But we are responsible for looking at the truth of things now and in the past, in a way that can build a different kind of future - Photo:canva.com
St Columban’s Mission Society supports Archbishop Mark Coleridge’s strong commitment to creating an Indigenous Voice to parliament as reported in CathNews (15 February 2023), a service of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (see related link below).
Archbishop Coleridge said: “I’m strongly committed to the Voice. I’ve listened to important and convincing indigenous voices on this topic.”
In September 2021, Archbishop Coleridge, during a Mass for First Nations leaders and parish representatives at the Santa Teresa Spirituality Centre in Orminston, east of Brisbane, said: “Only a heart of stone could allow the indigenous peoples to become aliens, exiles, and refugees in their own land.”
Following Mass, Archbishop Coleridge formerly endorsed the Uluru Statement From the Heart, a landmark document signed by 250 indigenous leaders in 2017 and invited all Australians “to walk with Aboriginal and Torress Strait Islander peoples” towards a better nation.
The Second Assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia (3-9 July 2022) also endorsed the Uluru Statement from the Heart with its call for a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Speaking with CathNews, Archbishop Coleridge said Australia will struggle as a nation unless there is genuine reconciliation, including taking account of past wrongs against First Nations people that include dispossession of land, frontier wars, and the impact of past assimilation policies.
Archbishop Coleridge said: “I think you’re dealing with quite deep and dark elements of the Australian psyche.”
“We can’t undo the past and we’re not culpable for what happened in the past.
“But we are responsible for looking at the truth of things now and in the past, in a way that can build a different kind of future.
“I think this is the original sin of Australia until something is done.”
Columban Fr Kevin O'Neill is a member of the Peace, Ecology and Justice office at the Columban Mission Center, Essendon.
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