Australian Dictionary of Biography entry: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mayne-charles-14953

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Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
Mayne, Charles

Social scientist, administrator; born Manchester, England, 2 September 1906; died Melbourne, 28 November 1990, aged 84.

Charles Mayne was raised in Ireland and educated by the Christian Brothers in North Dublin. He joined the Society, 1 September 1924, and was sent to Australia in 1927 as a scholastic to teach at St Ignatius' College, Sydney, where he remained until 1931 when he returned to Ireland to continue his philosophical studies. He was ordained a priest, 24 June 1937.

He returned to Australia in haste in 1939 aboard a ship carrying a number of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. He taught some of them English, and retained friendship with them.

His first appointment was to teach at St Ignatius' College, Riverview, 1940-41, but in 1942 he was appointed to teach at Corpus Christi College, Werribee, and this began his 27-year association with the seminary formation of priests for Victoria and Tasmania. For 20 years he was rector of the seminary, first at Werribee, and later at Glen Waverley. During the years of the Vatican Council he was a wise guide to both staff and students, advising bishops about the needs of priests in a changing era.

Mayne blended the human touch with a wise, firm spiritual direction. He had the gifts of discernment and of encouraging people. He would urge everyone to develop any special gifts and interests that might help future ministry in the Church. Students were also advised to read widely, to investigate ideas, and familiarize themselves with all kinds of movements taking place in the Church. Visiting women lecturers were also welcomed long before the role of women in the Church was topical.

He did much to humanise seminary life and training. He treated students with trust and gave them responsibility. He strongly defended the integrity and freedom of the person. He inspired all with a missionary vision of what was possible in the Church. He constantly proposed to priests that they be role-determining rather than role-determined, and enabled priests to escape an identity crisis by convincing them that they had to be themselves.

During his years as rector he wrought many changes to the seminary. He opened the seminary doors to visiting speakers, lay and clerical, male and female, believers and nonbelievers. He was closely associated with bringing the Cluny nuns into seminary life.

His former students appreciated him for his freshness of mind, breadth of vision and ability to inspire. He was not an academic, but a good practitioner who taught many subjects, theology, philosophy, canon law, languages, spirituality, and 'Catholic Action'. It was in this last field that he had great impact in Australia, the involvement of laymen and women in the apostolate of the Church.

For 50 years and more he was constantly lecturing, writing, and guiding groups of people in the lay apostolate. He helped the seminarians in their work with their future parishioners. He was involved with such bodies as at the Young Christian Workers, Young Christian Students, the National Catholic Rural Movement, and the National Catholic Girls' Movement. Training for leadership in the Church was important for Mayne long before Vatican II; he followed the Cardijn programme of 'see, judge and act'.

At the age of 65, Mayne undertook a missionary-type assignment in Papua New Guinea in 1971, working especially with the indigenous congregation, ‘The Handmaids of Our Lord’ in their renewal programme, and at the Xavier Institute for the Sister Formation Course, living in Boroko. For four years he worked in that country with many religious congregations in spiritual formation and leadership courses. These initiatives reached people from many countries of the Pacific.

For the following ten years, from 1976, he lived mainly in Adelaide, where he became a resource person for the archbishop in the development of parish pastoral councils and the development of lay ministry in the Church. While in Adelaide, he co-authored, with Father Bob Wilkinson, a small handbook, Parish and Lay Renewal, for use in the archdiocesan renewal programmes.

In the 1980s he was involved with renewal programmes for priests at the St Peter Centre in Canberra and much appreciated by both the director and participants in the enterprise.

In the years since 1985 he continued his interest in working with diocesan priests. He lived in the presbyteries of East Keilor, Cheltenham and East Kew, supporting the clergy, and giving spiritual direction to his many friends. He read books and wrote letters continually, keeping up a wide network of contacts until he died in his chair.

Mayne was a priest of vision, a prophetic person of zeal and youthful hope, yet a very private man. He was appallingly shy, nervous, and a diffident person, often ill-at-ease with people. Yet these qualities gave him a great sympathy with the shy, anxious, introverted and sensitive, those who were struggling with life themselves, or troubled in their vocation.

In Mayne, one could discern a man of prayer, deeply humble, with a great respect and love for everyone he encountered. He was a missionary at heart, keen to communicate the means of spreading the Kingdom. Throughout his life he responded to God's call to explore new and richer ways of being a priest. He believed that he was called to challenge and support the laity to be more active in spreading the divine Kingdom. By working with men and women in the lay apostolate he discovered the effectiveness of gathering people into small groups, to reflect on their lives, and to discern and respond to the call of God. He once remarked that he would like to be remembered as one who had been able to inspire others to action. He achieved that goal.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)