Office For Justice, Ecology and Peace

International Day for Biological Diversity
2022-05-22 00:00 - 23:59 (Australia/Sydney)

International Day to End Obstetric Fistula
2022-05-23 00:00 - 23:59

2015: Pope Francis' Encyclical Laudato Si' (On Care for our Common Home)
2022-05-24 00:00 - 23:59

Mary Help of Christians, Patron of Australia
2022-05-24 00:00 - 23:59

National Sorry Day
2022-05-26 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

1997: Bringing Them Home Report tabled in Parliament
2022-05-26 00:00 - 23:59

2017: Uluru Statement from the Heart made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders
2022-05-26 00:00 - 23:59
People talking to Jesus in the Bough Shed (1995) – Queenie McKenzie

For Reflection

The Uluru Statement was issued in May 2017 on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Australian referendum. In 1967, Australians voted to amend the Australian Constitution, allowing the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and to include them in the census. 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have endorsed the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart after an exhaustive and comprehensive two-year consultation process around Australia that was designed and led by Aboriginal people. Targeted structural change is called for through the Statement by establishing an ongoing First Nations Voice to Parliament, and a Makarrata Commission ‘to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history’. In 1967, Aboriginal people were counted as citizens of their own nation. Today, they seek to be fully heard, to walk with others, and to build a better future for all Australians.

Read the Statement here.

Prayer for Reconciliation

God of all creation,as we journey together in this Great Southern Land,we pray for healing, forgiveness and unity,creating a path of good will, with justice and compassion.

Jesus, through the power of your love,you have given us the courage, wisdom and strengthto share our gifts and talents in humility.

In peace and understanding we reconcile with each other.

Creator Spirit, we come together in prayer and thanksgivingfor the many blessings we have received.Allow your Spirit to wash over us and give us strength to walk together as one.

Amen

Aboriginal Elder women and Reconciliation Church staff members, 2014.

Music

Voice, Treaty, Truth, Now by Felix Riebl and Ollie McGillsung by Spinifex Gum and Marliya Choirs

2005: Death of Fr Ted Kennedy
2022-05-27 00:00 - 23:59

1967: Referendum allows the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and count them in the census
2022-05-27 00:00 - 23:59

2000: 250,000 people walk for reconciliation in Sydney
2022-05-28 00:00 - 23:59

International Day of UN Peacekeepers
2022-05-29 00:00 - 23:59

1992: Launch of the Torres Strait Islander Flag
2022-05-29 00:00 - 23:59

1886: Catholic and Anglican Martyrs of Uganda
2022-06-03 00:00 - 23:59

1992: High Court Decision in the Mabo Case
2022-06-03 00:00 - 23:59
Eddie Mabo – Marc Nemorin

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Mabo Decision where six out of seven High Court judges agreed that the Meriam people held traditional ownership of the lands of Mer in the Torres Strait. Eddie Koiki Mabo successfully argued that his family’s ancestral land was not owned by the Crown. This landmark decision in the High Court of Australia overturned ‘terra nullius’, an understanding that Australia was empty land belonging to no one before British occupation. The decision paved the way for native title in the Native Title Act of 1993. Eddie died before the decision was handed down in 1992 but his life leaves a powerful legacy: the traditional connection and occupation of land by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is now recognised in law across Australia.

Going Deeper:

https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/mabo-decision

Prayer:

Prayer for Unity

Creator God, may the power of Your grace transform us.

Christ, give us courage and hope to manifest the unity we have in you, and to share our life with each other and the world.

Holy Spirit, empower us to work for justice for the people of the earth.

God, in your grace, transform the world.

Amen.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC) of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), 2007.

Artwork:

Eddie Mabo by Marc Nemorin

Music:

Koiki by Mau Power, featuring Radical Son

Koiki by Mau Power, featuring Radical Son

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
2022-06-04 00:00 - 23:59

1989: Tiananmen Square Massacre, Bejing
2022-06-04 00:00 - 23:59
Today we remember the students who were killed in Tiananmen Square while protesting for democracy. For last year’s anniversary, Hong Kong Catholics organised an exhibition so that younger generations may gain insight into what happened. Find our more here.

Learn about the iconic image of a lone unarmed man confronting a row of tanks here.

The Tank Man

He will live forever in our memories.
His singular act of courage and hope
proclaimed the dignity of each person
in the face of powers and principalities.

God grant us his courage and his hope.

Sandie Cornish

2000: 50,000 people Walk for Reconciliation in Brisbane
2022-06-04 00:00 - 23:59

World Environment Day
2022-06-05 00:00 - 23:59
Celebrated every year since 1974, World Environment Day is a good time to focus on the environmental dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals. This year the theme is celebrating biodiversity.

The 2020 World Environment Day global campaign aims at highlighting how we as humans are inextricably linked to and depend on nature for our existence and quality of life. Recent events, from bushfires in Brazil, United States and Australia to locust swarms to the COVID-19 outbreak, highlights how meddling with ecosystems and biodiversity from its natural state is creating unprecedented challenges for humankind on a global scale. Human activities such as pollution, unsustainable use of land and sea, exploitation of organisms, climate change and invasion of alien species, are leading to biodiversity breakdown and the decline and degradation of natural ecosystems at an unprecedented scale. The crisis also reflects our connectedness to one another and how actions and events in one part of the world affect us all. It also brings to the spotlight the need for international cooperation and coordination in responding to the challenges posed by environmental degradation. Yet, these events are symptomatic and require us to address the decline of nature through transformational and sustained reforms with nature at the heart of decision-making. This World Environment Day, the need to heal our relationship and start living in harmony with nature, perhaps, has never been this stark in modern history. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is calling on governments, businesses and civil society to work together in building global understanding of biodiversity and nature’s key contribution to our survival… 2020 is a critical year for biodiversity. It’s a year of crucial decisions for planet and people, and all other forms of life on Earth. While 2020 also concludes the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity, the scientific community continues to sound the alarm on global biodiversity breakdown. Living in harmony with nature—a goal world leaders have set for 2050—cannot be achieved unless we stop the loss of the planet’s biodiversity by 2030. This leaves us with a decade for action, which will start with the 2020 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in October in Kunming, China and the design of a new 10-year framework for biodiversity. UN Environment Program, Working Brief, 6 April 2020

