Social Justice Statement 2015–16
FOR THOSE WHO’VE COME
ACROSS THE SEAS
JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
Chairman’s Message
On behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops
Conference, I present the 2015–2016 Social Justice Statement, For Those
Who’ve Come Across the Seas: Justice for refugees and asylum seekers.
This Statement was developed in response to the
longstanding divisions in Australian society over asylum seekers, particularly
those who have arrived by sea. We Australians have rightly felt appalled at the
dangers that refugees experience on their journeys, but we seem to have come to
believe that harshness and rejection will be enough to deter desperate people
from their flight to safety.
Yet the presence of boat people proves that
Australia cannot insulate itself from the worldwide movement of people. Every
boat we intercept, every child we detain, is a reminder that we can be part of
the problem or part of the solution. While we try to bar our doors, millions
are fleeing and dying – Rohingyas, Syrians, Hazaras and Somalis, to name only a
few.
For me, the desperate plight of refugees is
particularly poignant because I came to Australia as a boat person, fleeing as
a teenager from Vietnam. I experienced communist oppression and I saw how
tyranny and cruelty can leave people with no choice but to seek refuge
elsewhere, in any way possible.
That personal history was one reason why I chose
for my motto as a bishop the evocative words of Jesus to his disciples, Duc
in Altum – ‘Put out into the deep’ (Luke 5:4). His words to his
companions were a challenge to encounter new horizons, to go where they might
not have dared, to seek grace where they had not found it before. That is the
journey and the hope of all asylum seekers.
I believe that those words of Jesus also challenge
Australians to make a similar journey – to dare to accept the gifts that we
have come to fear or reject. And there are many gifts that refugees have
brought to Australia, not only as scientists, doctors, teachers and artists but
as ordinary people whose talents and energy have enriched our society.
Australia rose to the challenge in the past with
its generous embrace of migrants and refugees. It proved itself especially
courageous during the Indochinese exodus and accepted an unprecedented number
of Asian refugees. Australia changed for the better as it always has with each
successive wave of new arrivals. Australia is what it is today because of their
determination and drive for a better future. We honour the legacy of this great
nation not by excessive protectionism, isolation and defence of our privilege
at all costs. Rather, we make it greater by our concern and care for asylum
seekers in the spirit of compassion and solidarity that has marked the history
of our country from its beginning.
With the increasing global movement of peoples and
our nation’s fearful response, it is timely for us to reflect on this important
issue of the day. I highly commend this Statement to you and I pray that it
will lead us to work for acceptance, justice and dignity for refugees and
asylum seekers.
With every blessing,
Vincent Long Van Nguyen DD
Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne
Chairman, Australian Catholic Social Justice
Council
FOR THOSE WHO’VE COME ACROSS THE SEAS
JUSTICE FOR
REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
Immigrants dying at sea, in boats which were
vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death. That is how the headlines put
it. When I first heard of this tragedy a few weeks ago, and realised that it
happens all too frequently, it has constantly come back to me like a painful
thorn in my heart …
These brothers and sisters of ours were trying to
escape difficult situations to find some serenity and peace; they were looking
for a better place for themselves and their families, but instead they found
death. How often do such people fail to find understanding, fail to find
acceptance, fail to find solidarity. And their cry rises up to God! …
Has any one of us wept for these persons who were
on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who
were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which
has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion – ‘suffering with’
others: the globalisation of indifference has taken from us the ability to
weep!
Pope Francis at Lampedusa[i]
For years Australian society has been divided by
the debate over asylum seekers who arrive by boat. In the words of our National
Anthem, they have ‘come across the seas’, but both sides of politics have
exaggerated the challenge they present to this country. Australia’s response
has been to devise ever-harsher policies that aim to deter those fleeing war
and violence and to incarcerate people who are in fact victims.
It has worsened over time. Twenty-five years ago,
the Catholic Social Justice Statement on immigration noted: ‘underneath the
surface of the Australian debate there are often unresolved fears of newcomers,
other “races”, pluralism, conflict and change.’[ii]
Today, the panic and mistrust that is stirred up by
this debate are out of all proportion to the true scale of the issue in
Australia.
The majority appear to regard asylum seekers as a
problem and associate them with so-called ‘illegal’ arrival, the evils of
people smuggling, and as a burden on the taxpayer. It seems as though the
policies of successive governments – of intercepting and pushing back boats,
detaining asylum seekers and stopping people applying for protection in
Australia – have been accepted and are regarded as effective, however harsh
they may be.[iii]
A minority have appealed for us to find a better
way.
The ‘globalisation of indifference’ Pope Francis
refers to has emerged in Australia. It is an indifference to the reasons behind
people’s flight from persecution, to the human dignity of every person, and to
our once proud tradition of protecting and supporting victims of war and
violence.
Responding to the call of the asylum seeker
In the first journey of his pontificate, the Holy
Father travelled by boat to the island of Lampedusa, the closest land for many
fleeing North Africa. Pope Francis was appalled by the number of people who
died on the journey. He dropped a wreath in the sea to honour those who had
perished, visited the people who were detained on the island, and led a
penitential service on an altar made of the wood from wrecked boats.
In his sermon he paid tribute to the devotion of
those who had rescued and supported the survivors, but he attributed the deaths
to a failure of international responsibility for the conditions from which
people fled. He insisted on the need for people to be placed before economics,
and the responsibility of governments to come together in showing compassion
for those in need.
For Pope Francis, the boats were a symptom of a
wider lack of justice and compassion in national and international life. The
problem was not primarily one of people smugglers or of protecting borders. It
was a problem of not valuing people properly.
How should we Australians react to the policy of
turning back boats, incarcerating men, women and children and preventing their
entry into our nation? How do we as Christians respond to people who seek
protection from violence and persecution?
In responding to these questions we are guided by
Scripture and the social teaching of the Church.
Early in the Old Testament, the respect and care
owing to the stranger is established. In the book of Leviticus we find the
following exhortation:
When an alien resides with you in your
land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be
to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you
were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34
The law called on citizens to show compassion and
solidarity towards the stranger, because they too had been oppressed and
exiled. In the New Testament, the subject of this law is found in the person of
Christ. In the infancy narrative of Matthew’s Gospel the first days of the
child’s life are characterised by the wise men’s adoration of his majesty and,
immediately afterwards, the Holy Family’s escape from Herod’s slaughter.
Now after they had left, an angel of
the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and
his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is
about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the
child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the
death of Herod.
Matthew 2:13-15
This narrative of the flight into Egypt is also a
story of the children of Bethlehem who did not escape Herod’s wrath. The Gospel
account of Matthew refers to how Rachel wept for her children and ‘refused to
be consoled, because they are no more’ (Matt. 2:18). In the same way, the Pope
at Lampedusa calls out to us: Has any one wept? Today has anyone wept
in our world?
He speaks of how the journey of the asylum seeker
is characterised by the search for understanding, acceptance and solidarity.
These values are reflected in the Church’s principles of human dignity, a
special concern for the poor and solidarity. The Pope’s challenge was directed
to all nations, including Australia. Will we offer understanding, acceptance
and solidarity to those who arrive by boat seeking asylum?
Human dignity
All human beings are precious. Each of us possesses
an inestimable value that we refer to as our human dignity. We are
sacred and deserve respect because we are human and loved by God, not because
we are useful, law-abiding, belong to a particular race and religion, or
contribute economically.
We can see this in the Gospel story of Jesus
blessing children:
Then little children were being brought
to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples
spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little
children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the
kingdom of heaven belongs.’
Matthew 9:13-14
Jesus’ disciples see the children as obstacles,
someone to be kept out of the way. But Jesus sees the children as persons, each
loved by God and each with something to teach us. So he welcomes them and
blesses each of them. He looks into their faces and sees their innate holiness.
The dignity of each person means that it is never
right to use human beings as if they are things – means to an end. Jesus’
attitude shows that. He would never have accepted, for example, that it was
right to punish one innocent child in order to make other children behave
themselves.
How can we justify Australia’s policy of deterring
people from claiming protection in the light of Jesus’ words? As a nation, we
harm innocent people by detaining them, pushing back their boats and
transferring them to other impoverished nations. We pretend that the pain and
diminishment of one group of people, including children, is a justifiable price
to pay for sending a message to others. This policy dishonours the human
dignity of people who seek protection and denies the truth of their humanity.
The option for the poor
The question of how we should respond to strangers
is the same as the one posed by the lawyer when he asks Jesus: ‘Who is my
neighbour?’
Jesus answers with a story of a man his hearers
despised – a Samaritan.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and
went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that
road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a
Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But
a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved
with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine
on them.
Luke 10:30-34
Jesus asks, ‘Who proved himself a neighbour to the
man?’ and the lawyer replies, unwilling to even name the Samaritan, ‘The one
who took pity on him.’ The one who is neighbour is the one who acted because he
was moved by compassion.
If there is a question of priority in who we should
care for, Jesus’ message is crystallised in the Catholic social teaching
principle of the option for the poor. It says that the test of solidarity and
of commitment to the common good is the care we have for the people who are
most disadvantaged. A just and healthy society is one in which all people are
able to live decently, and where all contribute to the needs of the weakest,
including non-citizens. This principle applies to communities and nations, not
simply to individuals.
The first step in showing a special concern for the
poor is to notice. Jesus notices. He turns to people who are scorned, rejected
or overlooked in the society of his time: the children, the widow with only a
small coin to offer in the temple, the outsiders – even lepers, extortionists
and prostitutes – and finally the criminal who is crucified with him on
Calvary. He shows that God loves them unconditionally.
In the story of the Good Samaritan we see that our
understanding of ‘who is our neighbour’ and what we owe them is not limited by
borders, race, caste, religion or politics. Our neighbour is the person before
us in need. Those kept faceless and nameless behind the veil of border security
operations are now revealed to be our brothers and sisters – the mother and
child fleeing war, the father desperate to secure a future for his family.
Solidarity and the common good
Jesus was often asked what mattered most in our
relationship with God.
One of the Pharisees, a lawyer, asked
him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the
greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest
and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour
as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus places our love of God and our love of our
neighbour together. He also says that we should love our neighbour as
ourselves. Our neighbours are not things: they are people like us, who share a
common humanity. This is why Catholic social teaching insists on the importance
of the relationships that bind us to one another and to our world.
We all depend on other people: for our very
existence, for our food, health, education and work. Our security and economic
welfare depend not just on our fellow Australians but on nations around us.
