This week is NAIDOC week. Sunday July 5 was NATSICC Sunday. NATSICC, the National Torres Strait and Indigenous Catholic Council, represents Australian Indigenous Catholics. This year the Day also celebrates the fortieth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s powerful address to the Indigenous community at Alice Springs. It speaks just as powerfully to our own day.
In this article Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ, who writes for Jesuit Communications and Social Services, draws our attention to the Pope’s words that day.
His speech contrasts strongly with the message of many politicians and commentators today. They deny the distinctive claim that Indigenous Australians make on all Australians today. They wish to abolish welcome ceremonies, treaties and other signs of difference. For them the gap between the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Australians and others are evidence of inferiority. In contrast to this contemptuous view of Indigenous lives from outside, the Pope attempted to represent Indigenous cultures from within and expressed wonder at what he saw. Their communities and culture are a continuing gift to be nurtured and not an annoying relic of an inferior race.
After the way the Church collaborated with Australian colonisers in marginalising aboriginal people, a reformist Church must be active in the space of reconciliation. As Andrew Hamilton states; “Any effective conversation about these areas in a hierarchical Church must be initiated by the Pope and Bishops and carried through by clergy.”
I wonder how many priests referred in their homily on Sunday to the fact that it was NATSICC Sunday. The priest celebrating the Mass I attended did. He spoke of the aboriginal practice of ‘dadirri’. Dadirri is a practice that sits comfortably with that of synodality.
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