From the earliest days of the Catholic Church in Western Australia our pioneers sought to offer the Christian faith to Aboriginal people. One of the reasons given by Fr John Brady to Pope Pius IX why Perth should be made a Diocese with a bishop was the evangelisation of the Aboriginal people.
In 1846 the first Catholic school was opened by the Sisters of Mercy, their first student being a young Aboriginal girl.
Bishop Salvado opened an Aboriginal school in New Norcia on 8 December 1847. The outreach to the local indigenous people was the very reason for establishing a Benedictine Monastery at New Norcia!
Land and farming skills were offered to many local Aboriginal people to encourage their settlement around the Monastery as happened across Europe. Their mission soon expanded to provide residential care to many Aboriginal children and supplies to the many indigenous people displaced by the spreading of pastoral properties.
Soon Catholic Missions were scattered throughout most of Western Australia, particularly in the North-West with Kalumburu, Beagle Bay LaGrange, Lombardina, Balgo and other smaller centres. In the south, Tardun and later Wandering Mission.
Catholic education spread to many areas in the North West where traditional life was still sustainable as in Warnum (was Turkey Creek then) and Halls Creek. Many mission educated Aboriginal people still have fond memories of the missions and love to sing the Latin hymns of their childhood.
Times have changed. The number of those with first-hand experience of the missions is dwindling rapidly.
Having reached out to the Aboriginal people and affected their lives profoundly in many ways, the Church should pause and evaluate whether the subsequent generations still cherish their faith and whether they are in close contact with the Church communities, especially the parishes.
Their active presence in the Church is, to say the least, patchy. In Broome and some remote communities the Church is still very significant to their lives. In large towns and cities they tend to be on the fringe of Church life, contact diminishing with each new generation.
From a Perth perspective, the only one on which I feel qualified to comment, Aboriginal Catholic people are poorly represented in our parishes. They are better represented in our Catholic school system and in various Church Aboriginal ministries.
The situation deserves greater scrutiny and consideration.
Given that so much effort went into Catholic Missions, one would expect a better continuity of Church participation.
Pope John Paul II spoke at Alice Springs about the inclusion of Aboriginal people into the Catholic Church. He spoke of their rightful place in the Church and the need for the Church to receive their gifts of culture, spirituality and faith.
This is the challenge that faces us now. Catholic Aboriginal people are still numerous. Their inclusion in Perth in our parishes, organisations and ministries is very limited. It should be otherwise.
We have a very active and effective Catholic Aboriginal ministry and excellent social assistance agencies like Daydawn, Djooraminda and Anawim, but their activities do not find any counterparts in parishes. There are distinct services for Aboriginal people.
The provision of such services is valid because similar services, and more, are provided for different ethnic groups. Special language Masses, prayer groups and cultural activities of ethnic communities assist their insertion into the life of the Church. Over two or three generations they become less necessary because of the integration of these groups into normal parish life.
Provision of special services for Aboriginal people are of such a nature and may be even more necessary today because of the experience of exclusion by many Aboriginal people.
The need of the Church to draw Aboriginal people more closely into her parish life is urgent.
Church leaders and parish councils might do well to consider some questions:
l Why are Aboriginal people so often absent from Parish Masses, from Parish Councils, from Prayer and Study Groups, from social activities and from positions of Church leadership at Parish level?
l Is there a reluctance to include them? Is there a reluctance on the part of Aboriginal Catholics to join the Parish community and if so, why?
l Does the Parish know how many Aboriginal Catholics live within the Parish boundaries?
l What is the situation in Catholic Schools regarding Aboriginal students?
Answers to these and other questions will inevitably lead to attempts to remedy the situation.
One might be for instance:
Conduct a Parish census.
Form a reconciliation group.
Set up catechesis for Aboriginal children and their parents or relatives, especially for the Sacraments.
Invite the Aboriginal people to a Church function.
Invite the parents to utilise the local Catholic school.
Form neighbourhood friendship groups with Aboriginal children.
A word of caution. It would be a mistake to consider Aboriginal people generally as “the poor”. Poverty, even the most abject kind, exists among them even in the city and must be addressed. But to consider all Aboriginal people as poor and needy, this is not the case. To see them only as the objects of welfare assistance is to stigmatise them and to fail them with low expectations.
Parish communities are aggregations of equals, called to be brothers and sisters in Christ.
It is part of our self-belief that we have received gifts that are to be shared – faith, friendship and love, openness, generosity and support in times of trial. We also have the key gift: the knowledge and love of Jesus. He urges us to share these gifts with others. Catholic Aboriginal people, no less than others, have a right to this experience.
Apart from the key role of parishes, distinct Aboriginal Masses and Centres of catechesis and social interaction, other Catholic groups and societies might do well to actively seek Aboriginal membership, conscious that there may well be factors that inhibit the people from making an approach.
I strongly urge all Catholic parishes and organisations to do all that is possible to remedy the low level of Aboriginal inclusion in the life of the Church
+ Most Rev B J Hickey
Archbishop of Perth
14 December 2009