In Catholic teaching this is expressed in the
principle of solidarity. Because we depend on one another and our relationship
to one another makes us human, we have a responsibility to build a society
together that will benefit all people. We do not seek simply our own good but
look to the common good.
This is equally true of the relationship between
nations. Our security and welfare depend on other countries, so we need to
build a world in which all nations recognise their interdependence. Nations are
not responsible only for their own citizens. They have a shared responsibility
for the world.
People who come to Australia claiming protection
are not aliens, but our brothers and sisters. If they cannot find protection in
their own countries, they are entitled to claim it from other nations,
including ours.
The global movement of people
Pope Francis, in his words and actions at
Lampedusa, cuts through the global indifference by making the issue personal.
He shows us that, when we look into the face of the asylum seeker and really
hear their story – each stage of their journey – they are no longer a stranger
to be feared and we can no longer be indifferent to their need.
Of the world’s 59.5
million forcibly displaced:
· 38
million were displaced in their own countries.
· 19.5
million were refugees.
· 1.7
million applied for refugee status in 2014 alone.
· Only
105,000 refugees were resettled in other countries.
UNHCR (2015), World
at War, p. 2.
|
People who seek protection in Australia are only
part of a much larger group.
In 2014 there were almost 60 million people who had
been displaced because of persecution, conflict or violence.[iv]
‘More than 5.9 million
refugees under UNHCR’s mandate (42%) resided in countries where the GDP per
capita was below USD 5,000 ...
Turkey became the largest
refugee-hosting country world-wide, with 1.59 million refugees ... followed
by Pakistan (1.51 million), Lebanon (1.15 million), the Islamic Republic of
Iran (982,000), Ethiopia (659,500), and Jordan (654,100).’
UNHCR (2015), World
at War, pp. 2-3.
|
The numbers of people in need are so enormous that
we can easily lose sight of the faces of each of our brothers and sisters. They
become just another statistic or an anonymous tragic figure we see on the
nightly news. If the tens of millions of displaced people were a nation, they
would constitute the 24th largest, with a population similar to
that of Italy or the United Kingdom.[v]
When people are forced into flight, it is the
neighbouring countries that are most affected. Five years ago, Syria was ranked
the second largest refugee-hosting country in the world. Now it has become the
world’s largest refugee-producing country, with around four million people
fleeing mostly to the neighbouring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq
and Egypt.[vi]
It is not wealthy nations like Australia who bear
the cost of care, but those least able to afford it. Developing countries host
86 per cent of the world’s refugees and this proportion has increased by 16 per
cent over the past two decades.[vii] The
available food, shelter, security and medical care are inadequate, and people
have no chance of getting on with their lives and raising a family with
dignity. Many people have spent years in such appalling conditions.
This global movement of people cannot be stopped or
managed by any single country, including Australia. In the Asia Pacific region
there are over 3.8 million people who are refugees or in refugee-like
situations.[viii] The United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that in 2014, around 53,000
people have embarked upon dangerous sea journeys from the Bay of Bengal to
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.[ix]
Australia claims to have ‘stopped the boats’ for
now. In fact, we have shifted the problem somewhere else. It is clear that desperate
people have not stopped embarking upon journeys that expose them to deadly
risks and unscrupulous people smugglers.
Australia’s political debate has focused not on the
millions of people displaced around the world, but almost entirely on a small
segment of its immigration intake, the refugee and humanitarian program of
13,750 places annually. The policies of both major parties are aimed at
deterring so-called ‘illegal maritime arrivals’ who, at their height in 2013,
amounted to about 20,000 people.[x]
It seems Australia is losing sight of the human
dignity of the person seeking asylum and our obligation to assist and protect.
A myopic focus on the interception of boats and deterrence of asylum seekers
has closed the nation’s mind to the true picture of the asylum seeker’s
journey.
We need to hear their story and appreciate the full
picture of their journey.
1. The flight from persecution and violence
Sometime we are just thinking that we are ... some
useless parts in the world. Just our people – Hazara people ... Now [the]
Taliban has started special missions to kill the Hazaras ... It is our mistake
we were born in this world. Everywhere we will be threatened. Even when we came
to Australia so there is also no mercy to look after us.
Mohammad’s story[xi]
Where there is war or terror, people will flee from
the immediate situation and hope that their exile is temporary. Most refugees
want only to return to their own nations in peace and in freedom, so they stay
in camps near the border with their own country.
In addition to war and violence, some are fleeing
from threats directed at them because of who they are – their ethnicity,
religion, disability or something about themselves that they cannot change.
Remaining on the border may be as dangerous as staying where they were. They
may have to flee much further.
For example, the century-old persecution of
Afghanistan’s Hazaras continues to this day at the hands of the Taliban. In Sri
Lanka in 2009, thousands of Tamil civilians were trapped and fired on by Sri
Lankan forces and the Tamil rebels. They were then herded into internment camps
where the atrocities continued.[xii] In
the Central African Republic 800,000 people were recently displaced as a result
of sectarian violence, with significant flows of refugees into Congo, Chad and
Cameroon.[xiii]
Women and children are particularly at risk during
periods of conflict and where civil society breaks down. The vulnerable are
exposed to sexual abuse and exploitation, and warring parties kidnap children
to be new recruits. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime reports that eight
countries in the Middle East and Western Europe have detected Syrian victims of
people trafficking, where victims from this country were rare before the Syrian
turmoil in 2011.[xiv]
Reports from Syria speak of the atrocities of
radical jihadis against Christian minorities.[xv] The
Pope’s representatives, the Apostolic Nuncios in the Middle East, have made
this impassioned plea:
One cannot be silent, nor the
international community remain inactive, in the face of the massacre of persons
merely because of their religion or ethnicity, in the face of decapitations and
crucifixions of human beings in public squares, in the face of the exodus of
thousands of persons and the destruction of places of worship.[xvi]
For these people, there is no choice but to flee or
perish.
Pope Francis has also recently
highlighted how the disproportionate impact of climate change in developing
countries is displacing entire communities. In his Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’, the Holy Father reminds us of how the poor of
the world are most susceptible to the effects of environmental degradation and
natural disasters:
There has been a tragic rise in the
number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by
environmental degradation. They are not recognised by international conventions
as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without
enjoying any legal protection whatsoever. Sadly, there is widespread
indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world.[xvii]
Their loss of livelihoods and lack of
social support means they too are forced to leave their homes with little hope
for the future.
2. Embarking upon a dangerous journey
Leaving your country for good is one of the hardest
decisions a person can be forced to make. It means a break with all that you
know …
Asylum seekers carry sorrow and distress and depend
on human sympathy. An asylum seeker is a kneeling person; kneeling in front of
the ship to ask for a reduced escape price; kneeling in front of the aid agency
asking to be saved.
They get on a boat, on a piece of wood, not knowing
where it is taking them; their safety and security limited to that piece of
wood, risking starving or drowning at sea.
Najeeba’s story[xviii]
Imagine being uprooted from the life you know –
leaving your home, your possessions, your whole way of life. Think of what it
would be like to leave family members behind or to lose them in a journey with
an uncertain end and in the hands of strangers.
The journey of a refugee is chaotic. There is the
immediate need to find food, water and shelter and to be safe. From the moment
of departure there is the risk of death, incarceration and further persecution.
In desperation, some people flee to developed
nations where they may find protection. Since they have no other choice, they
pay people who will help them travel. Many of these agents exploit them: they
make unrealistic promises and charge exorbitant prices. The journey can be
gruelling and boats are often unseaworthy and overcrowded.
They brave storms, risk shipwreck and drowning, and
suffer starvation, dehydration and heatstroke. Sometimes the smugglers and
crews are as much of a threat: in South-East Asia, there are regular reports of
killings, torture and rape. People have been beaten or imprisoned as their
captors extort more money from their families. One said: ‘If I beat them, the
money will come out’.[xix]
Those travelling through countries that lack
refugee protections can experience hostility, abuse and extortion at the hands
of police and other officials. Ill-treatment and long delays in resettlement,
even when the UNHCR has granted refugee status, has meant that many have had
little alternative but to move on.[xx] For
these people, there is no organised ‘queue’.
For too many, this is not a journey of choice. Such
people fear the dangers of the journey far less than the persecution and
dangers from which they have fled.
The actions of recent Australian governments from
both sides of politics to ‘send a message’ to people smugglers by turning back
boats, detaining people offshore and refusing resettlement have effectively
made vulnerable people a means to an end.
About 90 per cent of boat arrivals who have been
processed in the past have been found by our rigorous refugee status
determination process to be genuine refugees in need of protection.[xxi] This alone should tell us that
‘turning back the boats’ is harming genuine refugees.
Australia has obligations to protect people who are
found to be refugees and to those who are asylum seekers. As a global citizen,
Australia has the opportunity to lead a regional response that respects the
right of each nation to protect its borders while ensuring protection for
asylum seekers and the establishment of prompt refugee status determination and
resettlement options.
3. Prolonged detention onshore and offshore
I am here, an unknown person. No one knows about
us. We are on this island. We thank them for what they are providing for us,
these services, everything we need that they are providing for us. We just need
to have some certainty. I have lived in war zones, with bombs and explosions. I
have never experienced what I am experiencing here with the uncertainty we
face. If we had died in the ocean, that would have been better. I just need to
know my destiny so that I can sleep at night. Just to know, so I can be
prepared for what will happen.
An Iraqi asylum seeker detained on Manus[xxii]
In our pastoral care of asylum seekers in detention
we have heard the stories and witnessed for ourselves the overcrowding,
insufficient staffing and services, isolation, riots, self-harm and suicide.[xxiii]
In 1992 Australia introduced mandatory detention
for non-citizens who arrive by boat without a valid visa. Increasingly,
detention facilities have been constructed in isolated locations without
adequate resources for the care of detainees. They have been described as
‘barbed wire encampments set in the midst of an inhospitable environment’.[xxiv] The institutionalised cruelty in
places like Baxter, Curtin and Christmas Island has now been outsourced to
Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
The financial cost to Australians has been huge. In
2014–15, Australia devoted almost $3 billion to onshore and offshore detention
and community placement services for several thousand asylum seekers. The
budget for the Manus Island and Nauru facilities alone was over $820 million.[xxv] By comparison, the UNHCR has a
budget of around $5.5 billion to attend to the needs of almost 60 million
people around the world.[xxvi]
The real cost is borne by those who are detained
indefinitely. For anyone, to be deprived of freedom is an ordeal. For people
who have endured persecution and the dangers of travel, it can be uniquely
destructive. They are distressed and ashamed that they can do nothing to help
their families still at risk outside Australia. They are terrified that they
will be sent back into danger. And, unlike convicted criminals, they do not
have a definite sentence.
