By Emilie Ng
SYDNEY barrister Sophie York challenged more than 200 Catholic business and professional leaders at last week’s Assembly of Catholic Professionals to correct the “Godless trend” rising in modern Australian culture.
Ms York, a mother of four and one of 12 children, said Catholic leaders should use their influence in society to stand against the view that Australia was founded on secular values.
She said the term secular had “come to mean secular humanist” which had opened the doors for a new “militant atheism” that was anti-freedom and anti-religious.
“We have never been a secular society,” Ms York said at the Assembly of Catholic Professionals on May 22.
She said “Australian values” like mateship, service in education and health sectors, and morality that underpinned the Australian legal system, were not based on secular humanist views.
“The secular humanist view that is only held by 20 per cent of our country is taking us where we’ve never been before.”
What was considered “Australian values” were actually deeply Christian values, she said, but warned that the minority secularist views were being falsely portrayed as the foundations of Australian culture.
“The names of our suburbs, our train stations, and our hospitals are intertwined with Christian and Indigenous culture,” she said.
“The case for correction on the Godless trend, based on a false pretence, is needed.
“History will admire you.
“Australian society will be grateful for your courage.”
But she warned that in the public square “admirable people of faith have been described as dangerous” for attempting to preserve Australian values that were deeply founded in Christianity.
“Those who actively seek to remove Christian elements in our school would never dream to taking away algebra which is Muslim,” Ms York said.
“The Catholic Church is the largest provider of health and education services.
“Australian values are being eroded, and we need your leadership to preserve them.”
Ms York said Catholic business leaders and professionals at the Assembly of Catholic Professionals “reach many people in all different walks of life and so they influence our society”.
“No one is formally qualified to be a leader, but in a sense we are all leaders if we have influence,” she said.
Ms York said Catholic professionals could influence secular organisations because they had “the courage to stand for things, and that they know deep down, they’re not alone”.
“They meet with each other, they’re fortified by each other,” she said.
“It gives them a lot of strength to have character, to have authenticity, to serve others.
“They’re people of high calibre, a lot of people notice them, and notice what they stand for and what they don’t stand for, which I think is really important.”
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