Moonah, TAS - St Theresa Catholic

History and Architecture:

The area, New Town to Bridgewater was part of St. Mary's Cathedral Parish until Archbishop W. Hayden made Moonah a parish in 1931. Catholicsformerly went to Mass in those times, either to Sacred Heart Church, New Town (built in 1880), or to old St. John the Baptist Church, Main Road, Glenorchy, which was blessed and opened by Bishop Willson on 3rd March, 1859.

The foundation stone for a new Church-School was laid by Very Rev. Father Denis Murphy on the Feast of Christ the King, 25th October, 1931. A bank loan (as already noted) had been obtained; Fr. O'Donnell always maintained that this was in answer to a Novena in honour of St. Therese. The people present at the ceremony donated £451.

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart came to Moonah in June 1932, at the initiative of the then Parish Priest Fr T. J. O’Donnell, with Fr T. O’Loughlin MSC (Parish Priest) and Fr R. Dando MSC (Assistant Priest).

The Convent was built under the direction of Fr T. O’Loughlin MSC for the Sisters of St Joseph and was blessed and opened on 5th May 1935, at a cost of £4,000. The Convent was named St Joseph’s Convent.

The present church was blessed and opened by Archbishop E. V. Tweedy on 21st February 1954, with the cost of the building being £24,000 and was built by J Dunne and E Dorney Architect.