‘Welcome to Country’ could soon open Catholic Masses in Australia

Thursday, June 2nd, 2022

Australian Catholics could soon acknowledge the land’s traditional owners on which their churches, schools and parishes stand with a ‘Welcome to Country’ before Mass and meetings.

The recommendation to open meetings with ‘Welcome to Country’ is contained in proposals to the Church’s Plenary Council. The proposal will be voted on at an assembly of bishops and others later this year.

The draft document, which will be controversial among many Mass-goers, aligns with parts of the Greens/Teals agenda.

The document, given to The Australian, will be circulated within the church hierarchy on Monday.

It was written by theologian Dr Elissa Roper, a specialist in Synodality, and others, as part of a two-year consultation process involving two Plenary Council assemblies and widespread consultation across the church.

The process drew 17,457 submissions from individuals and groups representing more than 222,000 people.

As part of the process, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC) made a submission “in the hope that the Catholic Church in Australia will more resemble the Church that Jesus Christ wants her to be in relation to Australia’s First Peoples”.

NATSICC recommended that “the traditional custodians of the land on which the church, school, parish or organisation stands be acknowledged in a prominent and appropriate manner. Verbal acknowledgment prior to meetings and Mass is also encouraged’’.

The overall proposal urges the Plenary Council to joyfully accept NATSICC’s recommendations.

The Plenary Council it says should say “sorry to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in and beyond the Church for the part played by the church in the harms they have suffered’’ and commit “to continuing to work towards recognition and reconciliation’’.

It said that, in Australia, the Catholic Church had been caught up in Indigenous People’s history of dispossession, Stolen Generations and the undermining of language, culture and racism.

However, Australian Catholic University’s Dr Kevin Donnelly says he can see “no real reason” for a recommendation for the Catholic Mass to begin with a ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremony.

“I’d say it’s time for people of good faith to focus on the issues that really matter, not to virtue signal (sic), not to have that sort of moral superiority,” Dr Donnelly told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“That they actually focus on the real issue here, as Jacinta Price argues … as to what we can do in a practical, realistic way.”