The 2010 Australian of the Year, psychiatrist Dr
Patrick McGorry, described detention facilities as ‘factories for producing
mental illness and mental disorder’.[xxvii] Dr
Peter Young, former chief psychiatrist to Australia’s detention centres,
described them as ‘inherently toxic’. Psychiatrist Professor Louise Newman said
that when the Labor government reopened the Manus Island and Nauru facilities
in 2012, ‘they replicated the very conditions that they have admitted contribute
to mental harm and deterioration.’[xxviii]
Concerns have been raised by the UNHCR and the
United Nations Committee Against Torture about the poor conditions and
treatment of detainees, the slowness of processing, the arbitrary nature of
detention and the risk of detainees being deported to danger.[xxix]
Mandatory offshore detention does not save lives.
Recent immigration ministers from both sides of politics admitted as much to
the Human Rights Commission.[xxx] There
is no evidence that measures like suspending refugee status determination and
denying resettlement in Australia will stem the flow of people seeking asylum.
Australia cannot claim the moral high ground and
justify its policies by claiming they prevent deaths of asylum seekers at sea,
when it offers no other way of giving protection and organising any avenue of
safe arrival. We need to work:
· globally
to develop in-country solutions that can effectively protect displaced people
· regionally
to increase genuine protection spaces in countries such as Malaysia and
Indonesia, and
· locally
by substantially increasing Australia’s humanitarian intake.
Because the safety of these asylum seekers cannot
be guaranteed and durable solutions are unlikely to be found for them
immediately in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, both of these detention facilities
should be closed.
The billions of dollars spent each year on
deterring and detaining thousands of vulnerable people would be better spent in
our region on policies that are far more humane and effective.
4. Particularly vulnerable groups
If only you could feel how much it hurts to be
locked up behind the fence.
If only you could see how my tears are falling down
every moment.
If only you could know how much it means to me, to
be a normal person,
Like any other – like people outside the fence.
If only you could see the world I left behind.
If only you could see how lonely I am without my
family,
And knowing they are not safe.
If only you could hear me out and listen to why I
came.
If only you could feel the pain inside my chest.
If only you could see how many times I wake up in
the middle of the nights,
My blue bag to Nauru waiting at my door.
If only you could see how many dreams I have for my
future.[xxxi]
This poem by a 17-year-old asylum seeker held at
Christmas Island speaks eloquently of the experience of all asylum seekers of
the world who are incarcerated, without family and without any hope of a
durable solution.
Children are a particularly vulnerable group in any
detention setting. The findings of the Human Rights Commission’s 2014 National
Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention show that these policies have
caused terrible harm to children and their parents. As a signatory to the
Convention of the Rights of the Child, Australia is obliged to ensure that the
detention of children is a measure of last resort, for the shortest period of
time possible, that children are not detained arbitrarily, and are not separated
from their parents.[xxxii]
Australia is the only nation that detains child
asylum seekers as a matter of course.[xxxiii] Most other countries have far more humane
policies towards those who seek protection. The United Kingdom, for example,
detains people only when absolutely necessary before they are to be removed
from the country; children may be detained for only 72 hours or, with the
minister’s approval, for a maximum of a week.[xxxiv]
We are concerned when we hear reports of pregnant
women seeking abortions because of the dire conditions in detention, of young
mothers on 24-hour suicide watch, of children living in close proximity to
depressed adults, and of high numbers of children self-harming and being
exposed to potential abuse.[xxxv]
What can have justified separating a six-year-old
girl suffering post-traumatic stress from her mother for an extended period
while her mother was sent to the mainland to have a baby? Or seizing the
medical records and destroying the medication of a three-year-old girl
suffering from epilepsy?[xxxvi] These
actions speak of an institutionalised cruelty that cares little for the most
vulnerable.
There is clearly a conflict when the Minister for
Immigration and Border Protection is the legal guardian for unaccompanied
minors and at the same time is responsible for their detention. The Australian
Churches Refugee Taskforce has rightly called for the establishment of an
independent Office of Guardian for Unaccompanied Non-Citizen Children able to
truly look out for the best interests of the child and maintain a commitment to
the protective role of parenthood.[xxxvii]
Concerns have also been raised about the high
incidence of mental illness among detainees and the inadequate screening for
victims of torture.[xxxviii]
Around 50 people have languished in detention for
years because ASIO has issued an adverse security assessment even though they
have been given refugee status. If they had committed a crime they would not
have been granted refugee status. The assessment remains secret and there is no
opportunity to seek an independent appeal. They cannot be returned home and it
is unlikely another country will take them.[xxxix] They
remain in a legal limbo, the forgotten of the forgotten.
It might seem surprising that we mention another
group who are vulnerable. They are Australians: the men and women of the
Australian Defence Force and officials and contractors running detention
facilities. Some personnel who are involved in the dangerous business of
turning back boats have been traumatised by the experience.[xl] Staff
in the detention centres, too, can suffer. In volatile conditions they endure
great stress. And anyone employed in ensuring that other human beings remain
locked up is likely to become less sensitive to human suffering. They also
experience the toxic effects of this system.
5. In the community but in poverty
I left my country Uganda due to the circumstances
that I had that threatened my life. Coming to Australia and leaving my family
behind was the most challenging decision I ever faced in my entire life ...
Arriving in Australia was scary for me; I knew no one, had no money, nowhere to
sleep. I was stranded, anxious, desperate and eventually stressed and
depressed.
I went through a rough time; my entire life
depended on charity. Immigration took some time while processing my
application; it felt like an eternity.[xli]
The treatment of asylum seekers in detention is
cruel. So are the conditions for those permitted to live in the community while
their claims are assessed. On bridging visas without work rights, they have
been placed in situations that lead to destitution and hopelessness. Because
they rely on income support that is lower than regular allowance levels, they
experience severe hardship and the indignity of having to search for charity
wherever they can.
In 2013, the Australian Red Cross revealed that
around half of asylum seekers who rely on government support did not have
access to quality long term accommodation, and of these, 13 per cent of single
individuals and nine per cent of single parents lived in short-term emergency
accommodation or were sleeping rough. Almost 40 per cent had experienced food
insecurity largely due to housing costs and income below the poverty line.[xlii]
These are lives characterised by dependence,
enforced inactivity and the denial of opportunity to develop and contribute to
society.
As one woman said:
Because we are not working we don’t pay
taxes, we feel that we … don’t belong here because we can’t contribute to this
country. When we work and when we pay our taxes then we feel we are a member
but for the time being we think that we can’t be a part and we always think
that we are a burden for Australia.[xliii]
The meagre support and restrictions on work were
originally justified on the grounds that asylum seekers would be processed and
receive final determinations relatively quickly. Constant shifts in policies
and the current delay in status determination for boat arrivals living in
Australia have affected around 30,000 people.
Asylum seekers who are denied the right to work are
left in an impossible situation, without adequate means to feed, clothe, house
and educate themselves while they are in the community and their claims are
being assessed. We must ensure that, having fled the desperation of their
homelands, they do not face destitution in Australia.
We acknowledge the untiring efforts of women and
men of Church and community organisations who offer material and financial
assistance, as well as emotional and social support to asylum seekers in
poverty. They see first-hand the impact of government policy upon the dignity
of people. They have stood in true solidarity with the vulnerable in the face
of inflammatory public debate. Catholic Social Services, the Religious Orders,
the Society of St Vincent de Paul, organisations such as the House of Welcome,
Asylum Seekers centres, the Refugee Council of Australia and countless parish
and community groups are to be commended for their commitment.
Call for a new global response of compassion
Australia’s response to asylum seekers and refugees
has been marked by vitriolic political debate at every federal election
campaign since 2001. As ever tougher deterrence measures have been introduced,
our nation has retreated from its obligation to protect the fundamental right
of those in fear of their lives to seek asylum. Australia is forgetting its
proud tradition of welcoming the stranger. As a nation, we are at risk of
becoming indifferent.
The essential issue for Australia is whether we
will live up to our reputation as the land of the ‘fair go’ that lends a hand
to those in desperate circumstances. In the second verse of our National Anthem
we sing:
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
We sing with pride of the generosity, welcome and
unity we offer. This ideal stands in stark contrast, however, to the
self-interest, incarceration and exclusion that have characterised our nation’s
response over many years to asylum seekers who arrive by boat.
At the end of the Second World War when millions of
people were displaced, national leaders committed themselves to care for refugees.
Australia helped draft the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees
and signed it in 1954. We willingly took up our responsibilities: to recognise
the right of individuals to seek asylum in a country bound by the Convention,
not to penalise people because of their mode of arrival, and to undertake not
to return people to a country where they have a well-founded fear of
persecution.[xliv]
These and other human rights treaties provided the
framework for the orderly and compassionate reception of refugees, particularly
through the critical periods following the Second World War and the Vietnam
War.
Australia has benefited greatly through the
contribution of generations of immigrants, including those who were refugees
and asylum seekers. They have brought wonderful diversity to our culture, lent
their skills and hard work to the labour market and added youth and vitality to
the nation. However, it is not the potential contribution immigrants can make
to Australia that should be the focus when responding to claims for refugee
status but, rather, our primary obligation to protect desperately vulnerable
people.
There are terrible and pressing reasons why the
global movement of people is increasing. Each day, conflict and persecution
force more than 42,000 people to flee their homes in search of safety and
protection.[xlv] The crises in Iraq and
Syria have increased the already high level of displacement. The United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has described the situation
as ‘the worst displacement situation in the world since World War II’.[xlvi]
Yet in 2014, on the 60th anniversary of signing the
Refugee Convention, Australian policy-makers succeeded in writing most of the
Convention out of the Migration Act. The amended legislation includes a ‘new,
independent and self-contained statutory framework’ that allows the government
to make its own interpretation of the nation’s obligations under international
law.[xlvii]
Some decisions of recent years have included:
· excising
Australia from its own migration zone
· returning
asylum seekers to the countries from which they fled
· incarcerating
men, women and children in remote offshore detention centres
· freezing
the Refugee Status Determination process and introducing measures to rush
through assessments with little legal support or appeal rights
· refusing
refugees resettlement places in Australia
· re-introducing
Temporary Protection Visas.
