Reality. Gift. Challenge.

 

 

The 2008 national assembly for Catholic Religious Australia will be held in Melbourne from June 30 - July 3 under the theme Our Multi-Cultural Church:  Reality, gift and challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

Given the Government's policy of resettling migrants and refugees in regional areas even our rural dioceses are becoming increasingly multicultural.
Only four of the 28 dioceses in Australia - Toowoomba, Wilcannia-Forbes, Bathurst and Armidale - have less than 10 per cent of their congregations born overseas.

 

We are all touched by this new reality either in our parishes, schools, hospitals or chaplaincies.

 

According to the Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia there are about 200 migrant chaplains serving in Australia. Almost two thirds are religious.

 

And that is just the official chaplains. I am confident that there are many sisters involved in caring for migrants who are not listed officially. Many religious also are involved in caring for refugees.

 

Each of us experiences multiculturalism in different ways; some in their ministry and some in the life of their congregation..

 

I do not have the figures but there are an increasing number of religious and religious superiors born overseas. The CRA assembly in 2018 will be much more multicultural than it is now.

 

Some congregations are sponsoring young members from overseas for formation here in Australia. Many of the new vocations in Australia come from ethnic groups and they often come with expectations of religious life quite different from those of their formators and of older religious.

 

The more I think about this issue the more I realise how multifaceted and complex it is and how little research has been done into multiculturalism and the Australian Church. Presumably that means that we are largely trying to cope with these realties on our own.

 

Although we can all see the changes happening around us, very few have reflected systematically on or planned for the future of the multicultural Australian Church.

 

 

 

The hope of those planning the assembly is that we will be able to learn about the reality of multiculturalism in the Australian Church by hearing from an expert  and by sharing our own considerable experience of the multiculturalism in our ministries and our community life.

 

We also hope that we will be able to share our successes and concerns and present models of how we have benefited from multiculturalism.

 

We are confident that most leaders have many positive experiences to share. They will also be able to articulate needs and challenges on which we need to cooperate.

 

Hopefully we can build networks around areas such as formation and English language learning.

 

Perhaps there is even a challenge to CRA in how it supports and listens to the smaller ethnically based congregations.

 

 

 

The planning committee is still working on a detailed plan but we are hoping to include such elements as:

We also hope to have workshops on multiculturalism in parishes, schools, health, welfare, migrant chaplaincies, refugee ministry, formation and community life.

 

We need religious to lead these workshops so if you know of people who are particularly experienced or can model some successes in any of these areas please let me know. (director@columban.org.au)

 

With the exception of our guest speaker, all the contributors will be members of CRA or religious.

 

The emphasis will be on sharing our experiences, networking and planning to enable CRA and our various congregations to play our parts in the growth of an integrated and wholesome multicultural Australian Church.

 

 

registrations forms wil be available soon