Coober Pedy Priest Father Paul Crotty travels across the Outback to deliver the word of God

Coober Pedy priest Father Paul Crotty is comfortable delivering the word of God from a pulpit in a the town’s underground church or after sleeping in a swag under the Outback stars.

He’s the beloved Outback priest with a parish the size of France who throws a swag in the LandCruiser whenever he heads bush to spread the word of God.

He’s changed more blown tyres than he cares to remember on dirt tracks on route to destinations as far flung as Birdsville, Yulara, Oodnadatta and Maree, Glendambo at the APY Lands.

Oh, and he’s also a former North Melbourne footballer who is now passing down tips he learnt from legendary VFL coach John Kennedy to the youngsters in the self-proclaimed opal mining capital of the world.

Meet Father Paul Crotty, 60, the Coober Pedy-based Catholic priest in charge of one of the largest and most remote parishes in Australia, if not the world.

He’s been here for six years and it’s a far cry from metropolitan Melbourne where he grew up as one of six siblings and with dreams of becoming an accountant, playing VFL football and getting married.

He achieved two of those goals when he scored a job as an accountant and earned a spot on the playing list with North Melbourne – training under Kennedy with names the calibre of Jimmy and Phil Krakouer, Mick Martyn and Wayne Carey.

Father Paul Crotty in the ornate underground Catholic church. Picture: Dean Martin

“I had a lot going in my life – career, sport, girlfriend, friends, partying, social life… but I wasn’t living that in Christ,” he reflects as we escape the heat in his underground rectory.

“It was sad in a sense… and I started to search for that joy and happiness I’d experienced before, while growing up in the family and in faith.”

He travelled overseas for a year, searching for the right path in life and when he returned, age 25, decided to dedicate himself to God.

About 11 years later he was ordained and became a diocesan priest in Wagga Wagga before being asked to “help out” in the massive SA diocese of Port Pirie – a district that stretches from the WA border to the Riverland and the top of the Yorke Peninsula.

After about 10 years in each of Port Pirie and Port Augusta, he moved further north to lead Coober Pedy’s Catholic Church of St Peter and St Paul, which had become the town’s first underground church in 1965.

And while the cave-like ambience of the underground sanctuary provides a unique haven for worship unlike nearly every other church on the planet, it’s out in the desert Fr Crotty sometimes feels closest to God.

“One of the blessings is that when you travel, you have an opportunity to just be away from everything,” he says. “A lot of the places where people encountered the Lord were in the desert.

Father Paul Crotty. Picture: Dean Martin

“The vastness of the Outback gives you a sense of the vastness of the Lord. And you look at the sky, the stars at night, and you see the wonderful array of the Milky Way and you look at it and you think, is anybody else experiencing this?

“You’re under its wide expanse, and you’ve got a sense of the infiniteness of God, but also the sense that within that you’re important … that you have a presence as well to the Lord.”

Fr Crotty has certainly made his presence felt in the town, especially on the football front. He spends many of his winter nights training a small but dedicated group of under-18 footballers and coordinates Coober Pedy’s version of Auskick – renamed, of course, Opal Auskick – for kids aged 5-12.

The Coober Pedy Saints Football Club has disbanded but Fr Crotty regularly drives a carload of under-18s four and a half hours to join teams at Roxby Downs by 10am on a Saturday morning, before turning around and driving back after the game on the same day.

The Opal Auskick sessions attract families from stations up to 180km away.

“It’s really a great opportunity for the parents and the kids to have a lovely engagement,” he says.

He laughs at the suggestion that young footballers in a place as remote as Coober Pedy, about 850km from Adelaide, have the opportunity to be coached by someone with VFL experience.

“Yes, so I should know something… that’s the theory anyway.,. but it’s good fun,” he says. “Coober Pedy is a wonderful place to be. I’m really happy here.”