Australia, like every other nation, has the right
to regulate migration flows and assess the status of people seeking protection
within its borders through a rigorous processing system. However, a system that
restricts both the individual’s right to seek asylum and the state’s obligation
to provide protection is inherently flawed. A respected Professor of Law, Frank
Brennan SJ, has pointed out that if every country did what Australia is doing,
no refugee would be able to flee from persecution and the Refugee Convention
would be a dead letter.[xlviii]
There must be an alternative. We must recognise our
regional responsibility and also acknowledge that the dangers people face are
so great that deterrence alone is not an adequate response.
We call on our political leadership to ensure
public debate is characterised by respect for the human dignity of people
seeking asylum.
Australia should be processing asylum seekers’
claims onshore. Detention in immigration facilities should be for the shortest
period possible to undertake identity, health and security checks. No child
should be detained solely on the basis of their immigration status and all
children are entitled to a healthy family life with the support and nurture of
their parents.
Australia should be showing leadership in the
region, not just in combating people smuggling but in increasing the capacity
for protection and resettlement places in South-East Asia. Globally we should
be making concrete efforts to engage with source countries to provide in-country
support to people who are displaced.
There should be a substantial increase in
Australia’s humanitarian intake with a flexibility to increase this number in
the case of major global crises.
People living in the community while their asylum
claims are being processed should be afforded work rights.
We must ensure that no one seeking Australia’s
protection, regardless of whether they are in onshore or offshore facilities,
or in a third country under a bilateral resettlement agreement, is ever
deported to danger.
These suggestions are not new or extraordinary.
Such policy approaches have been successfully implemented before.
We all have a role to play
What can we do as individuals and a community to
help our brothers and sisters and work for a conversion in our nation? The task
is not easy, but there are many things that we can do.
First, we can make sure that Australians understand
the issues better. Quiet conversation and example are powerful tools for
conversion.
We can also support the organisations that work to
help asylum seekers: organisations like the Society of St Vincent de Paul,
Catholic Social Services, Jesuit Refugee Services, Asylum Seeker centres and
many others.
We can work within our parishes to ensure that they
are welcoming places. Creating social events, organising or joining support
networks, introducing refugees and hearing their stories: all these are ways in
which we can recognise the humanity of those who have come in need of
protection.
Politicians need to know that we feel passionately
about this issue, and not just at the ballot box, when we cast our vote.
Writing to local members and ministers does have an effect, and can give
encouragement to those in Parliament who also seek a better way.
The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office
is a valuable source of advocacy and information. The Office provides education
resources for schools and materials for the annual World Day of Migrants and
Refugees – the last Sunday in August.
The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council
distributes a Ten Steps leaflet that will include ways in which we can work to
promote understanding and help such people in practical ways. Many dioceses
have very active Justice and Peace offices that can make suggestions about
practical steps you can take or organisations you can support.
Responding to the call of Jesus
How will we answer the call of our brothers and
sisters who come knocking on our door?
Jesus Christ reveals the love of God and the full
truth of the human being. God, who created us all, loves us so much that he became
incarnate, was crucified for our sake and rose from the dead.
From the beginning, Jesus experienced the terrors
of the refugee when his family fled tyranny and sought refuge in Egypt. In his
ministry he led the life of a wanderer and relied on the hospitality of others:
‘The Son of man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Matthew 8:20). He urged his
disciples to do the same: ‘Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no
bag for your journey’ (Matthew 10:9-10). He embraced the outsider and the exile
as a person like himself, and he commands us to do as he did. When we
Australians support policies of cruelty and rejection, we close our ears to
Christ’s call and turn him away from our doors.
We know that we are better than this. As
Christians, we know that it is within us to hear the call of Jesus. As
Australians we have shown ourselves willing to take the path of generosity and
leadership. We can do so again.
The words and actions of Jesus demand a response.
We do not open our hearts and our home to vulnerable people simply because they
are ‘deserving’ of charity or compassion. We take them in, provide shelter and
bandage their wounds because they are equal to us in dignity. They are no
longer ‘aliens’ (Lev. 19:33) but our brothers and sisters.
Pope Francis has made this point
strongly in his recent Encyclical:
We need to strengthen the conviction
that we are one single human family. There are no frontiers or barriers,
political or social, behind which we can hide, still less is there room for the
globalisation of indifference.[xlix]
So we ask: how would we want our families and loved
ones to be treated if they took such a journey of danger? How would we want
them to be received by the countries to which they had fled in desperation?
As people of faith we go further and ask: do we see
the face of Jesus Christ in those who’ve come across the seas? Do we recognise
the family and child fleeing Herod’s massacre? And what of those who have not
survived?
There is another way; a way to make a real
difference. No longer need we fear the alien approaching our shores as a
burden. Instead, we would realise that we are blessed because we do have the
means to welcome our brothers and sisters. This other way is characterised by
acceptance, leadership and generosity.
Once more the words of Pope Francis remind us that
the presence of Christ transforms the darkness of human despair into the light
of hope. On Christmas Eve of 2014, he telephoned a group of refugees in a camp
in Northern Iraq and said to them:
You are like Jesus on this night and I
bless you and am close to you. Think about how you are like Jesus in this
situation and this makes me pray more for you ...
Jesus is coming tonight, he comes as a
child, tender, innocent. The children who are among, the children who have
died, and those who are exploited. Let us think about the children: the Child
Jesus comes among us, it is the love and tenderness of God. May the Lord give
us the grace to receive them with a lot of love.[l]
[i] Pope
Francis (2013), Homily of Holy Father Francis, ‘Arena’ sports camp, Salina
Quarter, Lampedusa, 8 July 2013.
[ii]Australian Catholic
Bishops Conference (2014), Building Bridges, ‘1991 – I am a
stranger: Will you welcome me?’, p. 50.
[iv] United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2015), World at War,
UNHCR Global Trends 2014, Geneva, pp. 2-3.
[ix] UNHCR
(2015), Irregular Maritime Movements: January – November 2014,
UNHCR Regional Office for South-East Asia.
[x] Bob
Douglas, Claire Higgins, Arja Keski-Nummi, Jane McAdam & Travers McLeod
(2014), Beyond the Boats: Building an asylum and refugee policy for the
long term, Australia21, p. 17. Since 2013 the government has referred to
unauthorised boat arrivals as ‘illegal’, even though they are not: see Jane
McAdam & Fiona Chong (2014), Refugees: Why seeking asylum is legal
and Australia’s policies are not, New South Publishing, pp. 51-52; Refugee
Council of Australia (2013), Stop using “illegal” label: 138 groups appeal
to PM, Media statement, 6 November 2013.
[xi] Lisa
Hartley & Caroline Fleay (2014), Policy as Punishment: Asylum
Seekers in the Community Without the Right to Work, Centre for Human Rights
Education, Curtin University, p. 12.
[xii] Australian
Catholic Social Justice Council (2009), ACSJC Monthly Briefing,
‘From the Secretariat’ No. 102 – June 2009; Human Rights Watch (2013), ‘We
Will Teach You a Lesson’: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security
Forces, HRW, pp.14f.
[xiii] Human Rights Watch (2015), World
Report 2015 – Events of 2014, HRW, p.143;
UNHCR (2014), War’s Human Cost, UNHCR Global Trends 2013, Geneva,
p. 12.
[xiv] United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2014), Global Report of Trafficking
in Persons 2014, United Nations, Vienna, p. 42.
[xvi] Vatican
City (2014), ‘Statement of Apostolic Nuncios in the Middle East on October
Meeting’, ZENIT, 6 October 2014.
[xviii] Amnesty International (current), Najeeba’s
story, Refugees’ Human Rights, Amnesty International Australia,
www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/23976.
[xx] Amnesty
International (2013), This is Breaking People: Human Rights Violations
at Australia’s Asylum Seeker Processing Centre on Manus Island, Papua New
Guinea, Amnesty International Australia, pp. 19, 27f.
[xxi] Janet Phillips (2015), Asylum seekers
and refugees: what are the facts? Research Paper, Parliamentary
Library, Parliament of Australia, p. 9.
[xxiii] Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee
Office (2011), Reaction to Detention Centre Protests highly
questionable, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Media statement, 17
March 2011.
[xxiv] Australian
Catholic Social Justice Council (2011), Bishop Alarmed about safety of
asylum seekers, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Media statement, 20
January 2011.
[xxv] Refugee Council of Australia (2014), Federal
Budget in Brief: What it means for refugees and people seeking humanitarian
protection, Sydney, p. 2.
[xxvi] Kumiko MatsuuraMueller (2014), Proposed
Biennial Programme Budget 2014 2015 (revised), Division of Financial and
Administrative Management, UNHCR, p. 5.
[xxvii] Adam Cresswell (2010), ‘Call to abandon
“factories for mental illness”’, The Australian, 26 January 2010.
[xxviii] David Marr and Oliver Laughland (2014),
‘Australia's detention regime sets out to make asylum seekers suffer, says
chief immigration psychiatrist’, Guardian Australia, 5 August 2014.
[xxix] UNHCR (2013), Monitoring
Visit to the Republic of Nauru, 7 to 9 October 2013, UNHCR Regional
Representation in Canberra 26 November 2013; UNHCR (2014), Submission
to the Inquiry into the incident at the Manus Island Detention Centre from 16
February to 18 February 2014 – The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs
References Committee, UNHRC Regional Representation in Canberra 7 May 2014;
United Nations Committee Against Torture (2014), Concluding
observations on the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of Australia,
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, CAT/C/AUS/CO/4-5, 23 December 2014; UN Human Rights Council (2015), Report
of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, Addendum, 6 March 2015,
A/HRC/28/68/Add.1.
[xxx] Australian
Human Rights Commission (2014), The Forgotten Children: National
Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention, AHRC, Sydney, p. 10.
[xxxi] Australian
Human Rights Commission (2014), National Inquiry into Children in Immigration
Detention, Submission no. 20, available at
www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/national-inquiry-children-immigration-detention-2014-0.
[xxxiv] Parliament
of the United Kingdom (2014), ‘Ending child immigration detention’, www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN05591/ending-child-immigration-detention.
