Office For Justice, Ecology and Peace

1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy Established in Canberra
2023-01-22 00:00 - 23:59 (Australia/Sydney)

Australia Day / Survival Day
2023-01-26 00:00 - 23:59
2021 Australia Day Reflection from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council

“We find ourselves pondering whether Australia will ever be the same after COVID-19? It might be more useful to ask whether it should be the same after the pandemic. Australia can continue to learn from the challenges of the virus and embrace the gifts of First Nation’s Culture to make it a better place for all.

Whilst we should be talking about these things all year, Australia Day is often the trigger for discussions around moving the date, what our Country stands for or changing the National Anthem. For the record:

– Yes, we should change the date to May 27 (the day that Australia voted to grant citizenship to us Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and to remove us from under the Fauna and Flora Act in 1967),

– Australia should stand for equality, respect, and compassion for all and,

– Yes, the National Anthem should be representative of all.”

Read more of NATSICC’s 2021 Australia Day Reflection here. Drawing on wisdom from the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities in dialogue with Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching, it offers four recommendations:

1. After suffering together through the pandemic, Australians should forge forwards with humble hearts and a unity of mind and armed with a renewed sense of equality and care for one another.

2. Continue to empower and acknowledge the dignity and worth of individuals, created equally in the image of God, through the extension of assistance schemes and the provision of a living wage.

3. All Australians should acknowledge, in our actions and in legislation, that Elders/Old People are valuable and contributing members of society and that we are responsible to care for and love them – just as they did for us.

4. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gifts, skills, and knowledge to be utilised for the betterment of First Nations Peoples and Australia as a whole.

“As we enter 2021 with a sense of hope and ‘rebirth’ we ask that, for the first time in post-colonial history, Australians stand together to lift one another up. Stand alongside the Traditional Custodian. Stand alongside the migrant striving for a better life. Stand alongside the grandmother that has lived through so much. We are much stronger, and much better when we are together.” 2021 Australia Day Reflection, NATSICC.

In 2019 the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC) first publicly joined calls for the date of Australia Day to be changed. They explained:

The 26th of January 1788 was not a day of celebration for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people nor was it for the passengers upon the first fleet – a mix of prisoners and military personnel. Perhaps it is time that we rethink the date upon which our nation comes together as one to recognise and acknowledge the gifts that God has provided in our great southern land. For the past year, those that sit upon the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council have asked their community, peers, friends and fellow Catholics if they celebrate Australia Day. The resounding response was no. That answer was not followed by hatred or vitriol, it was simply that they felt it was not meant for them nor was it mindful of the hurt experienced by Australia’s First People. For many, the opportunity to spend the day with family and friends is appreciated and our people understand and respect the pride that some Australians have for the day, however the foundation of unity and inclusiveness is just not there.Celebrating our nation on a day that harbors grief, invokes painful memories and ignores the true history of our society just doesn’t make sense. Given that the day has been celebrated on various dates and under different names in the past 100 years, what will be lost by moving the date? National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council, 2019.

For Reflection

Key points from NATSICC’s statement:

A majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholics feel that Australia Day is not for them.NATSICC endorses the call to change the date of Australia Day and suggests 27 May as a starting point for conversation. A ‘True History’ educational program should accompany Australia Day to educate and promote understanding of the story of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Every Catholic School in Australia should teach this history. The next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are carrying lots of pain and anger because of things like Australia Day. Something must change!

1939 Cumeragunja Mission Walk-off
2023-02-04 00:00 - 23:59
In 1939 the Aboriginal people walked off Cumeragunja Mission in New South Wales in protest at living conditions and restrictions.

Cape York Peninsula Heads of Agreement Signed
2023-02-05 00:00 - 23:59

Word of God Sunday
2023-02-05 08:00 - 17:00
The Word of God Sunday is devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God. We will celebrate it in Australia for the first time on 7 February. So our podcast, The Revolution of Tenderness, will consider the Word of God in Catholic Social Teaching. With help from Scripture scholars, we will explore passages of Scripture that are quoted in Catholic Social Teaching documents.

Episode 1 features Professor Mary Coloe.

1973: Woodward Royal Commission into Land Rights
2023-02-08 00:00 - 23:59
On this day in 1973 the Woodward Royal Commission into Land Rights in the Northern Territory was established. The Central Land Council situate this event in its historical context here.

