The first results from the latest Census have been released this week and they confirm that here in Australia, we are living in an increasingly diverse religious and cultural society.
The Census showed two key things that were already somewhat obvious to anybody who’s been paying attention to such things – the number of people identifying as being of ‘no religion’ has risen and the nation is becoming increasingly multicultural. What meaning can we take from this?
Well, first of all, the figures confirm the rise of secularism in Australia, or at least they confirm that a rising number of people don’t feel affiliated with any particular religion.
For the first time ever, the Census shows that the number of people who claim no religion at all (29.6 per cent) have overtaken Catholics (22.6) as a proportion of the population. However, more than half (52.1 per cent) of Australians still identify as Christian.
When it comes to migration, 49.3 per cent of all people in Australia are first and second generation residents, with migration from China and India accounting for 27 per cent of all migration in the last decade. The European migrants from the post-war era and the following decades are now growing older (median age of 59) and fewer of them are now arriving.
More than one-fifth of Australians speak a language other than English at home and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has doubled since 1996 and jumped 18 per cent in the five years to 2016.
These figures paint an interesting picture for us in the Divine Word Missionaries and help us to see more clearly where our missionary focus needs to be, now and in the future.
It is clearer than ever that all Christians are called to be missionaries in a world in which many people are turning away from religion. Religious ‘talk’ is probably not going to touch the hearts and minds of those embracing the secular world. It’s going to be loving action that is needed. Christians are called to radical love and it is our task to work out how to live lives of radical love in our own time and place.
Secondly, the rise in multiculturalism provides rich opportunity for us to continue to reach across cultural divides and embrace people of every cultural and ethnic background.
The Divine Word Missionaries have long been committed to interculturality both in the SVD itself and in our ministry. We know that in getting to know people in their own cultural or ethnic context we are all enriched.
The Census gives us a great snapshot of our changing society. Rather than be disheartened by the drop in religious identification, it’s up to each of us to rise to the challenges this presents and to look for new and ever relevant ways to truly live the love of our faith so that we can reach out, touch hearts and change lives.
Yours in the Word,
Fr Henry Adler SVD
Provincial Superior
Graphic from ABS website: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2071.0