[xxxv] Gillian
Triggs (2014), ‘Detention shame: children, mothers self-harming’, The
Drum, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 24 July 2014; Dr Peter Young
(2014), Evidence given to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration
Detention, Sydney Public Hearing, 31 July 2014; Australian Human Rights
Commission (2014), The Forgotten Children, pp. 62-63, 90-91,
98-101, 105-106; Philip Moss (2015), Review into recent allegations
relating to conditions and circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in
Nauru, Final Report, 6 February 2015, pp. 14, 23f.
[xxxvi] Human Rights Law Centre (2014), Torture
and Cruel Treatment in Australia, Joint NGO report to the United Nations
Committee Against Torture, October 2014, pp. 44, 46.
[xxxvii] Australian
Churches Refugee Taskforce (2014), Submission to the Senate Legal and
Constitutional Affairs Committee concerning the Guardian for Unaccompanied
Children Bill 2014, National Council of Churches of Australia, 23 October 2014.
[xxxix] Julian
Burnside (2014), Without justice there will not be peace, Speech
delivered at Sydney Town Hall, 5 November 2014, 2014 City of Sydney Peace Prize
Lecture; George Williams (2014), ‘ASIO’s new power over asylum seekers needs
proper checks and balances’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May
2014.
[xl] Dan
Oakes, Alex McDonald & Sam Clark (2014), ‘The emotional toll on navy of
Australia’s border protection policy’, 7.30 Report, Australian
Broadcasting Authority, 2 December 2014.
[xli] House
of Welcome (2010), ‘One Girl’s journey from Uganda to UTS’, Story
Snapshots, HoW, Carramar NSW,
www.houseofwelcome.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/HoW-Stories-Final-Oct-2010.pdf.
[xlii] Australian
Red Cross (2013), Inside the process of seeking asylum in Australia,
Inaugural Vulnerability Report, June 2013, pp. 16f.
[xliv] United Nations (1951/1967), Convention
and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees,
www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.pdf.
[xlvi] ABC
News (2015) ‘World losing capacity to prevent conflicts amid “mega-crises” in
Iraq and Syria: UN refugee chief Antonio Gutterres’, 7 January 2015.
[xlvii] Parliament of Australia (2014), Explanatory
Memorandum, Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the
Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014.
[xlviii] Frank
Brennan SJ (2003), Tampering with Asylum: A Universal Humanitarian
Problem, University of Queensland, St Lucia, p. 14.
[l] ZENIT
(2014), ‘Pope Makes Satellite Call to Iraqi Refugees’ 26 December 2014,
www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-makes-satellite-call-to-iraqi-refugees.
TEN STEPS TOWARDS JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES AND ASYLUM
SEEKERS
[To accompany the
Social Justice Statement 2015–2016, For Those Who’ve Come Across the
Seas: Justice for refugees and asylum seekers.]
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Social
Justice Statement for 2015–2016 challenges us to face the reality of the terror
and danger that people face around the world and to work to change Australia’s
response to people seeking asylum.
When we Australians support policies of
cruelty and rejection, we close our ears to Christ’s call and turn him away
from our doors. We know that we are better than this. As Christians, we know
that it is within us to hear the call of Jesus. As Australians we have shown
ourselves willing to take the path of generosity and leadership. We can do so
again. (Social Justice Statement 2015–16)
Following are ten steps – actions – we
can take personally, locally and nationally.
1. Listen to the stories
Pope Francis, in his words and actions
at Lampedusa, cuts through the global indifference by making the issue
personal. He shows us that, when we look into the face of the asylum seeker and
really hear their story – each stage of their journey – they are no longer a
stranger to be feared and we can no longer be indifferent to their need.
(Social Justice Statement 2015–16)
On your own or with others: read
stories about asylum seekers and refugees. See a film, read a poem or a book.
Go to:
Refugee Council of Australia Fact
Sheets and Resources: www.refugeecouncil.org.au
Edmund Rice Centre, Asylum
Seekers and Refugees Education Resource: www.erc.org.au
2. Allow yourself to be touched by the stories of asylum seekers and refugees
Has any one of us wept for these
persons who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For
these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a
society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion –
‘suffering with’ others: the globalisation of indifference has taken from us
the ability to weep! (Pope Francis at Lampedusa)
In your family, parish, community,
gather a group to pray and mourn for those who have lost their lives seeking a
safe place to live. Two examples of such prayers are available from:
Catholic Religious Australia
(www.catholicreligiousaustralia.org/index.php/events/item/1260-national-lament) and
(www.catholicreligiousaustralia.org/index.php/events/item/1260-national-lament) and
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, Brisbane (CJPC)
(http://cjpcbrisbane.wordpress.com).
(http://cjpcbrisbane.wordpress.com).
3. Get the facts
Australia’s political debate has
focused not on the millions of people displaced around the world, but almost
entirely on a small segment of its immigration intake, the refugee and
humanitarian program of 13,750 places annually. The policies of both major
parties are aimed at deterring so-called ‘illegal maritime arrivals’ who, at
their height in 2013, amounted to about 20,000 people. (Social Justice
Statement 2015–16)
There is a great deal of misinformation
in the community about refugees. Some reliable sources of information are:
· United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR): www.unhcr.org
· Refugee
Council of Australia: www.refugeecouncil.org.au
· The
Edmund Rice Centre: www.erc.org.au
· Australian
Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office: www.acmro.catholic.org.au
· Australian
Catholic Social Justice Council: www.socialjustice.catholic.org.au
· Jesuit
Refugee Service: www.jrs.org.au
· Australian
Churches Refugee Task Force: www.acrt.com.au
· Amnesty
International Australia: www.amnesty.org.au
4. Pray regularly for refugees and asylum seekers
Pope Francis showed us at Lampedusa how
deeply he was touched by the plight of asylum seekers. We can follow his
example by remembering those displaced around the world in our daily prayers,
with family and friends, and by encouraging our parishes to include them in the
Prayers of the Faithful at Mass. Use the prayer card published with this
Statement.
5. Envision a new way of responding
There is another way; a way to make a
real difference ... No longer need we fear the alien approaching our shores as
a burden. Instead, we would realise that we are blessed because we do have the
means to welcome our brothers and sisters. This other way is characterised by
acceptance, leadership and generosity. (Social Justice Statement 2015–16)
Following the Vietnam War, Australia
helped forge a humane regional response to boat people and accepted thousands
of refugees. Now, ‘Australia is the only country in the world with a policy
that imposes mandatory and indefinite immigration detention on asylum seekers
as a first action.’ (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014)
Find out how other countries respond
humanely to far greater numbers of asylum seekers than Australia faces. Some
examples:
· People
fleeing from the violence in Syria have increased the population of Lebanon by
25%. To see how Lebanon’s schools have responded, go to the Jesuit Refugee
Service website: www.jrs.net/multimedia.
· How
have Italy and the European Union responded to thousands of asylum seekers in
the Mediterranean?
· How
do Scandinavian countries respond to people who seek asylum within their
borders?
6. Work to raise awareness in your parish, schools and communities
We can work within our parishes to
ensure that they are welcoming places. Creating social events, organising or
joining support networks, introducing refugees and hearing their stories: all
these are ways in which we can recognise the humanity of those who have come in
need of protection. (Social Justice Statement 2015–16)
Where asylum seekers are rejected and
excluded from our communities, they may be viewed with fear and suspicion. As
Christians, we can work to break down that fear. See the resources in Steps 1
and 3; encourage your parish to make these resources available to people in
your area; arrange for speakers from organisations supporting refugees in the
community.
7. Join or set up a support group for asylum
seekers and refugees in your parish
The treatment of asylum seekers in
detention is cruel. So are the conditions for those permitted to live in the
community while their claims are assessed ... they experience severe hardship
and the indignity of having to search for charity wherever they can. (Social
Justice Statement 2015–16)
Find out what support is already
available in your diocese. Find out where there are asylum seekers or refugees
in your local area and set up or join a parish group to support them.
Look up the 2015 Refugee Week Resource
Kit for ideas and practical advice for organising events: www.refugeeweek.org.au/refugee-week-resources
8. Support agencies assisting asylum seekers and refugees
We acknowledge the untiring efforts of
women and men of Church and community organisations who offer material and
financial assistance, as well as emotional and social support to asylum seekers
in poverty ... They have stood in true solidarity with the vulnerable in the
face of inflammatory public debate. (Social Justice Statement 2015–16)
Many organisations are working to
support asylum seekers. Volunteer your skills, or make a donation, to groups
such as:
· Catholic
Alliance for People Seeking Asylum (CAPSA): http://capsa.org.au
· House
of Welcome (Sydney): www.houseofwelcome.com.au
· Asylum
Seekers Resource Centre (Melbourne): www.asrc.org.au
· Jesuit
Refugee Service Australia: www.jrs.org.au
· Sisters
of Mercy www.mercy.org.au
· Edmund
Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education: www.erc.org.au
· St
Vincent de Paul Society: www.vinnies.org.au
9. Challenge your political representatives to take a stand
Politicians need to know that we feel
passionately about this issue, and not just at the ballot box, when we cast our
vote. Writing to local members and ministers does have an effect, and can give
encouragement to those in Parliament who also seek a better way. (Social
Justice Statement 2015–16)
Write to the Prime Minister, the
relevant Minister, your MP and Senators, and officials of political parties.
The Refugee Council has suggestions on how to do this, including addresses of
politicians: www.refugeecouncil.org.au/campaigns/take-action/write-to-be-heard.
10. Join in 2016 events: Refugee Week and Refugee and Migrant Sunday
The essential issue for Australia is
whether we will live up to our reputation as the land of the ‘fair go’ that
lends a hand to those in desperate circumstances. (Social Justice Statement
2015–16)
The Social Justice Statement is current for a full 12 months until Social Justice Sunday 2016. So work on all these ten steps and plan to participate in events in 2016.
Refugee Week begins on the second Sunday in June.
Resources are provided by the Refugee Council of Australia www.refugeecouncil.org.au.
Refugee and Migrant Sunday is celebrated on the last Sunday in August.
Resources are provided by the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee
Office www.acmro.catholic.org.au.
POPE FRANCIS SPEAKS
TO US BISHOPS
Article by Joshua McElwee from the
National Catholic Reporter. The original can be found at here
Pope Francis has earnestly outlined
exactly what he wants from the U.S. Catholic bishops, telling them Wednesday
that they should seek to be shepherds who never shy away from dialogue, do not
fight with one another, and always seek out opportunities for encounter.
