Dear Friends,

This week is National Reconciliation Week and we in Australia are also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum which gave Indigenous Australians the right to be counted as citizens in the Census. This year is also the 25th anniversary of the historic Mabo High Court Native Title decision.

Both of those events are rightfully celebrated as milestones in the life of our nation, but we’re all aware that much more needs to be done, both symbolically and on the ground in practical measures.

I was moved at the recent Mission: One Heart Many Voices conference to hear the presentation from Evelyn Enid Parkin, a Quandamooka woman from Moreton Bay in Queensland.

Evelyn talked from the heart about her Aboriginality, her Christianity and her struggle over the years to reconcile the two. She said she had spent many years studying and exploring in depth her Aboriginal spirituality and how it sat with her Christianity. What she discovered was that Christianity is a continuation of her original culture.

“I realised that God does not speak to us first and foremost through European theology,” she said. “In other words, I didn’t have to be white to know God.”
The most moving part of Evelyn’s presentation though, came when she told of how hurtful it is, that more than 30 years since Pope John Paul II called for the Church to embrace Aborigines and their culture, Australia’s first peoples still feel as though they are not always welcome in a Church which has largely failed to incorporate Indigenous culture into its life and celebrations.

Despite this hurt though, she said she remained full of hope for the future.

“I have hope for a faith expressed through an enculturated, reconciled and merciful Church,” she said.

“We’re a very patient people. We have lots of hope. We cannot give up and that is because the Spirit within us is too strong, because God came to us, he let Himself be known to us and so we have a job to do, and we are patient.”

As we celebrate these milestones in the life of our nation, and as we engage in the upcoming national discussion over the question of incorporating recognition of Indigenous Australians in the wording of our Constitution, or of treaties, let’s also take a look closer to home.

Is my parish a welcoming place for my Indigenous brothers and sisters? Are we taking the call of St John Paul II in Alice Springs seriously? Is there something that I can do, or that my parish or local community can do to embrace Aboriginal culture in our own local context?

As missionaries serving Indigenous communities in Central Australia, the SVD is committed to enculturation in every situation. Evelyn reminds us that there is always more we can do to ensure that our Indigenous brothers and sisters feel at home, both in their own country and within the people of God.

Yours in the Word,

Fr Henry Adler SVD

Provincial Superior

PHOTO: Mrs Evelyn Enid Parkin, NATSICC Qld Representative speaking at the Mission: One Heart Many Voices conference.