particular peace gesture from the Kardu Diminin people for the vigil concert in honour of St Mary of the Cross.
On 18 October, the day following the canonisation in the square of St Peter’s Basilica, Boniface assisted Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, as deacon during the Mass of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Outside the Walls.
The Basilica was crowded for the Mass and attended by a number of Australian political leaders, many of Australia’s bishops, religious and clergy, and Australia’s Catholic Indigenous leaders who had journeyed to Rome for the canonisation of Australia’s first saint.
A most memorable photo of Pope Benedict and Boniface locked in embrace was taken during the World Youth Day in Sydney on 17 July 2008 as the Pope was welcomed to Bangaroo.
Boniface has played a central role in the history of the Catholic Church at what is now known as Wadeye. Peter Hearn, in his Theology of Mission, writes that his ordination as the first permanent deacon was of significance not only for the diocese.
He adds that the Aboriginal deacon, who preached in language and the central place that he had in developing the faith community in Port Keats, gave this community a direction that was not found in the other missions that he says were very much like any Australian parish.
Boniface received well wishes for his birthday from people all around Australia and overseas. He continues to be a source of inspiration for Aboriginal Catholics.
He recently paid tribute to the MSC priests and brothers and the OLSH Sisters for all that had been done for him and, for all of them, he is truly grateful.
Fr John Mulrooney, who was present for the occasion, thanked Boniface and the people of the parish for their care, support and attention for the many MSC brothers and priests who had lived at Port Keats.
[With thanks to Leo Wearden MSC, PP Wadeye]
The Words of Deacon Boniface Perdjert of Port Keats
God did not begin to take an interest in people
with the incarnation of his Son,
nor with Abraham.
My people existed here in Australia thousands of years before Abraham.
In all that time God was with my people.
He worked through their culture.
He was saving us despite human weakness.
He was preparing us for the day
when he would see the features of Aboriginals
in the image of his Son.
So I must recognise,
I must use the things of God that are in my culture.
I must use them in his service.
If I do not do this,
my faith and my service are shallow.
They are a pretending.
They belong to someone else, not to me.
God has asked us to love him with whole mind, heart and soul.
So I must give myself to God as an Aboriginal.
This is what God wants or he would not have made me what I am.
These words were written in the late 1970s.
Courtesy The Catholic Leader