In a prayer service with hundreds of
American bishops at Washington's Cathedral of St Matthew, the pope described
the way of the shepherd to his episcopal brethren with compelling and moving
language and imagery.
Most of all, the pontiff told the U.S.
bishops that they should not close in on themselves but seek to go out and be
at service to dialogue and encounter.
"I know that you face many
challenges, that the field in which you sow is unyielding and that there is
always the temptation to give in to fear, to lick one’s wounds, to think back
on bygone times and to devise harsh responses to fierce opposition,"
Francis said.
"Yet we are promoters of the
culture of encounter," he continued. "We are living sacraments of the
embrace between God’s riches and our poverty. We are witnesses of the abasement
and the condescension of God who anticipates in love our every response."
"Dialogue is our method, not as a
shrewd strategy but out of fidelity to the One who never wearies of visiting
the marketplace, even at the eleventh hour, to propose his offer of love,"
said the pope.
This was Francis’ second public address
Wednesday during his six-day visit to the U.S., having met President Barack
Obama at the White House earlier in the morning.
Anticipation for each of the pontiff's
meetings in Washington, New York, and Philadelphia has been extraordinarily
high, with much focus placed on what the pope might say regarding a number of
pressing issues.
With the bishops Wednesday, Francis did
not refrain from speaking at length and in an in-depth manner. In a 42-minute
address, the pope gave a wide overview of how he sees a bishop's role and spoke
in poignant language about his own connection as a native Latin American to the
U.S. experience.
The pope told the bishops he did not
want to specifically direct them in what they should be doing, but wanted to
offer "some reflections" for their work in different places around
the country.
"It is not my intention to offer a
plan or to devise a strategy," said Francis. "I have not come to
judge you or to lecture you."
Instead, the pope said, he wanted
"to speak to you as a brother among brothers."
Beginning to outline his reflections
for the bishops, Francis said that as shepherds "our greatest joy is to be
shepherds, and only shepherds -- pastors with undivided hearts and selfless
devotion."
"It is not about preaching
complicated doctrines, but joyfully proclaiming Christ who died and rose for
our sake," Francis said. "The 'style' of our mission should make our
hearers feel that the message we preach is meant 'for us.'"
Bishops, said the pope, should be
"shepherds who do not pasture themselves but are able to step back, away
from the center, to 'decrease,' in order to feed God’s family with
Christ."
Such shepherds, he said, "also
watch over ourselves, so as to flee the temptation of narcissism, which blinds
the eyes of the shepherd, makes his voice unrecognizable and his actions
fruitless."
While praising bishops who have the
"shrewdness of an administrator," the pontiff also warned against
being managerial or seeking power.
"We fall into hopeless decline
whenever we confuse the power of strength with the strength of that
powerlessness with which God has redeemed us," said Francis.
"Bishops need to be lucidly aware
of the battle between light and darkness being fought in this world," he
said. "Woe to us, however, if we make of the cross a banner of worldly
struggles and fail to realize that the price of lasting victory is allowing
ourselves to be wounded and consumed."
Then, outlining what appeared to be his
key request for the U.S. bishops, Francis told them they must always seek
dialogue.
"The path ahead ... is dialogue
among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyteries, dialogue with lay persons,
dialogue with families, dialogue with society," said the pope.
"I cannot ever tire of encouraging
you to dialogue fearlessly," Francis said.
Using a Greek word that roughly means
to speak boldly and without fear, he continued: "The richer the heritage
which you are called to share with parrhesia, the more eloquent should be
the humility with which you should offer it."
"Do not be afraid to set out on
that 'exodus' which is necessary for all authentic dialogue," urged the
pope.
"Otherwise, we fail to understand
the thinking of others, or to realize deep down that the brother or sister we
wish to reach and redeem, with the power and the closeness of love, counts more
than their positions, distant as they may be from what we hold as true and
certain," he continued.
"Harsh and divisive language does
not befit the tongue of a pastor, it has no place in his heart," said
Francis. "Although it may momentarily seem to win the day, only the
enduring allure of goodness and love remains truly convincing."
The pope also obliquely told the
bishops not to fight amongst themselves.
"The great mission which the Lord
gives us is one which we carry out in communion, collegially," said
Francis. "The world is already so torn and divided, brokenness is now
everywhere. Consequently, the Church, 'the seamless garment of the Lord' cannot
allow herself to be rent, broken or fought over."
Amidst the difficulties of preaching to
modern society, the pontiff urged the bishops "to recognize the Lord’s
voice, as the apostles did on the shore of the lake of Tiberius."
"It becomes even more urgent to
grow in the certainty that the embers of his presence, kindled in the fire of
his passion, precede us and will never die out," said Francis.
"Whenever this certainty weakens, we end up being caretakers of ash, and
not guardians and dispensers of the true light and the warmth that causes our
hearts to burn within us."
The pontiff also offered two direct
recommendations for the bishops' work, saying he was making them "from my
heart."
The first recommendation was for the bishops
to be "pastors close people, pastors who are neighbors and servants."
"Let this closeness be expressed
in a special way towards your priests," said Francis. "Support them,
so that they can continue to serve Christ with an undivided heart, for this alone
can bring fulfillment to ministers of Christ."
"I urge you, then, not to let them
be content with half-measures," said the pope. "Find ways to
encourage their spiritual growth, lest they yield to the temptation to become
notaries and bureaucrats, but instead reflect the motherhood of the Church,
which gives birth to and raises her sons and daughters."
"Be vigilant lest they tire of
getting up to answer those who knock on their door by night, just when they
feel entitled to rest," he continued. "Train them to be ready to
stop, care for, soothe, lift up and assist those who, 'by chance' find
themselves stripped of all they thought they had."
The second recommendation, Francis
said, "has to do with immigrants."
"The Church in the United States
knows like few others the hopes present in the hearts of these
'pilgrims,'" said the pope. "From the beginning you have learned
their languages, promoted their cause, made their contributions your own,
defended their rights, helped them to prosper, and kept alive the flame of
their faith."
"Not only as the Bishop of Rome,
but also as a pastor from the South, I feel the need to thank and encourage
you," said Francis.
"Perhaps it will not be easy for
you to look into their soul; perhaps you will be challenged by their diversity,"
he continued. "But know that they also possess resources meant to be
shared. So do not be afraid to welcome them."
"Offer them the warmth of the love
of Christ and you will unlock the mystery of their heart," he said.
"I am certain that, as so often in the past, these people will enrich
America and its Church."
Francis also obliquely referred to the
sexual abuse crisis in his address, saying: "I realize how much the pain
of recent years has weighed upon you."
"I have supported your generous
commitment to bring healing to victims – in the knowledge that in healing we
too are healed – and to work to ensure that such crimes will never be
repeated," said the pope.
In the opening of his speech to the
U.S. bishops, Francis gave them heartfelt encouragement for their ministry.
"Whenever a hand reaches out to do
good or to show the love of Christ, to dry a tear or bring comfort to the
lonely, to show the way to one who is lost or to console a broken heart, to
help the fallen or to teach those thirsting for truth, to forgive or to offer a
new start in God -- know that the Pope is at your side and supports you,"
he told the bishops.
"He puts his hand on your own, a
hand wrinkled with age, but by God’s grace still able to support and
encourage," said Francis.
The pope also said he felt like one of
the bishops in the cathedral.
"I speak to you as the Bishop of
Rome, called by God in old age, and from a land that is also American,"
said Francis.
"I must tell you that I do not
feel a stranger in your midst," he said. "I am a native of a land
that is also vast, with great open ranges, a land which, like your own,
received the faith from itinerant missionaries."
"I too know how hard it is to sow
the Gospel among people from different worlds, with hearts often hardened by
the trials of a lengthy journey," he said.
Buddhism: Week 2
A series of
reflections taken from a daily email from Fr Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to
the email here
A Change in Consciousness
Rather than making dogmatic statements
about h
ow to get to heaven, Jesus modeled and taught how to live on earth in a
loving way, and he said that this was indeed heaven! But Christians have all
too often pushed heaven into the future. We've made Jesus' death and
resurrection into a reward/punishment system for the next world, which creates
tremendously self-absorbed and self-preoccupied people. It doesn't transform
anyone into compassionate, loving individuals. Instead it leads to a kind of
morbid self-analysis in which people feel guilty, inferior, and inadequate or
superior and self-righteous.
This dualistic approach has corrupted
the true meaning of the Gospel. I would go so far as to say that by sending
Christians on a path of well disguised but delayed self-interest, we
prostituted the entire spiritual journey from the very start. You cannot easily
get to love when you begin with threats and appeals to fear. The driving energy
is completely wrong. Rather, you come to love by attraction. Change must begin
with positive energy or the final result is never positive.
Maybe the Buddha didn't talk about God
because he didn't want his teaching to be interpreted as a method of earning or
losing God's love. He emphasized awareness and experience more than winning a
prize. Words, which are by nature dualistic, tend to get in the way of actual
experience. Thomas Merton said, "Buddhist meditation, but above all that
of Zen, seeks not to explain but to pay attention, to become aware, to be
mindful, in other words to develop a certain kind of consciousness that is
above and beyond deception by verbal formulas--or by emotional
excitement." [1]
Both the Buddha and Jesus were
constantly telling people to be compassionate, to let go, to detach. The
difference is that Buddhists were taught that they could not do any of these
things with a dualistic consciousness. If you were raised Christian, on the
other hand, you were given the impression that you could be a forgiving person
with a dualistic mind. You can't! In effect, Christians were given commandments
about mercy, compassion, loving enemies, and forgiveness without being taught
the nondual consciousness necessary for living most of those commandments.
Because the Church usually did not
enable any actual change of consciousness, most people had to split. In effect,
we became hypocrites (the word first meant "actors"); we had no other
choice. We have to pretend that we love our enemies, because Jesus said we
should. We have to pretend to be nonviolent, when in reality Americans are all
part of a highly militaristic culture. But the real teaching of Jesus is
ignored, is innocuous, and is boring to us, because frankly, with the dualistic
mind, most of it is unlivable and impossible. You can give people all the pious
Christian teaching you want, but without a transformation of consciousness,
they don't have the energy or the capacity to carry it out.
Thankfully, we are now in an age where
we can be open to learning from other world religions like Buddhism, which have
long been teaching the non-dual consciousness that Christianity stopped
teaching in a systematic way for the last five hundred years. [2]
References:
[1] Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of
Appetite (New Directions: 1968), 38.
