By Robert Osmak, December 1998
On the Aboriginal Reconciliation Information Day, nearly 400 people from all over Brisbane Archdiocese attended our parish church at St Eugene de Mazenod, Burpengry (40 km north of Brisbane).
Our parish priest, Fr Harry Dyer OMI, afterwards described the meeting as "a gathering of Catholic people who are genuinely trying to fulfil Jesus' command to love one another as He has loved us". And, who are "searching for justice".
I attended the same meeting as Fr Dyer. I certainly would not give the meeting that same glowing description. Firstly, I can't recall hearing the name "Jesus" (or Catholicism or Christianity) used.
As for "love", there was no love for those who dared to disagree with the speakers. They were hooted and told to "shut up". Questions that challenged the speakers' assertions were greeted with shouts "don't answer it".
As for "justice", that depends on your definition of the word. The speakers' political agenda was very clear. Those who were deemed opposing it were described as racists, bigots, fascists, Nazis, Hansonites, anti-Aboriginal, ignorant or just plain stupid. All in the name of "justice".
If I was at a party political meeting and heard such views expressed I would have considered them as terribly biased, in poor taste, unnecessarily crude and foul. Yet that was what I heard inside a Catholic Church with the Holy Eucharist only metres away.
The first speech, by an Aboriginal woman, turned out to be an extremely tasteless and crude tirade against Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. If we cannot bring ourselves to vote for a major party, we were told, then there is no need to vote for One Nation, just don't vote at all. (Perhaps the speaker was unaware, in Australia, it is illegal not to vote).
By voting One Nation we could unwittingly elect a Hitler as the German people had done. As we all know, we were told, this led to the massacre of the Jewish people. Electing One Nation could lead to a similar result, a massacre. The implication was that once elected a One Nation government would massacre the Aboriginal people as the Nazis had massacred the Jews.
It amazed me that no-one raised an objection against this senseless and outrageous tirade. Obviously this was a meeting of the party faithful. The meeting had nothing to do with love, justice or reconciliation - still less with Catholicism or Christianity. Our Lord in the Tabernacle did not merit a mention.
For this kind of a meeting to be held in a Catholic Church was nothing short of blasphemous.
Our second speaker was Fr Frank Brennan SJ. For about an hour and a half he harangued us with legal and political implications of Aboriginal land claims. Apparently he is quite comfortable with 80% of Australia being claimed by Aborigines. However, he assured us that our "backyards are safe".
Fr Brennan, an expert on Aboriginal affairs, spends much of his time on a lecture circuit talking about Aboriginal matters. As he relates it himself, a grazier actually suggested to him that he should be in "a presbytery praying" instead of promoting Aboriginal claims. This suggestion was greeted with laughter by the audience.
Papal encyclicals dealing with justice and social harmony were not mentioned. The name of our Lord was never invoked. The talk was simply a partisan political speech intended for a secular audience.
Several speakers thanked the Gubbi Gubbi people for their hospitality: Gubbi Gubbi people are laying Aboriginal land claims to thousands of kilometres of land in this region. The land of our parish is part of that claim. The Gubbi Gubbi people, "the traditional owners", were thanked properly for allowing us to meet in this new church on their territory.
During the question time, written questions were taken from the audience by a panel consisting of Fr Brennan, Camilla Cowley, a grazier, and Joan Hendriks, an Aboriginal reconciliation educator. Fr Brennan remarked that it was interesting (ironical too!) that legal/political questions were directed to him, a priest; while spiritual questions were answered by Ms Hendriks, who had no official status in the Catholic Church. Ms Hendriks handled the spiritual question from an Aboriginal dream-time concept.
This approach met with an obvious approval from the audience. Both Fr Brennan and Mrs hendriks were consistently applauded for their answers. However both Ms Hendriks and the audience became very hostile when a question was asked on the Aboriginal "stolen generation" issue, suggesting that the children were not stolen but rather rescued. An elderly man then stood up and explained that he and others had personally picked up many children abandoned by their Aboriginal mothers outside a settlement near Darwin. This, he claimed, was motivated by charity and good intentions towards the Aboriginal people.
Ms Hendrik's dismissed the elderly man's assertions as unworthy of any serious consideration. And in any case, she suggested, if any children were abandoned it was the fault of white society.
St Eugene's parishioners in the audience were clearly outnumbered and intimidated by the politically motivated majority. In our parish of St Eugene, one must almost feel pity towards an average normal Catholic family man or woman.
It seems that the salvation according to the "new" Gospel consists of saying "sorry" for our crimes (which we didn't commit) against Aborigines and giving to the Aboriginal industry everything it demands (or be labelled racists). Personal sin (as defined by the Ten Commandments) has been "abolished". "Racism" (along with sexism) ware the new "sins", the only "sins".
In the weeks between May 31 and July 12, 1998 of the seven Catholic Leader's front page headlines, five were on "racism". They read as follows: Deep Sorrow (about the stolen generation) 31/5/98; Reject Racism 14/6/98; Call for Response to One Nation 21/6/98; Fear Politics 5/7/98 and Wik's Summit 12/7/98.
While the Australian family is under unprecedented attack, our Bishop remains silent on family issues. An average Catholic man and woman raising a normal family not only feel abandoned by their church but under a cloud of suspicion for being normal and white.
Yet it is precisely the normal Australian family that is unprecedented attack from the secular society. Easy, no fault divorce of the Family Law Act (1975) has to be to date the most direct and insidious attack on the family unit.
Availability of easy Medicare funded abortion is not only a state sponsored attack on the sanctity of human life, but an attack on the source of that life, the human family. And what Australian family has not felt the scourge of alcohol, drugs and sexual immortality as it battles to raise its children in a society that has all but abandoned standards of morality.
The Catholic Leader (and our Bishop) seems strangely blind to these issues. It's been said that our "Catholic" paper is from "another planet". It certainly is not addressing the urgent issues of this planet! Yet surely declining Mass numbers and decreasing financial support should tell our priests and bishop that they are alienating Catholics.
In our parish, our fundraising campaign to pay for the newly built church, is faltering. According to St Eugene's Fundraising Committee "of the people attending Mass... only 48% agreed to commit anything to the church... 52% of Mass attending parishoners indicated they would give nothing!!"
How many Catholics over the past several months have been offended by the anti-One Nation statements by the Bishop and many priests? How many have decided not to support our parish financially (or actively in other ways)?
How many have voted with their feet, joined other parishes, or left the Catholic Church altogether in disgust with the parish party politics?
Only about 10-15% of Catholics attend Mass regularly these days. And the figures are declining. Isn't it time for re-assessment? Is it right to use the parish pulpit for partisan politics? Sincere Catholics go to church for spiritual nourishment, nor party political propaganda. Why disappoint them?
Is it any wonder that "52% of Mass attending parishioners... indicated they would give nothing!" Has the Brisbane archdiocese got a death wish? Is the "smoke of Satan" driving Catholics out of their churches?
How long before the clergy wake up?
The Catholic Leader 18/10.98 reports that Bishop Putney supports the concept of a "pilgrimage to Uluru - the world's largest monolith and a focus of indigenous spirituality - near Alice Springs".
The Bishop is reported as saying that "the whole people of Australia could make the same spiritual journey". To Uluru the home of the Rainbow Serpent - a spiritual journey back into paganism? Has the Bishop forgotten that satan has power? That if the sepent is invited, he will come?