1965: Freedom Ride in Australia Begins
2023-02-12 00:00 - 23:59
A group of Sydney University students organised a bus tour through western and coastal New South Wales towns in 1965. As the National Museum of Australia website explains:

Their purpose was threefold. The students planned to draw public attention to the poor state of Aboriginal health, education and housing. They hoped to point out and help to lessen the socially discriminatory barriers which existed between Aboriginal and white residents. And they also wished to encourage and support Aboriginal people themselves to resist discrimination. The students had formed into a body called Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA) in 1964 to plan this trip and ensure media coverage.

Charles Perkins, an Arrente man born in Alice Springs, who was a third year arts student at the university, was elected president of SAFA. The group included Ann Curthoys who would later write a history of these events, Jim Spigelman who would later become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Darce Cassidy, an arts student who was also a part-time reporter for the ABC.

Source: https://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/freedom_ride,_1965

2008: Apology to the Stolen Generation by the Australian Government
2023-02-13 00:00 - 23:59
On this day Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to Indigenous Australians, and especially the Stolen Generation, for past government policies of removing First Nations children from their families. The National Museum of Australia explains here how the journey to a national apology began with the Bringing Them Home Report.

Watch the apology in the video below.

2015: Death of Faith Bandler AC
2023-02-13 00:00 - 23:59
Faith Bandler AC, activist for Indigenous and South Sea Islander rights, passed away on this day in 2005. An obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald highlighted her achievements:

Faith Bandler changed people’s hearts and minds in support of human rights and social justice. Her smile, no doubt, helped. The National Trust listed her as a national living treasure in 1997 and the Herald, in 2001, included her among the 100 most influential Australians of the 20th century. The Good Weekend, in 2011, included her in a list of 50 women considered the most influential in the world.

Her greatest achievement was her 10-year campaign for Aboriginal rights leading to the 1967 referendum which changed the Constitution and included Aborigines in the census. She worked for Aboriginal education and housing, was a founding member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby and the Australian Republican Movement, campaigned for the rights of South Sea Islanders and wrote six books, including Wacvie (1977), a biographical novel about her father.

Read the full text here.

1958: Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders established
2023-02-16 00:00 - 23:59

1990: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission established
2023-03-05 00:00 - 23:59

1913: Founding of Canberra as Australia's captial
2023-03-12 00:00 - 23:59

Harmony Week
2023-03-15 08:00 - 2023-03-21 17:00
Australia celebrates Harmony Week in the days leading up to the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It is a time to celebrate cultural diversity and share the message that everyone belongs.

Find out about Harmony Week events near you here. It is a great time to reflect on chapters 6 and 7 of Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship).

“The image of a polyhedron can represent a society where differences coexist, complementing, enriching and reciprocally illuminating one another, even amid disagreements and reservations. Each of us can learn something from others.” Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, n 215.

2019: Death of Deacon Boniface Perdjert
2023-03-18 00:00 - 23:59
Deacn Boniface, a respected Elder and the first Aboriginal permanent deacon, passed away in 2019. As the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council’s tribute page for Deacon Boniface says:

His words and actions spoke loudly to the members of the Wadeye Community – of which he was a deeply loved and respected Elder – but also to the Catholic Hierarchy with whom he shared his wisdom on many official occasions. http://www.natsicc.org.au/a-tribute-to-deacon-boniface.html

On the first anniversary of Deacon Boniface’s death we share for your reflection these words that he wrote in the later 1970s:

God did not begin to take an interest in people with the incarnation of his Son, nor with Abraham. My people existed here in Australia thousands of years before Abraham. In all that time God was with my people. He worked through their culture. He was saving us despite human weakness. He was preparing us for the day when he would see the features of Aboriginals in the image of his Son. So i must recognize, I must use the things of God that are in my culture. I mus use them in his service. If I do not do this, my faith and my service are shallow. They are pretending. They belong to someone else, not me. God has asked us t love him with wjhole mind, heart and soul. So i must give myself to God as an Aboriginal. This is what God wants or he would not have made me what I am. http://www.natsicc.org.au/a-tribute-to-deacon-boniface.html

National Close the Gap Day
2023-03-18 08:00 - 17:00

1866: Beginning of Sisters of St Joseph at Penola, SA
2023-03-19 00:00 - 23:59

National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence
2023-03-20 00:00 - 23:59
This national day is observed in Australia. Find resources to help you to mark this day here.