[2] Richard Rohr, Jesus and Buddha:
Paths to Awakening (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), disc 4 (CD,
DVD, MP3 download).
Unitive Consciousness
Paul Knitter, a theologian friend of
mine from Cincinnati, wrote an insightful book called Without Buddha I Could
Not Be a Christian. In it, he explains that Buddhism teaches "practices
that will help Christians draw on the mystical contents of our faith. Buddhism
can help Christians to be mystical Christians . . . to realize and enter into
the non-dualistic, or unitive, heart of Christian experience--a way to be one
with the Father, to live Christ's life, to be not just a container of the
Spirit but an embodiment and expression of the Spirit, to live by and with and
in the Spirit, to live and move and have our being in God." [1] Like the
Christian contemplative practices we've explored this year, Buddhist practices
such as meditation, silence, and living mindfully help us encounter the
deepest, truest reality--our oneness with God.
Knitter writes, "True, what
Christians are after is different than what Buddhists are after. For
Christians, it's identification with the Christ-Spirit. For Buddhists, it's
realizing their Buddha-nature. And yet, both of these very different
experiences have something in common: they are unitive, non-dualistic, mystical
experiences in which we find that our own identity is somehow joined with that
which is both more than, and at the same time one with, our identity. This is
what the Buddhist practices are so good at--achieving such unitive experiences
in which the self is so transformed that it finds itself through losing
itself." [2]
Knitter paraphrases Raimon Panikkar, a
Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and advocate of inter-faith dialogue, by
describing true non-duality: "the interrelating partners are not two. But
neither are they one! Can Christians say something similar about the
relationship between God and creation?" [3]
According to James Finley, who
references the Catholic writer, Romano Guardini, they certainly can!
"Guardini says that it's a principle of logic that A cannot be B at the
same time and in the same respect that it's A. . . . Likewise, God is the Creator
and we are the creature. And yet, Guardini adds, 'Although I am not God, I am
not other than God either.' He says the direct intuitive realization that
although I am not God, I am not other than God either, fans out in all
directions. Although I am not you, I am not other than you either. Although I
am not the earth, I am not other than the earth, either. As this soaks into me,
what are the implications of this in the way I act in the world, in
relationships with other people?"
Finley continues, "Thomas Merton
realized that people of different religions were not other than me, and how I
treat them I'm treating myself, and as Jesus says, I'm treating Jesus. That's
the social consciousness dimension of contemplation." [4]
References:
[1] Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I
Could Not Be a Christian (Oneworld Publications: 2009), 154-155.
[2] Ibid., 155.
[3] Ibid., 14.
[4] James Finley, Jesus and Buddha:
Paths to Awakening (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), disc 6 (CD,
DVD, MP3 download).
Being Peace
Paul Knitter has been an activist for
peace and justice since the 1980's. He has been inspired by the Engaged
Buddhism of the last fifty years. Engaged Buddhism, a term coined by Thich Nhat
Hanh, brings insights from Buddhist practice and teaching to social, political,
environmental, and economic injustice. In his book Without Buddha I Could Not
Be a Christian, Knitter applies the Buddhist approach to Christians who are
sincerely working for justice:
Buddhists are much more concerned about
waking up to our innate wisdom and compassion (our Buddha-nature) than they are
about working for justice. If Christians insist that "if you want peace,
work for justice," the Buddhists would counter-insist, "if you want
peace, be peace." That's the point Thich Nhat Hanh gently drives home in
the little book . . . Being Peace. His message is as simple and straightforward
as it is sharp and upsetting: the only way we are going to be able to create
peace in the world is if we first create (or better, find) peace in our hearts.
Being peace is an absolute prerequisite
for making peace. And by "being peace," . . . [Thich Nhat Hanh] means
deepening the practice of mindfulness, both formally in regular meditation as
well as throughout the day as we receive every person and every event that
enters our lives; through such mindfulness we will, more and more, be able to
understand . . . whomever we meet or whatever we feel, and so respond with
compassion. Only with the peace that comes with such mindfulness will we be
able to respond in a way that brings forth peace for the event or person or
feeling we are dealing with.
This Buddhist insistence on the
necessary link between being peace and making peace reflects Christian
spirituality's traditional insistence that all our action in the world must be
combined with contemplation. . . . But the Buddhists are very clear: while both
are essential, one holds a priority of practice. If action and contemplation
form a constantly moving circle in which one feeds into the other, the entrance
point for the circle is contemplation. [1]
I believe the entrance point can be
action or contemplation. Frankly, I believe most people act, love, sin, and
make mistakes before they see the deep need for contemplation. Yet only when we
are resting in our deep center, our source, the Indwelling "Spirit in whom
we live and move and have our being . . . . only then can we be of service to
others" over the long haul--and with love. [2]
Knitter continues:
Why? Just why do Buddhists insist on
the priority of Awakening over acting? Why do they want to "just sit
there" before they "do anything"? Certainly, there are different
ways a Buddhist might answer this question. But I believe that one of the
recurring responses would be: to remove one's ego from one's peacemaking, so
that one's actions will not be coming from one's ego-needs but from the wisdom
and compassion that constitute one's true nature. [3]
When we first founded the Center for
Action and Contemplation almost thirty years ago, we envisioned spending half
our time teaching contemplation and half teaching social justice. But for the
same reasons Knitter gave, as well as the fact that Western people are already
geared toward action, but need training in stillness and silence, we now spend
eighty percent of our effort teaching contemplation, knowing that if the inner
world is authentic, an individual's political, economic, and service attitudes
will always change organically from the inside out.
References:
[1] Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I
Could Not Be a Christian (Oneworld Publications: 2009), 183-184.
[2] Ibid., 184.
[3] Ibid., 184.
InterBeing
I often tell the story of the holy
recluse whom I came across while walking in the woods during my retreat at
Merton's hermitage in 1985. A recluse is a "hermit's hermit" who
lives alone, in silence, and only joins the community for Mass at Christmas and
Easter. Somehow he recognized me and excitedly said, "Richard! You get to
talk to people. Please tell them this one thing: God is not 'out
there'!"and he pointed to the sky. Then he said thank you and walked on.
Paul Knitter also sees the Western
over-emphasis on God as a Transcendent Other who is "out there"
somewhere as "the crux of the problem: Christian dualism has so
exaggerated the difference between God and the world that it cannot really show
how the two form a unity. . . . If there is in Christian tradition and
experience a God within, a God who lives, and moves, and has being within us
and the world, we need help in finding such a God. Buddhism, I believe, can
provide some help." [1]
Knitter writes, "As Christians
seek God, Buddhists seek Awakening . . . [to] the way things are, the way they
work." Although Buddhists emphasize that Enlightenment is beyond words,
they use the term Sunyata to touch on what the Awakening means. Knitter
explains: "The Mahayana tradition of Buddhism [describes Sunyata as]
Emptiness . . . in the sense of being able [and open] to receive anything. . .
. Zen Buddhists speak of Emptiness as the 'Buddha-nature' that inheres all
sentient beings. . . . Thich Nhat Hanh translates Sunyata . . . as InterBeing.
. . . Pema Chödrön [A Buddhist nun who teaches in the tradition of Tibetan
Buddhism], refers to Sunyata as Groundlessness . . . since everything is moving
in interdependence with everything else." [2] Sounds like the incarnate
mystery of Trinity to me!
Knitter continues, "If we
Christians really affirm that 'God is love' and that Trinity means
relationality, then I think the symbol Buddhists use for Sunyata [InterBeing]
is entirely fitting for our God. God is the field--the dynamic energy field of
InterBeing--within which, as we read in the New Testament (but perhaps never
really heard), 'we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28). Or, from the
divine perspective, there is 'one God above all things, through all things, and
in all things' (Eph. 4:6). This presence 'above, through, and in' can fittingly
and engagingly be imaged as an energy field which pervades and influences us
all, calling us to relationships of knowing and loving each other, energizing
us when such relationships get rough, filling us with the deepest of happiness
when we are emptying ourselves and finding ourselves in others." [3] This
is what I like to call the Spirit as a force field.
Knitter describes how we are
inextricably linked with God: "without the spirit, the body cannot live;
without the body the spirit cannot act. The same is true of Spirit and
creation. . . . Thinking about or imaging God as InterBeing and relating to God
as the connecting Spirit is a major antidote to the dualism that has infected
Christian theology and spirituality. . . . With God as the connecting Spirit,
the Creator cannot be 'totally other' to creation. . . . Here I think I'm
getting closer to what Aquinas was trying to express when he described the
relationship between God and the world as one of participation. . . .
Therefore, a better image for creation might be a pouring forth of God, an
extension of God, in which the Divine carries on the divine activity of
interrelating in and with and through creation." [4] Clearly, then, God is
not just "out there"!
References:
[1] Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I
Could Not Be a Christian (Oneworld Publications: 2009), 7-8.
[2] Ibid., 11-12.
[3] Ibid., 20.
[4] Ibid., 20-22.
Mindfulness
Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before
me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of
compassion.
--Thich Nhat Hanh [1]
Thich Nhat Hanh, the beloved
Buddhist monk, is often called simply Thay (a Vietnamese term for teacher).
Thay explores the meaning of the name Buddha and applies this rich word to
ordinary humans:
The appellation "Buddha"
comes from the root of the verb budh--which means to wake up, to understand, to
know what is happening in a very deep way. In knowing, understanding, and
waking up to reality, there is mindfulness, because mindfulness means seeing
and knowing what is happening. [2]
Paul Knitter recalls when he
"realized that Pema Chödrön's talk of Groundlessness and Karl Rahner's
emphasis on Mystery were two different fingers pointing to the same moon":
For both of them, to feel the Reality
of Mystery or Sunyata means to let go of self, to trust totally in what both of
them call infinite openness. Openness to what? To what is, to what's going on
right now, in the trust that what is going on is what I am a part of and what
will sustain and lead me, moment by moment. Only moment by moment. There are no
grand visions promised here. Just a mindful trusting of each moment as it
comes, with what it contains, with its confusion or inspiration, with its joy
or horror, with its hope or despair. Whatever is there, this suchness right
now, is the breath of the Spirit, the power of Mystery, the connectedness of
Emptiness. . . . The suchness of each moment is the infinite Mercy of God. [3]
Pema Chödrön teaches three graces of
mindfulness practice: precision, gentleness, and letting go. Once we can
honestly acknowledge whatever is going on in the moment with clarity and
acceptance, we can let our unmet expectations go. This allows us to live more
freely and vibrantly, fully awake to Presence. Knitter writes: "if we can
truly be mind-ful of what is going on in us or around us--that's how we can
find or feel 'the Spirit' in it. Then our response to the situation will be
originating from the Spirit rather than from our knee-jerk feelings of fear or
anger or envy. And whether the response is to endure bravely or to act creatively,
it will be done with understanding and compassion--which means it will be
life-giving or life-creating." [4]
I hope these meditations invite you to
go deeper--beyond words and ideas about mindfulness--to actual practice and
experience. When you stay with your practice, eventually you will realize, as
Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "that our life is the path, and we no longer rely
merely on the forms of practice." [5] I hope you are seeing that
Christianity and Buddhism are not in competition with one another. Christians
are usually talking about metaphysics ("what is") and Buddhists are
usually talking about epistemology ("how do we know what is").
