This week:  NAIDOC Week/ National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee, Catholic Plenary Council Meeting.

In the spirit of the Uluru Statement of the Heart and of a Synodal Australian Church.

"Two apparently disparate events in coming days: the Catholic Plenary Council and NAIDOC Week. The weeks are moments in the life of communities that are in for the long haul. The larger challenges that they face will endure long after the week is over...

If NAIDOC and of the Australian Catholic Church are to achieve their goals time and patience will be required. Yet both weeks show signs of justifiable impatience. This year the theme of NAIDOC Week is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! Its tone is urgent, expressing frustration at the resistance to change but also the recognition that new possibilities have opened. Last year the theme was Heal Country, which echoed both a broader demand in Australia for respect for the natural environment and specific outrage at the destruction of the Juukan Caves. Impatience is understandable...

A sense of marginalisation leads easily to discouragement and dissipation of energy. That must be met by preserving and nourishing culture. Both Indigenous and Catholic communities face this challenge...

The building of the relationships involved in tradition and the culture built around it is a long-term project of the kind to which NAIDOC and the Catholic Church have long been committed. Dedicated weeks and Councils are important in gathering support for and furthering that project. But their effectiveness will lie in the energy they generate within people to hang in for the long haul."  

 Acknowledging the reflections of Andrew Hamilton SJ, Eureka Street.