National Reconciliation Week - an MSC acknowledgement.

This week has been National Reconciliation Week in Australia, with May 26^th being the 20^th anniversary of the 2000 Sorry Day with its walks in support of First Nation Australians, the memorable walk of thousands across Sydney Harbour Bridge.

This should be an important week for Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who have worked with aboriginal people in the Northern Territory since 1906, not only in Darwin, but in the Tiwi Islands, Santa Teresa and Alice Springs, Daly River, Wadeye/ Port Keats.

It is a challenge to look back at our history, strengths, weaknesses, challenges, including the Aboriginal ministry in western New South Wales, Wilcannia, Burke, and, more recently the Aboriginal Ministry in Sydney-based in Erskineville.

Patrick Dodson, ordained 45 years ago, 1975, the first aboriginal priest, not continuing in the priesthood but devoting himself to national reconciliation, often referred to as the ‘Father of Reconciliation’, is now a Senator in the Australian Federal government.

Quotes from Patrick Dodson:

Leadership is an elusive concept, hard to describe and impossible to prescribe. It is more evident in its absence, so that when leadership is needed, its lack is sorely felt.

We have much to contribute to the world; ways of knowing and being that are going to be essential to everyone's survival on our planet. As true citizens of Australia, properly acknowledged in our constitution, we can look forward not only to improving our own lot, but helping Australia contribute to the well-being of all the world's peoples.

For Aboriginal leaders, the social and moral obligation that comes with community leadership is life-long. Those who lead, who have authority, must care for and look after those who come behind.

These Australians hear the whispering in their heart and know it can only be silenced by coming to terms with the original owners of this beautiful and bounteous land. Many Australians of goodwill sense that a moment for national leadership has slipped past us and is gone.

In a climate of uncertainty and fear, without strong and visionary leadership, people panic.

A perspective from Andrew Hamilton SJ: “Seen through the lens of Sorry Business, Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week belong together and involve all Australians. It is an invitation to the whole Australian Community to do Sorry Business for the death and diminishment which Government policies brought to the Stolen Generations. The removal of children from their parents was bound up with death in its beginnings and its consequences. It developed from the conviction that Indigenous culture was dying out. It was designed to accelerate that process by assimilating the snatched children to their dominant culture. It brought death to the spirit of people separated from their families and culture and often untimely physical death to them and their descendants.”