From Coburg to the Kimberley – a narrative of lifelong learning in Catholic faith and ways

By Noel McMaster CSsR
Available from David Lovell Publishing, PO Box 44, East Kew 3102
RRP $24.95
Reviewed by 
Bernard Goldman

Father Noel McMaster’s most recent book calls us to a place that many of us would rather not go: a place where there are no easy answers or solutions. It is the place of the cross cultural encounter.
The author has spent the last 30 years working with Aboriginal people mainly in the Kimberley. He has not produced a “tool kit to work with Aboriginal people”. Rather, he offers a process for conversation with Aboriginal people.
It is implicit in Noel’s work that missionaries have been seduced into doing something; something akin to the Federal Government’s NT Intervention, as might be taken from his earlier book, The Catholic Church in Jaru and Gija Country (David Lovell, 2008).
Without being in partnership, this Church and its missionaries on occasions matched Government centralist policies during much of the 20th century eg the stolen generations. In this lately published book, From Coburg to the Kimberley, we are invited to strip ourselves of dominant ideologies and go back to Jesus of Nazareth. We are invited to go back to Jesus who invites us into freedom.
From Coburg to the Kimberley sketches the broad sweep of Noel’s life, from parental home to seminary to military chaplaincy and finally to his appointment as parish priest of Kununurra in the East Kimberley in 1978. From there, his main thesis seems to be that we can choose to enter into a conversation with Aboriginal people. We do not need to convert or persuade in such a conversation.
Rather, we need to listen and wait. In that waiting, we hold to our Christian tradition while opening up ourselves to the promptings of the Spirit in the other’s faith tradition. Like Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophonician woman, we can change in our encounters with the other. Our faith experience can expand in the encounter with those in differing cultural situations.
There is a sadness that smiles from Noel’s reflection on his life. He does not see himself as a winner or loser; rather, as someone who has made a wager on God’s revelation in Jesus of Nazareth.  
An image of Uruguayan theologian JL Segundo dares Noel to see the evangeliser as a sculptor who will sculpt even with corruptible (entropic!) materials; whatever activities an evangeliser engages in are left to God’s providence and its context of chance in human affairs. He must work on regardless.
This wonderful testimony has been offered in the author’s 74th year. It is a book about integrity, not despair. He gently critiques those he has encountered both within the Church and beyond.  
Chapters 6 and 8 deal mainly with parish life and diocesan governance. In his experience of both these areas of Kimberley Church life, there has been much to learn with liberation theologian, Juan Luis Segundo, being one of his luminaries in an attempt to interpret Broome Diocese’s missiology with its embedded dependence on schools. Chapter 7 offers his view of The Last Frontier (the logo of the Shire of Wyndham and East Kimberley), addressing in particular some of the tensions that arose in Kununurra after Mabo (1992).
Noel’s reflections are inspiring but unsettling. His book is not for the fainthearted. It is a difficult enough read here and there with his insertion of theological jargon into some of the narrative.  The reader may be thus frustrated at times but essentially Noel is empowering us to step out in faith and wait for the promptings of the Spirit in the presence of the other.
I would recommend this book to those struggling in cross cultural encounters.  I also recommend it to the many Australians who have known Noel over his 50 years of faithful ministry. Noel speaks unfailingly of his love for those he encountered on his journey. He does not sugarcoat his encounters but he has clearly left any possible judgements to God.
Bernard Goldman is a practising psychologist and member of the Catholic Schools Council, Maitland Diocese. He is former ATSIC regional manager, Kununurra, East Kimberley; current member of the Catholic Schools Board, Maitland Diocese.