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other ItaUan-speaking families donating home-made produce. But the social occasions
which most often brought together the Italian-speaking and Celtic populations were
those centred around their shared Catholic faith. The weekly Mass, weddings,
christening, funerals and feast-days in the liturgical calendar enabled ItaUan speakers to
socialise, not oiUy among themselves, but also with members of the Irish community
(to whom they were often related through marriage). The Church and its rituals
provided opportunities to reinforce tradhional beliefs, values and customs while at the
same time challenging attitudes toward the culture and practices of others. It enabled
the immigrants to feel united in their stmggles ~ as immigrants and as 'Australians'.
Following on from the early mining years, there remained, however, some
lasting conflict between the Irish and Italian-speaking members of the Catholic
community. By the 1860s many Italian speakers, whh a retum to family life, had
renewed their reUgious vows and set themselves to raising their children in the Catholic
faith. As noted previously, two Italian-speaking priests had arrived in the district in the
early 1870s (cf above p. 142) but, after only a few months, during which time they had
argued with the local Irish clergy on matters of religious practice, they had been
transferred to other parishes. Served by only Irish clergy, who disapproved of some of
what they perceived to be the flamboyant religious customs and mystic beliefs of the
southem Europeans, many Italian speakers had felt neglected and misunderstood in
their religious fahh (reinforcing an already existent scepticism of the clergy). Inevitable
scenes of conflict had empted, the incidents involving Maddalena Morganti (cf above
pp. 80-81) and Gaetano Tomasetti (cf above p. 147) with their parish priests, being
examples. The fiiction between the Church's ethnic communities was, however, part
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