THE Church can show courageous leadership by agreeing to a Federal Government request to allow asylum seekers to be housed in its private property, a Brisbane refugee advocate has said.
Brisbane archdiocese’s Centre for Multicultural Pastoral Care director Clyde Cosentino said the Church had a number of properties which could be suitable for the purpose.
Mr Cosentino said there was nothing new about asylum seekers finding accommodation through Church agencies.
“Various Centacare offices around Australia, St Vincent de Paul, parishes and other agencies have been providing accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees for ages,” he said.
“The suggestion that convents and the like be used for the purpose seems new, although I recall that around 2001 some TPV (Temporary Protection Visas) holders immediately after they were released from detention were housed at Banyo seminary.”
Mr Cosentino said the Church “in many ways has been lying dormant on the issue of asylum seekers”.
“There have been many attacks in the media and elsewhere on these vulnerable people.
“This irresponsible headline-grabbing hysteria being generated in an election year by politicians and the media has to stop.
“It’s time the Church takes a stand and says ‘enough is enough’.”
Mr Cosentino’s comments followed reports that the Federal Government was asking church groups for access to private properties to house asylum seekers spilling over from the Christmas Island detention centre.
It was reported immigration officials had been “quietly phoning” churches asking them to nominate convents, monasteries and boarding houses where at least 100 children and families might stay.
The Christmas Island detention centre can accommodate 2500 people, but already there are more than 2300 detainees living there.
Josephite congregational leadership team member Sr Annette Arnold said the matter of accommodating asylum seekers on community property was being given “serious thought”.
“Our concern is that the human dignity of these people is being upheld and respected,” Sr Arnold said. “This particularly applies to those in transition seeking asylum and looking to become refugees.
“We are particularly concerned for women and children and believe that detention for them in high security is inappropriate.”
Christian Brothers Oceania province leader Br Vince Duggan said the order’s Edmund Rice Education Australia was liaising with government officials and examining options.
Br Duggan said discussions were underway about one of the order’s schools closed down in Tardun, about five hours north of Perth, in the Geraldton diocese.
One media report also noted that the Sisters of Mercy Ballarat East congregation provides temporary accommodation for those seeking solace.
Their congregational leader Sr Veronica Lawson was reported as saying that while housing asylum seekers was acceptable, detention was not.
Mr Cosentino said while he understood such concerns the reality was that providing accommodation in this way would be a form of detention.
“Organisations do have to comply with the Migration Act and accommodation provided would have to be looked on as a place of detention,” he said.
Mr Cosentino agreed that offering accommodation to asylum seekers “would go against the grain of popular opinion”.
“However, the Church must be an organisation that says ‘yes’ to helping the stranger no matter what,” he said.
“This should be the same for every Christian.
“We need to remember that Jesus as a two-year-old, along with his parents Joseph and Mary in their flight to Egypt, would have been seeking the same sort of protection as asylum seekers now seek.”
