In 1967, Australians gave overwhelming support to a referendum that recognised Australia’s First Peoples as citizens. In 2023, we will be given a chance to vote in another referendum to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples through a Voice to Parliament, writes the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council

Australia’s Bishops see it as an opportunity for all Australians to renew our engagement with the First Peoples of Australia. They have come to this view through much listening to the First Peoples and they encourage us all to listen to them in a spirit of love and humility.

The SVD Australia Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass, has been appointed to take part in the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October, an opportunity he describes as both humbling and exciting.

Fr Rass was named as one of the expert facilitators from the Oceania region to attend the Synod, following his role as a facilitator of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO) gathering in Fiji earlier this year.

Divine Word Missionaries who attended the recent Oceania Bishops’ Assembly in Fiji have described it as a hopeful, joyful experience of collegiality and synodality, where bishops listened to the cry of the earth and oceans along with the hopes and desires of Catholics across the region for the future of the Church.

Six SVD members attended the meeting – five bishops from Australia and Papua New Guinea and one priest, the AUS Province Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass SVD, who helped facilitate the gathering.

Happy New Year! And welcome to the first edition of In the Word for 2023.

As you receive this Enews, I am in Fiji preparing to facilitate the meeting of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania. It is a crucial meeting for the bishops of our region and will cover many things, including the preparations for Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality. I ask for your prayers for the bishops’ discernment and also for me as I facilitate the meeting with the help of secretariat staff.

A recent conference hosted by the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania, called ‘Our Ocean Home’ was an example of synodality in action, according to SVD Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass.

The online public event, hosted by Australian Catholic University (ACU) and supported by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, brought together the Bishops of Oceania with experts from the region for a synodal conference towards the General Assembly of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO) in February 2023.

Every year since 1940, when the first Social Justice Statement was produced, the Catholic Bishops of Australia have responded to the social changes in this country and the wider world by bringing out their annual social justice statement. Responding to the signs of changing times, which have often brought with them a pandora’s box of social ills and inequalities, the bishops have endeavoured to touch both the consciousness of our political leaders and the heart of the ordinary citizen by raising awareness to the needs of the poor and those left out of the race to the top. 

The Social Justice Statements, their release timed to coincide with Social Justice Sunday, have always been timely and relevant. This year’s 2021-22 Social Justice Statement, “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor,” mirrors an earth in crisis, an earth exploited and suffering, an earth that will not support humanity’s beauty and diversity much longer unless we act now.

Does it surprise you to know that more than 120,000 people in Australia are homeless? The number seems small compared to the general population, until we remember that these are 120,000 people like you and me, but without any place to call Home. They do not have a roof over their heads, they do not know where the next meal will come from, and most importantly they do not have the means of support to help them get back on their feet.  

As the number of homeless people keeps increasing, this struggle has a corrosive effect on family life: the difficulty of finding a job, the impact on school children’s study. Being homeless affects a person’s capacity to contribute to society, as well as to benefit from it. Without an address, there can be no reference point for social services.

Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD loves his ministry with Vietnamese migrants in Bangkok, not only because he is able to serve these people on the margins and be part of their lives, but because he is also able to be a bridge to connect them with the larger church and the society in which they live.

Chaplaincy to Vietnamese migrants has recently moved from a volunteer ministry to one formally recognised by the Catholic Bishops of Thailand, a move he says which makes the ministry more systematic and effective.