Our Lady of Consolation (& St Patrick), Yungaburra

• St James, Malanda
• Our Lady of Consolation & St Patrick, Yungaburra
• St Rita of Cascia, Millaa Millaa
• Mother of Good Counsel Chapel, Genazzano

We pay respect to the Traditional owners of the Land upon which Our Lady of Consolation Church is built, and we pay our respect to past, present and emerging people of this Land.

This church was dedicated on 26 April 1914 to Our Lady of Consolation, principle patron of the Augustinians who were in charge of the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown, later the Diocese of Cairns.

Fr Patrick Doyle OSA was parish priest (in Herberton) when this church was built. After he died (16 Nov 1924) the congregation decided to add a bell in his memory. It was dedicated to his namesake, St Patrick, when installed on Pentecost Sunday 31 May 1925, and a memorial to him was erected under the new bell tower.

The church was always called by its correct title, Our Lady of Consolation, until after 1941 when the Australasian Catholic Directory mistakenly listed it as St Rita’s, then “corrected” it to St Patrick’s as the first non-Augustinian was appointed as bishop of the Diocese of Cairns, Bishop Thomas Cahill. This mistaken name then stuck, and many years later it was speculated that the church had been renamed to honour Fr Patrick Doyle, but this is strictly forbidden: in rare instances a church may gain a new dedication to a saint of higher rank, always keeping the original saint as secondary patron, but a church dedicated to St Mary, mother of Jesus, can never be “demoted” in this way since she ranks above all other saints. It is simply a story of confusion: without signage indicating the proper dedication people later muddled the story of the bell. Even more confusion occurred when the Conservation Plan in October 1999 mistakenly claimed that the original dedication was to Our Lady of Ransom: this was never true. The Queensland Heritage Register still includes some of these mistakes.

Use of the correct title, Our Lady of Consolation, has been restored, but this quirky history means that many people still think of it as St Patrick’s, so prompting his being listed as secondary patron, and hence it is Our Lady of Consolation (& St Patrick) Catholic Church. Some signs are still to be updated.

Our Lady of Consolation

Several religious orders and places have their own particular devotion to St Mary as consoler, each with a different feast date. The Augustinian one emerged from a mediaeval legend in which Mary appears to and consoles Monica as she grieves over the waywardness of her son, Augustine of Hippo. In it Mary hands Monica a cincture or belt she was wearing; the belt in Augustinian iconography is modelled on that worn by the members of order. In the image above, both Monica and Augustine are shown receiving a belt. Monica is often shown, as here, wearing black, looking to most people like a nun, but it is actually a mediaeval style for widows. The Augustinian commemoration of Our Lady of Consolation is 04 September, which is therefore also the titular feast day of this church.