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The Word of God in Oceania
Bishop Michael Putney, Bishop of Townsville
During the Opening Mass of World Youth Day in Sydney, for the procession of the Book of the Gospels a ceremony called “The Coming of the Light” was performed by young students from the Torres Strait Islands in the north-east of Australia. This ceremony depicts the arrival of a European missionary carrying the Bible. His offer of the Word of God is initially resisted by the local population. Then they change and embrace the Word of God which transforms their lives. After some initial contact in previous centuries, the Word of God was carried to Oceania by missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, during the nineteenth century.
The cultures of Oceania, other than the Western culture of Australia and New Zealand, range from literate to predominantly oral cultures. In the former, the scriptures are treasured and read in the homes, often more than they would be in Australia or New Zealand. In the latter, even today the message of the Word of God is best shared by story-telling, ritual, song and drama rather than simply by a reading of the text.
In many places, the procession of the Word of God in the liturgy is a very vibrant cultural expression of faith in God’s Word. This was evident again at the welcome to the Holy Father at World Youth Day and at the final mass, during each of which the Word of God was carried in procession by pilgrims from Tokelau and Fiji respectively. This reverent acknowledgement of the Word has much to teach Australians and New Zealanders who can sometimes take the privilege of the reading of the Word of God for granted.The incredibly dedicated and at times heroic work of missionaries who shared the Word of God through the preaching of the Gospel, the Sacraments, and the teaching of the Church’s Tradition to so many people throughout the Pacific has borne enormous fruit. This fruit was not without its ambiguities because as was pointed out in Ecclesia in Oceania, the missionaries also at times introduced elements which were culturally alien to the people (3). It is also true that sometimes elements of the welcoming culture inconsistent with the Word of God continue to influence the lives of people. Faced with these challenges, there is always a need for competent staff to teach in seminaries and higher institutes of learning in the many countries of Oceania.
The new churches of the Pacific now face the challenges of cultural transition as they move in some places from village communities to urban life, and to participation in a global economy. Because of this transition there can be stress on family life and a breakdown of the social fabric. As well, at times they can struggle to deal with the Western political process which most of them have inherited from their European colonizers, and increasing environmental threats because of climate change.
Moreover, in the many countries of Oceania there are an incredible number of languages in which the Word of God would ideally be communicated. For example, in Papua New Guinea alone there are eight hundred and forty-seven distinct languages. Overall there are as many as twelve hundred quite different languages in Oceania.
In Australia and New Zealand the Word of God arrived with the first Europeans who settled in these islands. The Church grew and flourished. But now the Word often struggles to be heard in an indifferent culture. Australia is one of the most secular countries in the world. New Zealand has many more Pacific Islander people who tend to be much more religious, but the predominant European culture is as secular as it is in Australia.
However, for one glorious week during World Youth Day, the streets of secular Sydney were full of vibrant signs of the presence of God, and the resisting culture crumbled before the power of the Holy Spirit present in the faces and voices of 200,000 young people.
Many Catholics in Australia and New Zealand live lives deeply shaped by their faith in the Word of God, but this is not always apparent and has become almost a secret in our dominant secular culture. This is not because the people are not truly faithful, but because the existence of God is not acknowledged in any way in the daily life of ordinary Australians and many New Zealanders. The majority live for much of the time as if there is no God, even if they are believers.
After World Youth Day, some Australians and New Zealanders have a sense that the promise of a new evangelization may finally be underway despite the apparent impermeability of the secular culture. In his own description of the context in which the Word of God must be preached in Australia, and to a great extent in New Zealand, the Holy Father spoke at World Youth Day of the “sinister” phenomenon of freedom and tolerance so often being separated from truth, and of a relativism which has made all-important “experience” detached from any consideration of what is good or true. He accurately described the secular culture in Australia and New Zealand when he spoke of a “spiritual desert” and went on to say: “How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns (cf. Jer 2:13) in a desperate search for meaning – the ultimate meaning that only love can give? This is the great and liberating gift which the Gospel brings.”
The challenge confronting Australia and much of Oceania is to find new ways to enable this gift of the Gospel to be heard. When one looks back to the recommendations of Ecclesia in Oceania, such as the practice of lectio divina and biblical formation of the people, it is obvious that they remain only partially fulfilled.
The post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation also foresaw the Word of God as an “inexhaustible wellspring of evangelization” (10). With ever-increasing intensity, the Church in Australia and New Zealand and the other countries of Oceania are turning their attention to the need to engage in a new evangelization of our part of the world, especially in the secular culture of Australia and New Zealand. However, at the present time no one method or even a shared understanding of what is required in practical terms, has emerged.On their return from World Youth Day, many young Australian pilgrims asked that they have opportunities in their own dioceses to listen to catechesis and to engage in a question and answer session with their bishops, so aware were they of their ignorance and so eager were they to hear the message of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church, after their experience of World Youth Day. This provides a new opportunity for bishops and priests to assist young people to achieve a greater understanding of the Word of God as it is found in the Apostolic Tradition and the teaching of the Church. The Church in Oceania is proclaiming the Word of God in a culture in which others are also attempting to do so. Some Protestant groups have an approach to evangelization which ignores the cultural context and relies at times on a fundamentalist understanding of the Word of God. Because of this, Catholic evangelization can be rejected because it is not distinguished from this alternative version.
At the same time, ecumenical relations with the major Christian Churches and relationships with the Jewish community and the Islamic community and those of other World Religions is a very positive experience for the Church in most parts of Oceania. We seek to stand together in our secular culture to affirm the fundamental value of belief in God and the right of religious people to make their contribution to our secular culture.
While these are some of the challenges confronting the Church in Oceania, there are many signs of new life and the witness of tens of thousands of committed Catholics who have remained faithful despite the impact of secularism. World Youth Day has given us great hope. It remains for us now to harvest its fruits.
[00016-02.08] [NNNNN] [Original text: English] |
