It’s not often that Pentecost Sunday falls during our National Reconciliation Week which is bookended by 27 May, the anniversary of the successful 1967 referendum and 3 June, the anniversary of the High Court’s decision in the Mabo case. The remembered events of Reconciliation Week provide a good backdrop for us Christians contemplating the action of the Spirit as experienced by the first Christians of diverse languages and cultures who heard the disciples speaking in all their diverse tongues of the mighty acts of God.
I have the good fortune to be here in Rome with Miriam-Rose this week as part of the Australian Embassy’s celebration of 50 years diplomatic relations between Australia and the Holy See. Her message of ‘deep listening’, ‘dadirri’, will be heard by people of diverse languages and cultures. Provided the Pope has got over his fever, she will be able to share something of that message with the Holy Father.
The Prime Minister said that when he first put forward a suggested set of words at Garma on 30 July 2022, ‘it was a draft and we were open to debate, and I encouraged members to come forward—and, indeed, the public to come forward as well.’ In fairness to the Opposition, it should be admitted that no parliamentary process for receiving suggestions was set up until April this year, and the process was very truncated, with the government having already decided that no changes would be made. The words were already set in concrete before the parliamentary committee even met.
Neither side of the parliamentary chamber has done what was needed to bring the country together, to bring reconciliation in our land, to bring the country to ‘Yes’. Whichever way the referendum goes, we will be left with a country divided, and that is a tragedy.
This Pentecost we pray for the Spirit of reconciliation to descend afresh on our land and for all Australians, whichever way they will eventually vote, to recommit themselves to a deep inner listening to each other and to our land.
Not many 21st century Aboriginal Australians use terms like ‘therefrom’, ‘thereto’ and ‘thither’. This statement is an adapted quote from the submission put by Mr Bayona-Ba-Meya, Senior President of the Supreme Court of Zaire, who appeared on behalf of the Republic of Zaire in the International Court of Justice in 1975 dismissing ‘the materialistic concept of terra nullius’ substituting ‘a spiritual notion’. Bayona-Ba-Meya was a Congolese lawyer who commenced his studies in a Catholic minor seminary before going on to study law at a Catholic university in the Congo. Judge Fouad Ammoun, a Maronite Catholic and the Lebanese Vice-President of the International Court, quoted the submission in his judgment in the Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara. This part of Judge Ammoun’s opinion was then quoted by a couple of the judges in the High Court Mabo decision.
How extraordinary that the inheritors of the longest living culture on earth would quote a Lebanese judge quoting a lawyer from Zaire to express the depths of their spiritual relationship with the land. This is a profound lesson for those of us seeking an inclusive Australia. We are able to share our diverse cultural and religious modes of expression to communicate the deepest yearnings of our hearts. No doubt this is what Miriam Rose will do in Rome this week.
Judge Ammoun observed in his judgment that the ‘spirituality of the thinking of the representative of Zaire echoes the spirituality of the African Bantu revealed to us by Father Placide Tempels, a Belgian Franciscan, in his work Philosophie bantoue. The author sees therein a “striking analogy” with “that intense spiritual doctrine which quickens and nourishes souls within the Catholic Church”.’ How extraordinary it is too, that remarks by lawyers from Zaire and Lebanon echoing African Bantu and Belgian Catholic notions of spirituality would come to express Australian Indigenous spiritual aspirations to land in such a foundational document as the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
‘We acknowledge that people of goodwill who care for First Nations Peoples can come to different conclusions and form differing opinions from the same information. We must accept these opinions and respect each other’s rights to express them.
‘However, we offer these comments to encourage Australians to consider the benefits of the Voice to Parliament for helping to achieve reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
Let’s hope the reconciling Spirit blows through the chambers of our Parliament during the next three weeks while our elected leaders lay the groundwork for the three month campaign when we the people must decide how we are to be reconciled in this land, deeply listening to each other’s concerns for those who are the First Peoples of this land and for all those who come to this land to find a home where they can live in peace and security, equal under the law.
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Guide the steps that go astray.
Come, Holy Spirit, come! [1975] ICJR at pp. 77-8.
Credit: catholicoutlook.org
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