Letters from Roger Pryke to Sister Moira O'Sullivan, 1994-1995

MLMSS 8360

fonds

1994-1995

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Photographs

971112

0.01 metres of textual records (1 folder)

Sister Moira O’Sullivan, Catholic nun, was born Margaret Mary Kathleen O’Sullivan in Ireland in 1934 and arrived in Sydney in 1939. In the early 1950s she studied Arts at Sydney University and was a member of the Catholic student group, the Newman Society, on campus where Roger Pryke (1921-2009) was the Catholic chaplain. She entered the order of Religious Sisters of Charity in 1954 and largely taught in secondary schools in Sydney and Tasmania until 1969. She then undertook theology, scripture and spirituality studies, with research in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith at the Vatican, 1969-1973. From the late 1970s to 2007 she taught biblical studies at tertiary level. Sister Moira O’Sullivan was appointed Sisters of Charity congregational historian in 2010. Pryke left the priesthood in 1972 and married Meg Gilchrist, who died in 1994.

Reference:
Library correspondence file

Item 1
Memorial card titled ‘Remembering Meg’, 9 November 1994, printed by Roger Pryke on the death of his wife, Meg, with his note on how the card was conceived and produced. Includes a printed photograph of Meg Pryke on the front cover and of an unidentified Indian girl on back cover.

Item 2
Two-page handwritten letter received from Roger Pryke, undated, but accompanying envelope postmarked 9 July 1995.

Pryke acknowledges receipt of Sister Moira’s book, A Cause of Trouble ?: Irish Nuns and English Clerics (1995); laments the loss of his late wife Meg and loneliness without her; refers briefly to his work at Long Bay Gaol and with the Ankali Support Group, assisting people living with HIV/AIDS; discusses a recent trip to Vietnam with a Belgian friend, a fellow postgraduate student in Rome in 1960-1962; has initiated the writing of his memoirs; and has recently met with Mother Mary Shanahan who organised some of the content of the Nuns’ Courses that Pryke had conducted in the 1960s.

Copyright status:: In copyright
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