2005: Abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)
2023-03-24 00:00 - 23:59

1877: Death of Caroline Chisholm
2023-03-25 00:00 - 23:59

1941: Death of William Cooper
2023-03-29 00:00 - 23:59
William Cooper was an inspirational Aboriginal leader in New South Wales and Victoria in the early part of the 20th century and a founding secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League. The league was created to lobby state and federal governments on behalf of Aboriginal people. The powerful symbolic gesture of a Day of Mourning on 26 January, along with a petition to the British monarch calling for Aboriginal representation in federal parliament, inspired generations of activists working for justice for Indigenous Australians. National Museum of Australia

1897: Death of Jandamarra
2023-04-01 00:00 - 23:59
Jandamarra was an Aboriginal resistance leader of the Bunuba people in Western Australia. Find our more about his story here.

1997: Bringing Them Home Report published
2023-04-05 00:00 - 23:59
The report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families was published on this day in 1997. Read the Bringing Them Home Report here and access information and teaching resources on the Stolen Generations here.

1991: Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Royal Commission Final Report signed
2023-04-15 00:00 - 23:59

ANZAC Day
2023-04-25 00:00 - 23:59

1998: Death of Shirley 'Mum Shirl' Smith, Aboriginal community leader
2023-04-28 00:00 - 23:59

2016: Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen appointed Bishop of Parramatta
2023-05-05 00:00 - 23:59
Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv is the first Vietnamese born bishop to lead a diocese outside of Vietnam and the first Vietnamese born bishop in Australia. He was born in 1961 in Dong Nai in Vietnam. Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, his family has been dispersed.

In 1984, Vincent Long became a professed Conventual Franciscan friar (OFM Conv) and studied for the priesthood in Melbourne. After his priestly ordination on 30 December in 1989, he was sent to Rome for further studies and was awarded a licentiate in Christology and Spirituality from the Pontifical Faculty of St Bonaventure.

He served as an assistant and then parish priest for seven years in Kellyville within the Diocese of Parramatta and for seven years in Springvale in Victoria before being elected Superior of the Order of Friars Minor Conventuals in Australia in 2005. He served as Assistant General in Rome from 2008 until 2011, responsible for the Asia-Oceania section of his Order.

In 2011, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne in which role he served for nearly five years. On 16 June 2016, Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv was installed as the fourth Bishop of Parramatta at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta.

Find out more about Bishop Vincent here.

1992: Introduction of mandatory detention of asylum seekers in Australia
2023-05-06 00:00 - 23:59

1970: First anti-Vietnam War Moratorium march in Australia
2023-05-08 00:00 - 23:59

1997: Wik 'Ten Point Plan' to extinguish native title announced
2023-05-08 00:00 - 23:59

National Sorry Day
2023-05-26 00:00 - 23:59
Our Home (2019) – Patrice Muthaymiles-Mahoney OAM (1975 – )

Sorry Day has been observed since 1998, one year after the Bringing Them Home report was presented in the Australian Federal Parliament. This report detailed the impact of the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Sorry Day offers an opportunity to reflect on the hardship faced when children were taken into institutional and foster care by governments and church agencies and placed with non-Indigenous families. These Stolen Generations suffered greatly from being removed from their loved ones at such an early age, and for many the scars were life-long. However, Sorry Day is also an opportunity to “acknowledge the strength of Stolen Generations Survivors and reflect on how we can all play a part in the healing process for our people and nation.”

Going Deeper

https://www.reconciliation.org.au

Prayer

Almighty and loving God, you who created ALL people in your image.

Lead us to seek your compassion as we listen to the stories of our past. You gave your only Son, Jesus, who died and rose again so that sins will be forgiven.

We place before you the pain and anguish of dispossession of land, language, lore, culture, and family kinship that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have experienced. We live in faith that all people will rise from the depths of despair and hopelessness. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families have endured the pain and loss of loved ones, through the separation of children from their families.

We are sorry and ask God’s forgiveness.

Touch the hearts of the broken, homeless, and inflicted and heal their spirits.

In your mercy and compassion walk with us as we continue our journey of healing to create a future that is just and equitable.

Lord, you are our hope. Amen.

Aboriginal and Islander Commission of the National Council of Churches in Australia, (NATSIEC) 2003.

Artwork

Our Home (2019) by Patrice Muthaymiles-Mahoney OAM (1975 – )

Music

Took the Children Away by Archie Roach.

Took The Children Away – Archie Roach
