Indian missionary following God’s call to serve in Australia
By Michael Crutcher
HOW did the son of Indian cashew farmers land in Brisbane’s inner north via a few years on the fringes of Australia’s Outback?
“It was God’s plan for me,” Fr Paul Chackanikunnel said. “God wants me to be here – at this particular time and in this particular place.
“I can see how God uses me.”
Fr Paul is sipping coffee a few hundred metres from his new home at Our Lady Help of Christians, Hendra.
He is rugged up against the winter breeze that rarely visits his Indian home state of Kerala.
It’s there that Fr Paul’s parents operate a farm that has produced rubber, cashews, ginger, pepper and coconut.
And it was there that Fr Paul, the eldest of five children, made his decision to come to Australia.
He was having breakfast at the Carmelite of Mary Immaculate (CMI) monastery when a senior priest told Fr Paul he was in line for a stint in Australia.
“I wanted to go somewhere where I could learn to speak English. I could read and write it but that’s very different to speaking it,” Fr Paul said.
“I had expressed some interest in coming to Australia. I thought I would come here and have an experience. But it was only to be two years – I really expected to be going back home.”
There was plenty to keep Fr Paul in Kerala – a state that has more than 33 million people living on a sliver of India’s south-western coast line.
He started a school there and watched it grow to more than 700 students.
The CMI school was “his dream” and Fr Paul spent four years as its founding principal.
That school now has 1400 students through to Year 12.
Fr Paul left school after Year 10 – that was then the accepted end of secondary school in India – and headed to the CMI seminary.
He wanted to take the first steps on the path to a religious life – the same journey travelled by many priests and nuns from Fr Paul’s extended family.
“That extended family influenced me. I came from a family that had prayers every morning and every night. Our faith was strong,” Fr Paul said.
“So I knew it was something that I wanted to do. I was there at age 15 and I had much to learn.”
Fr Paul was ordained at age 30 after 15 years of training – but nothing could prepare him for life in Australia’s frontier land.
The gentle, kind Indian with the contagious laugh boarded a plane for a trip to Bourke in regional New South Wales.
It was there Fr Paul, accompanied by Childers parish priest Fr Sunny Mathew, began to learn about Australia.
His introduction included toast with a lashing of Vegemite – “that was a very different taste” – and lessons in Australian slang.
“I had to have a sense of humour,” Fr Paul said. “If I was too serious, there is no way that I could have worked here.
“If I heard some slang, I had to ask people what it meant. And they helped me a lot. They knew my limitations.”
After two years, Fr Paul made an important choice.
He realised that the CMI order in Kerala was ordaining about 50 priests each year.
They had enough to continue to grow the faith in Fr Paul’s homeland.
So he asked his superiors if he could remain in Australia.
“I thought about where I would be most useful. I told my superior that, if I stayed in Australia, I could give life to another parish. We don’t have as many priests here in Australia,” Fr Paul said.
Fr Paul was about to learn the value of his presence in Australia.
After two years in Bourke, he was appointed as the parish priest in Wentworth where the Murray and Darling rivers meet.
The temperatures in the border town in south-western NSW can creep below zero on the toughest winter mornings.
But Fr Paul kept busy for the next three years – he was the parish priest, the parish secretary and the pastoral council. He wrote the parish bulletin and looked after the parish accounts.
“That was a real learning curve. And it really helped me to learn about the ministry of the parish,” he said.
“There was so much to do but we had so many good people in the parish. It was a very rewarding time.”
Fr Paul’s next move was to the Brisbane archdiocese.
He spent three years at Stanley River parish, taking his excellent spoken English between Woodford, Kilcoy and Mt Mee.
And then came his posting last year to Hendra and Northgate, where Fr Paul is parish priest.
He is also administrator for the Hamilton parish.
His days are consistent – awaking at 4am and bouncing through with an energy and smile that have become well-known through Hendra and Hamilton.
“I have been told by the archdiocese that I will be here for a normal tenure and I am very much looking forward to that. I really want to build a team of people in this parish,” Fr Paul said.
“We have a wonderful community here. It’s one that continues to grow and I am very thrilled to be part of that.”
