Bishops focus on asylum seekers, racism

Sydney
25 May 2003

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Bishops focus on asylum seekers, racism

A Generous Heart in the Love of Christ: Challenging Racism in Australia Today is the topic the Australian bishops have chosen for their statement on Social Justice Sunday (in September).

It will touch on a number of areas of concern to the Church in Australia, including the plight of asylum seekers and refugees.

At their bi-annual plenary meeting in Sydney last week, they also expressed concern for those in detention and for the East Timorese threatened with expulsion.

The bishops focused on ways of reaching out to the marginalised in society, and pursued measures to maintain and strengthen the Church’s mission to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

They also:

• discussed an interim report about a major nationwide consultation on the Church’s response to the needs of people with a range of disabilities;

• ratified the mandate of Catholic Earthcare Australia, which seeks to promote ecological conversion in the Church and the wider community;

• restated their commitment to maintaining professional standards and to dealing compassionately and fairly with the issues surrounding abuse by Church personnel. They affirmed and refined the established procedures and made it clear that these apply to the bishops themselves.

The bishops sent a formal greeting to Pope John Paul II, welcoming his recent encyclical on the meaning of the Eucharist.

They looked at ways to enhance due reverence for Holy Communion and sent directives for recognition by the Vatican on ways to provide for the spiritual needs of people in remote areas where regular access to a priest may be difficult.

The bishops noted that they were meeting in the shadow of the recent conflict in Iraq and stressed the Church’s concern for the humanitarian impact of the war.

Their overseas aid agency, Caritas Australia, has already provided $280,000 in emergency aid for Iraq, which helped buy medical aid and equipment. They are keen, too, to find concrete ways of supporting the Christian communities in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The bishops ended their meeting on Thursday, May 15, the 200th anniversary of the first officially permitted Mass celebrated - by the convict priest Fr James Dixon - in the fledgling colony of NSW.