From this time on some marriage celebrants began to quietly and carefully officiate at funerals when they were asked to do so. On 3 May 1977, a group of some authorised marriage celebrants and some others formed an association - the Funeral Celebrants Association of Australia. Dally Messenger III was elected the inaugural president. Funeral directors and clergy attended as supportive members. For them it solved the problem of appropriate ceremony providers for the increasing number of families for whom a religious ceremony was no longer an authentic option. For many years this had been an uncomfortable problem for which there had been no good solution.Note: The vast majority of Australians were members of one of the five main churches - Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist. It was still in the period of the White Australia policy and a strong Christian tradition without the influence of eastern and non-Christian religions - save a small Jewish community of pre and post war immigrants.
