Bishop Serra
“… bloody end to the pope …”
In “The Perth Inquirer,” 1851, is found a humorous reference to “the Roman Catholic Mission to the Aborigines of West Australia, established in 1848 at a large pool … of the Moore River,” now known as New Norcia.
For a neighbour, the Benedictine monks have an Englishman who enjoys teasing the young Spanish missionaries. He taught the Aborigines to mouth the phrase: “Bloody end to the pope!”
The Aborigines did not understand the meaning of the words, thinking it was a term of friendship and its use might result in receiving more free gifts from the strangely dressed visitors, such as precious rice and potatoes.
The occasion came when Bishop Serra, on horseback, visited a gathering of the tribes in the vicinity of Bindoon, hoping to capitalise on the event by increasing his number of baptisms. As the Bishop started the baptismal rite, some of the other monks noticed that many of the Aborigines gathering around had already been baptized in recent weeks.
Angrily, the Bishop snapped: “Don’t you know, you ungrateful fellows, that we have come all the way from Europe for your benefit?”
“Kiar!” they shouted back, “nganya eulop boola,” meaning, “yes, I am very hungry” (mistaking the word eulop – hungry – for Europe).
With a roar, the painted Aborigines cried out for food and, to further ingratiate themselves with the monks, they uniformly chorused: “Bloody end to the pope!” in perfectly pronounced English.
Soundly shocked, the Bishop responded: “What harm has the Holy Father done you?”
The natives continued their yelling and screaming, clustering around the robed missionaries, stroking their beards and begging for food.
“At last the Bishop and his entourage mounted their horses and galloped away as fast as they could,” the report concluded, “with a troop of savages running after them, laughing and yelling, and shouting with all their might: “Bloody end to the pope!”
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