References:
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the
Buddha's Teaching (Broadway Books: 1998), 102.
[2] Ibid., 187.
[3] Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I
Could Not Be a Christian (Oneworld Publications: 2009), 159-160.
[4] Ibid., 162.
[5] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the
Buddha's Teaching, 122.
The Three Dharma
Seals
Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes:
"The Three Dharma Seals [Touchpoints of the Teaching] are impermanence
(anitya), nonself (anatman), and nirvana. Any teaching that does not bear these
Three Seals cannot be said to be a teaching of the Buddha." [1]
Let's explore each of these briefly. Thay
describes impermanence as "what makes transformation possible. We should
learn to say, 'Long live impermanence.' Thanks to impermanence, we can change
suffering into joy." [2] James Finley would say that what makes us suffer
is clinging to or craving things that are passing away, or trying to avoid
things that are unavoidable (aversion). The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths
as a middle way between craving and aversion, between indulgence and
asceticism.
Flowing from impermanence, we see that
it is futile to cling to even our assumed identity or our perceptions of
reality. Paul Knitter writes, "For Buddhists, the most basic fact or
quality of the world is not being, as it is for most Western philosophers and
theologians: it's becoming. . . . Everything changes because everything is
interrelated." [3] The Second Dharma Seal, nonself, affirms the Buddhist
understanding that "nothing has a separate existence or a separate self.
Everything has to inter-be with everything else." [4]
Thay explains the importance of the
first two Dharma Seals: "The teachings of impermanence and nonself were
offered by the Buddha as keys to unlock the door of reality. We have to train
ourselves to look in a way that we know when we touch one thing, we touch
everything. We have to see that the one is in the all and the all is in the
one. We touch not only the phenomenal aspects of reality but the ground of
being. Things are impermanent and without self. They have to undergo birth and
death. But if we touch them very deeply, we touch the ground of being that is
free from birth and death, free from permanence and impermanence, self and
nonself." [5]
The Third Dharma Seal, nirvana, is this
freedom, the ground of being. Thay uses an illustration--as great teachers like
Jesus and the Buddha do so often--to describe this mystery:
A wave does not have to die in order to
become water. Water is the substance of the wave. The wave is already water. We
are also like that. We carry in us the ground of interbeing, nirvana, the world
of no-birth and no-death, no permanence and no impermanence, no self and no
nonself. Nirvana is the complete silencing of concepts. The notions of
impermanence and nonself were offered by the Buddha as instruments of practice,
not as doctrines to worship, fight, or die for. "My dear friends,"
the Buddha said. "The Dharma [teaching] I offer you is only a raft to help
you cross over to the other shore." The raft is not to be held onto as an
object of worship. It is an instrument for crossing over to the shore of well-being.
. . . If you know how to use the tools of impermanence and nonself to touch
reality, you touch nirvana in the here and the now. [6]
References:
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the
Buddha's Teaching (Broadway Books: 1998), 131.
[2] Ibid., 133.
[3] Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I
Could Not Be a Christian (Oneworld Publications: 2009), 10.
[4] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the
Buddha's Teaching, 133.
[5] Ibid., 136.
[6] Ibid., 136.
The Lord Jesus, the
Gentle Judge
Earlier this week, Pope Francis issued two letters which
initiated significant reforms to the marriage annulment process in the Catholic
Church. Brendan Callaghan SJ situates these motu proprio letters in their
pastoral context in order to think about their likely effects. What has – and
has not – been changed, and why?
In setting in motion a dramatic reform of the processes by
which a marriage is judged to be null, Pope Francis has not changed the
traditional teachings of the Catholic Church concerning marriage and its
indissolubility: what he has done is to take steps to make the annulment
procedure faster and free, and to enable those involved in the process to
respond more fully to the lived reality of today’s world. In doing this, he has
also restored the traditional understanding of the role of the local bishop as
pastor and judge in his diocese.
One way of thinking about nullity, which may appear fanciful
but can be helpful, is by comparison with launching satellites: while the
majority lift off from the launch pad and eventually settle into stable orbits,
some never achieve escape velocity. Putting the same insight in a more sober
manner, the qualities that need to be present for the Church to regard a
marriage as ‘real’ are more demanding than those of civil society. A couple can
be married in civil terms without ever achieving the depth and freedom of
commitment that makes a marriage true in the eyes of the church community, the
sort of commitment which is of itself indissoluble. A decree of nullity states
that, for one reason or another, this particular relationship never fulfilled
the necessary criteria to be understood by the Church as a true marriage.
What Pope Francis has done, in his two motu proprio letters
(one dealing with the Western/Latin Church, the other with the Eastern Churches
with their different structures and different church law), is to change
what is a cumbersome and expensive
process, in which annulment procedures often drag on for many years, into one
that can, under certain circumstances, deliver a judgement in a matter of a
couple of months.
A number of
key moves are involved:
a) until now, any judgement of nullity had
automatically to go to appeal: this is no longer the case, although the right
of appeal remains (except where the appeal is judged to be no more than a
delaying tactic);
b) cases can be heard by a single judge
rather than a trio of judges;
c) in cases where both parties think that
the marriage was null, and there is clear evidence supporting this, there can
be a short process, ideally presided over by the bishop himself with the help
of two assessors;
d) the process will no longer require the
parties to pay a fee or cover the costs of the procedures: the obtaining of a decree of annulment will be free.
The motu proprio letter dealing with the Western Church has
as its title ‘The Lord Jesus, the Gentle Judge’. In his introduction, Pope
Francis mentions that many bishops have been asking for more merciful ways of
responding to those whose first marriages have broken down and he states:
The drive to reform has been fuelled by the enormous number
of faithful who, while wishing to be at peace with their conscience, are too
often separated from the legal structures of the Churches due to physical or moral
distance; charity and mercy therefore require that the same Church, as a
mother, [to] be closer to her children who consider themselves separated.
The context for this reform, then, is the pastoral care of
God’s people. The new processes should put an end to the long periods of
uncertainty endured by many Catholics as their cases were dealt with, and
should encourage more people to take the path of annulment rather than simply
walk away from the Church. In the press conference at which these letters of
Pope Francis were presented, reference was made to the desire of many
Catholics, ‘to perfect a new bond which, unlike the first, is stable and
happy.’ The language is a long way from that of ‘living in adultery’: what is
involved here is a pathway to fuller integration and communion with the people
of God.
Two additional observations are to the point. First, as
already noted, the motu proprio explicitly restores to the bishop of the local
diocese the role of judge as well as pastor, making more clear the rights and
duties that belong to the local bishop in his own right.
Second, in the presentation of the letters, it was suggested
that the effective ignorance among many Catholics of how the Church regards
marriage could itself constitute grounds for nullity, in that it makes
impossible a truly free consent to a sacramental marriage. This does not open
up new reasons to support a decree of nullity, since absence of true consent
has always been recognised as ground for nullity; but the language of the letters
and their presentation seems to offer a freshly realistic assessment of the
settings in which some marriages come into being, and of the consequences in
terms of necessary commitment.
So what has Pope Francis done? He has put in place
structures and procedures that will help members of the Church achieve a more
merciful and compassionate judgement on their former marriage; reaffirmed the
role of the bishop in his diocese; and raised the major pastoral question of
the consequences of widespread effective ignorance of the Church’s
understanding of marriage. In doing so, he has undoubtedly offered
encouragement to many, but discomfited many also.
Brendan Callaghan SJ is Novice Master for the Jesuit
Provinces of North West Europe.
52% HAVE WALKED AWAY, NOW WHAT?
HOW ABOUT MAKE CHURCH MATTER
The original article by Fr Michael White posted on September 18th can be found here
Things are certainly abuzz around the Catholic Church in America these days. With less than a week until Pope Francis’ historic first visit to the United States, some heavy theological debates on the table, and a whirlwind year of intense political change and debate, it’s hard to stay focused on our parish ministry.
On the other hand, our basic parish mission of evangelization and discipleship have never been more critical. A recent Pew Research Center survey indicates that 45% of Americans either identify as Catholic or report being connected to Catholicism in some way. In the same survey, another finding indicates that among adults who say they were raised Catholic, just over half (52%) have left the church at some point in their life (although about 11% of those who left later returned at some point).
It’s painful and demoralizing for church leaders to face this kind of data. The best thing we can do is to decide not to hide, but to learn from this information. Here are a few simple principles I think can be gleaned from the Pew data.
Small Groups Matter
While the official Church cannot affirm the equal value of every family arrangement, we need to have a place where every individual will feel welcome and have room to grow spiritually, including the divorced and remarried. Parish based small group fellowship programs are a great place to engage adults with one another to provide needed support and on-going faith formation.
Children & Student Ministry Matter
Everyone wants the best for their children, and churches need to show they do too. Moreover, parents nowadays often follow their children, so creating an engaging children’s ministry will keep parents connected with your church. When you can successfully engage teens parents are even more impressed.
Missions Matter
In the survey many people indicate work with the poor is essential to their expression of faith. Although we want to avoid faith that’s just masked social activism, various service opportunities can be a really approachable entry point for unchurched people.
Ministries Matter
In our action-oriented society, a broad array of well-done ministries can be excellent opportunities for incorporating the personalities and gifts of those who would otherwise avoid church interaction.
From the data, you might be tempted to think these things don’t matter. To some people they might not, but most people feel strongly about what they do believe. Even holding strong to orthodox Catholic beliefs, as we do at Nativity, we find what really keeps many people away isn’t doctrine, but when we do church as if it doesn’t matter.
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