General News
20 May, 2025
A new pope, a Spanish Club and Mareeba hospitality
IT was nearly 20 years ago, and the man who is now Pope Leo XIV was here in town, visiting the Mareeba parish.
Father Robert Prevost was, at the time, the Prior General of the Order of St Augustine, a position he held for 12 years.
“He was the General, the head of the Augustinians worldwide, and he was visiting Australia and all of the Augustinian houses, of which Mareeba was one,” former parish priest, now semi-retired, Fr Robert Greenup said.
Augustinians follow the rule of Saint Augustine, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church, whose writings provide instructions on religious life.
Fr Prevost arrived on the sixth of December 2006, and stayed in Mareeba for two days, meeting people in the St Thomas of Villanova Mareeba Roman Catholic parish and staying overnight at the Priory.
“It really was just a very low-key, courtesy visit to meet all the Augustinians in Australia,” Fr Greenup said.
“We had Augustinian priests in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Mareeba.
“So he came to meet me, as I was the only Augustinian priest here at that stage and also to meet the people who were involved - in the parish.
“The formal event was the dinner. We held a reception at the Spanish club that night. We had over 50 guests from the Dimbulah Parish Council and the Mareeba Parish Council and various other people.”
It was this event that appeared to be etched on the Pope’s memories.
“We had a very nice meal catered by Liz Rogato, and we had entertainment. It began with Marty Bong playing didgeridoo,” Fr Greenup said.
“A bit later in the meal, Lyn Harris, a local woman, sang “Waltzing Matilda”, for him. I remember at that time she engaged him in a sort of a quiz, asking him did he know what a swagman was, did he know what a billabong was, did he know what a jumbuck was?
“The Italians and the Spanish there were singing out the answers for the General.
“And then finally, Nello Timpone sang “O sole mio” for him.
“We had home-made Italian red wine that night, Gennaro Marinelli supplied his own wine so we could drink freely of that.”
Pope Leo, born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, would have been delighted with the atmosphere. Fr Greenup recalled the new Pope was a calm, but “happy fellow”.
“The fact that I don’t have a strong memory of him says something about him,” he laughed. “He wasn’t loud or assertive, he was an easy fellow to get along with, he was actually quite reserved and seemed to put people at ease. He certainly enjoyed the night.”
The following day, a lunch was held at the Priory with a few dignitaries, including the former Cairns Bishop James Foley. Again, it was a modest affair, and was beautifully catered for by the housekeeper, Connie Timpone (Nello’s wife).
What has surprised and pleased Fr Greenup over recent weeks was the reported references of the Pope’s memories of that Mareeba visit.
According to the new Bishop of Cairns, Joe Caddy, when he met the then Cardinal Prevost in Rome a month or so ago - before he was elected Pope - he had told him he had “very fond memories of a reception that was held for him in Mareeba”.
“It’s astounding,” Fr Greenup said. “The number of receptions that Robert Prevost would have been to over the years would be astronomical.
“Here he is, still with ‘very fond memories’ of that night at the Spanish Club!”
