‘Our story man’ - Rosie Hoban

Edmund Campion sighed with appreciation when I told him the story of a dear family friend who died a few weeks ago. The church was groaning with people for the funeral Mass and afterwards, at the wake, the home he had shared with his wife of more than 50 years was overflowing. It was a testimony to this man who was full of life and love. These are the people Ed writes about, the stories he grabs hold of and moulds into a tale, a talk or a book.

Madonna readers will be familiar with Edmund Campion and his biographical stories because he has penned his column, ‘A Cloud of Witnesses’, for twenty years. And it is not just Madonna readers who value his stories. In the Catholic Press Association Awards last year he was awarded Best Columnist in a magazine.

Ed, a priest, historian and author, writes mostly about dead Catholics. Some of his subjects achieved fame during their lives and warrant a mention in many other books. Others have lived what unknowing onlookers might describe as a mundane existence. He prefers to write about ordinary Catholics, rather than those elevated to lofty church positions – for they gain automatic entry into the chronicles of parish or church history. Ed writes from the pews about people who shine a light on an aspect of life in the church. He tells the story of the people who help build the community of church.

‘I like to write about the ways people respond to opportunities and challenges in their lives’, Ed says. ‘For Madonna readers I am not interested in writing about leaders, but how ordinary people are called by God and how they choose to take up the challenge.’

One such person is the late Fr Ted Kennedy, the subject of Ed’s latest book, Ted Kennedy: Priest of Redfern. The book was launched at St Vincent’s Parish, Redfern, in July. The two men were great friends, but, despite this, Ed initially found it difficult to write about one of Australia’s most famous parish priests.

It was after the Sydney Morning Herald published Ed’s stunning obituary on Ted Kennedy on 19 May 2005, that several readers asked for more. They suggested he write a book about Kennedy and tell more of the story of Redfern. Ed, the historian, relies on letters, records, papers and a trail of material to help recreate a picture of the person. Kennedy, a larger than life character, left memories and a community enriched by his giving, but very few papers or letters. Still, Ed persisted and the story of his friend is now in print. It’s a story that inspired Ed and thousands of others, especially members of the Aboriginal community.

‘Ted took the Gospel seriously and he tried very hard to live it and he helped others find their own way to live it. He opened up doors and windows for people so they could try and find their own ways of living the Gospel’, Ed says. ‘Each of us is called by God to build the kingdom: it’s how we respond to that call.’

Certainly, Ted Kennedy’s response was loud and clear and often unpopular with the official church, but so are many of Ed Campions subjects. He is interested in the story and not the status of his subjects.

Madonna readers and other keen followers often send him suggestions of who he might tackle in a column. He reads a great deal and always with his Madonna readers in mind.

‘I am often looking through magazines and books reading about people or an event that may trigger an idea for a column. When people read my column I want them to think, ‘Yes, that person is one of us”.’

Ed Campion’s audience stretches far beyond the Madonna readership and further back in time. He began reviewing literary and other works for the now-defunct Bulletin magazine in the 1960s. He is published in a variety of national magazines and has published 11 books, including scholarly historical studies such as Lord Acton and the First Vatican Council (1975) and John Henry Newman (1980).

In 1982 he published Rockchoppers: Growing up Catholic in Australia. It tells of being a Catholic boy in a bygone era when Sunday Mass was as much a part of the day as a Sunday roast. Lines of My Life: Journal of a Year (2003) is an even more personal account of a year spent partly in New York in the wake of September 11, and ten months in Sydney.

Ordained a Catholic priest in 1961, Ed hasn’t ventured too far for too long from Sydney in his 75 years, although his academic and literary pursuits have taken him for spells around the world. Much of his important writing, teaching and pastoral work has happened close to home.

He has been Chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and a judge of most major Australian literary awards, including the prestigious Miles Franklin. Ed applauds Tim Winton, winner of this year’s Miles Franklin, for his novel Breath. One suspects Ed could talk with as much passion about Tim Winton’s work as he could discussing an obscure scholar from another century. There are not many topics that Ed Campion shies away from. Perhaps his childhood spent growing up as a publican’s son explains his great gift of hospitality and his willingness to talk to people and hear, with enthusiasm and generosity, their ordinary stories.

Ed has supped with some of the world’s most admired literary figures, yet it was a moment in the heat of outback Alice Springs that remains a highlight of his literary life. He was being introduced to a tribal elder, a man who was revered as the one who passes on stories from one generation to the other. His host turned to the elder and introduced Ed Campion as ‘our story man’.

And how many young writers and historians has he helped navigate the difficulties of academic rigour? For a quarter of a century he taught history at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and in 2005 the University of Sydney awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

Ed Campion has witnessed and been a part of some extraordinary changes in the Catholic Church and he has written about many of them. Perhaps one of the most important and welcome changes for him has been the storytellers of faith.

‘There was a time when only priests wrote columns or opinions about Catholic Church issues. In my lifetime this has changed and now readers and other lay people are writing about the challenges of the Gospel and prayer and it is a remarkable change’, he says.

Ed has written fiction and non-fiction, challenging academic articles as well as more frivolous stories, and yet he is still hungry to learn. The Australian author Helen Garner teaches him every time she writes a book, he says. Writing is a craft that he is still to perfect, and there are many stories still to be written.

Who would he like to meet, talk to and write about if he could turn back time? Ed ponders that one for a while and finally settles on James McAuley, the Australian poet and Catholic convert who died in 1976. Although three books have already been written about this man who was behind the Ern Malley literary hoax of the 1940s, Ed still remains unsatisfied and keen to find out more.

‘He’s the one I would like to sit down and talk to if I could. He lived on many levels and, though I knew him, I would like to know him much better.’

Ever the optimist, Ed hopes to meet McAuley and the other subjects of his columns one day—when all questions will be answered!