AUSTRALIA’S Churches have been challenged to give more moral leadership on reconciliation and against racism, discrimination and unfair treatment of migrants and refugees.
The challenge came from Council for Multicultural Australia chairman Neville Roach in an address to a conference organised by the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office and Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.
The conference was held in Sydney on July 8-9 with the theme “Building Bridges: Communities of Faith Working Together in Multicultural Australia”.
Mr Roach said Church teachings lacked “clarity, strength and relentlessness” in several fundamental moral areas:
Religious tolerance, where he called for a code of conduct to help Christian Churches balance respect for other religions with missionary activities aimed at conversion. Gender inequality, where the unequal participation of women, particularly in the Catholic Church, conflicts with the inclusive values of multiculturalism and the celebration of diversity. Employment agency contracts, where there is a risk of discrimination in Church-based organisations with Job Network contracts if they insist on potential employees having a Christian ethos. The Olympic athletes’ families home-hosting program, which he believed was in danger of conflicting with the principles of multiculturalism because of the overt propaganda of some major host organisations, which promote hosting as an opportunity for the hosts to preach Christianity to their guests. Ignorance of Islam, which leads to intolerance, one of the greatest challenges to multiculturalism and a serious threat to community harmony. On reconciliation, Mr Roach suggested simple practices which could make a big impact.
These included acknowledging at the opening of a liturgy the original owners of the land where the Church stands, in the penitential rite saying sorry to indigenous people “for what we have done and for what we have failed to do”, asking in the prayers of the faithful for generosity of spirit, and having symbols such as statues, holy pictures and the Christmas crib, now “almost exclusively white European”, reflect Australia’s indigenous and multicultural communities.
Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Migrants and Refugees, opened the conference and said attitudes towards migrants and asylum seekers had hardened.
“The Government has progressively restricted migration,” he said, “and has taken a very hard line on border arrivals, both in terms of conditions in detention centres and the limits placed on those who succeed in obtaining a three-year visa”.
“This situation raises problems that must be resolved. One of these is talk of an identity crisis, of knowing who we are and what it is that distinguishes Australian society from other nations.”