World Oceans Day
2022-06-08 00:00 - 23:59

2004: Queensland Bishops issue 'Let the Many Coastlands be glad!' Pastoral Letter on the Great Barrier Reef
2022-06-08 00:00 - 23:59
“The Holy Spirit is clearly guiding us into a deeper sense ofcompanionship and care in regard to all the varied forms of life onplanet Earth. Not only is the Reef a precious ecosystem in itself, but alsoan integral part of the one web of planetary life that connects us all –the human species and all species of the land and sea, rainforest andreef, mountains, plains and inland desert.” Catholic Bishops of Queensland, Let the Many Coastlands be Glad!, 2004

Today is a great day to read Let the Many Coastlands Be Glad! again.

For Reflection

Imagine you were helping the Queensland Bishops to draft a pastoral letter on the Great Barrier Reef today. What has changed for the Great Barrier Reef since Let the Many Coastlands Be Glad! was published? Are there new issues to address? How might you take the teaching of Pope Francis into account in updating the Queensland Bishops’ teaching?

1838: Myall Creek Massacre, NSW
2022-06-10 00:00 - 23:59
Myall Creek Massacre (2003) by Vincent Serico (1949 – 2008)

The Myall Creek Massacre was just one example of the widespread culture of frontier violence against Aboriginal people in New South Wales in the 1830’s. Despite there being strong laws against this violence, the murder of Aboriginal people was generally accepted as part of the expansion of territory by settlers. Muswellbrook police magistrate Edward Denny Day described this ongoing conflict as ‘a war of extermination’ by some stockmen, settlers, and convicts.

When Aboriginal people killed stockmen near Myall Creek as part of this frontier conflict, an expedition from Sydney led by Major James Nunn, the Commandant of the New South Wales Mounted Police, massacred up to 50 Wirrayaraay people who were camped at Waterloo Creek. Their bodies were then burned. Nearby stockmen and settlers were also encouraged by the expedition to kill any Aboriginal people they encountered.

Breaking the conspiracy of silence around the murder of this group of Aboriginal people were a station manager named William Hobbs, local police superintendent Thomas Foster, and settler Frederick Foot. Eight men were tried and found guilty of murder in the Australian Supreme Court. They were hanged on December 18, 1838. For many in the colonial community of New South Wales there was more outrage around the execution of British citizens than the massacre of the Wirrayaraay people. Future perpetrators of violence against Aboriginal people took steps to cover their tracks and avoid prosecution.

The process of radical truth telling continues today in the quest for true reconciliation, justice and peace for all Australians.

Going Deeper:

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/myall-creek-massacre

Prayer:

Prayer for Aboriginal Ancestors

Almighty God, ever-loving Father, by becoming human your Son has united himself with people of every race, language, and way of life, and through his death on the cross, mingled his blood with the blood of all Koorie people who have died unjustly throughout our history.

Hear our prayer as we remember those who died in defence of their land and traditions. Grant peace for them and all who now live in this land. May the walls which prejudice raises between us crumble beneath the shadow of the outstretched arms of him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Amen.

Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, Victoria.

Artwork:

Myall Creek Massacre (2003) by Vincent Serico (1949 – 2008) Music:

We Sing by Kutcha Edwards

We Sing – Kutcha Edwards

1975: Enactment of the Racial Discrimination Act
2022-06-11 00:00 - 23:59

World Day Against Child Labour
2022-06-12 00:00 - 23:59

1988: Barunga Statement presented by Aboriginal leaders to Prime Minister Bob Hawke
2022-06-12 00:00 - 23:59
The presentation of the Barunga Statement to Prime Minister Bob Hawke was an important moment in the movement for a treaty. Learn more about how the Statement came to be presented at the Barunga Festival here.

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
2022-06-15 00:00 - 23:59
Today is a good day to revisit the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Social Justice Statement for 2016–17 ‘A Place at the Table: Social justice in an ageing society’. It celebrates the value, dignity and significant contributions of older people to the life of the community. In solidarity with all generations, older people have a rightful place in the heart of community life. The Bishops consider the circumstances of those who are approaching the end of their lives and warn of the loneliness, ageism and abuse that older people can experience. In particular, the Bishops warn about implications of the current community debate on euthanasia. The Bishops call for communities of mercy and love – where people reach out and minister to vulnerable older people, where bonds between generations are built up, and where no one is cast as being a burden or as rivals to younger generations.

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
2022-06-17 00:00 - 23:59

International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict
2022-06-19 00:00 - 23:59

1969: Affirmation by Arbitration Commission of the principle of equal pay for women performing equal work
2022-06-19 00:00 - 23:59

World Refugee Day
2022-06-20 00:00 - 23:59

Sts John Fisher and Thomas More
2022-06-22 00:00 - 23:59
