THIS year’s statement For Those Who’ve Come Across The Sea was launched by Bishop Vincent Long of Melbourne.
The Bishop is himself a refugee who was settled here after the Vietnam War. Now the Chairman of the Council, his motto reflects his background – Put out in the Deep.
He came to Australia in 1980 with nothing, like so many of the other 250,000 refugees, including doctors, lawyers and ordinary citizens, who now call Australia home.
The Council’s report welcomes the 12,000 Syrian refugees accepted by the Government but stresses that the problem is huge.
As you would expect in a statement directed to Australian Catholics, the bishops appeals to the Christian values embodied in the stories of Jesus and in the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. The statement embodies these principles in the experience of people who seek protection, beginning with the persecution they experience in their own nations, their fight to seek safety and the effects prolonged detention.
This exploration of experience invites its readers not to imagine people who seek asylum as a problem to be dealt with, but to see them as people like ourselves in need. Through this lens they criticise severely the way in which governments of both major parties have treated asylum seekers, sketches the outlines of a humane policy based on assessing their claims in Australia, and offers ways in which Catholics can express their compassion and can demand a better way.
THE public launch of the Australian Bishops’ Conference Social Justice Statement will take place on Tuesday September 15 from 1pm to 2pm – on the waters edge at 131 Harbourside Esplanade, Docklands (Opposite Etihad Stadium) by Bishop Vincent Long. All welcome.