FORMER PAX ROMANA PRESIDENT HONOURED FOR LIFE-LONG COMMITMENT
TO CATHOLIC LAY MOVEMENTS
By Peter Maher and Minh Nguyen
June 12, 2003
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Bill Neville |
The former President of the Catholic professional and intellectual
arm of Pax Romana, Mr Bill Neville, was recognised with a honorary
life membership last week for his life-long commitment to Catholic
lay movements at the General Meeting of Pax Romana’s Australian
branch, the Australian Catholic Movement for Intellectual and
Cultural Affairs (ACMICA).
Mr Neville, now retired, has been involved in the Catholic
student and graduate movements for over 50 years. Since the
1950s he has kept alive the Catholic graduate tradition in
Australia by maintaining an active commitment in the Church
and through his work. He has kept alive international networks
and brought a passion that offered strength, hope and wisdom
in many ways not the least of which was the reformation of
the Australian branch of Pax Romana, one of the oldest and
most respected international lay Catholic movement.
A graduate in arts and education, Mr Neville originally taught
in government schools, for the Marist Brothers in Fiji from
1958 and TAFE from 1962 before taking on a senior public servant
role within the NSW educational administration. But it was
his involvement with Pax Romana initially through the Newman
Association in Sydney and the University Catholic Federation
of Australia (UCFA) (later to become the International Movement
of Catholic Students), that he made his significant contribution
to the life and mission of the Church.
Through these movements he attended international meetings
of Pax Romana from 1965 and in 1975 became a member of its
international council. He was elected President of the graduate
arm of Pax Romana from 1987-1992 and for the last year of
that period worked from its office in Geneva. In his work
for Pax Romana he attended meetings in every continent of
the globe.
Mr Neville’s contributions to the Catholic lay movements
in Australia express the pedagogy and practice of the Catholic
graduate movement. These include his appointment in 1971 by
the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to the Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace and the Joint Secretariat
(with the Australian Council of Churches) of Action for World
Development. He chaired the first National Conference of Australian
Catholic Laity and was a co-founder and later editor of the
National Outlook, an ecumenical magazine concerned with religious
affairs, theological developments and the ethical dimensions
of economic and political issues. This journal ceased publication
in 2001 after 21 years, with Mr Neville being its last editor.
Recently he has worked tirelessly as a member of the founding
committee to re-establish ACMICA. The award of the first honorary
life membership to Mr Neville followed the formal constitution
of ACMICA at its first General Meeting in Sydney last week.
[Modified 20/6/03]
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