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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lPope says sorry to Aborigines23 November 2001- Pope John Paul II apologised to Australia's Aborigines and other indigenous peoples of Oceania for past "shameful injustices" of the Roman Catholic Church, in a message posted on the Internet yesterday. The pontiff wrote that the church "apologised unreservedly" for the part played by its members "especially where children were forcibly separated from their families". The apology came in a report by the special Synod on Oceania held in the Vatican in 1998, and follows a papal apology to China last month for the historic wrongs committed by its representatives in that country. "Aware of the shameful injustices done to indigenous peoples in Oceania, the synod fathers apologised unreservedly for the part played in these by members of the church, especially where children were forcibly separated from their families," said the document signed by the Pope. Wrongs done to the indigenous peoples needed to be honestly acknowledged, whether the truth had been suppressed by governments, their agencies or Christian communities, the document said. The document underlined that the identity and culture of Aboriginal people "are gravely threatened", and said the church would "support the cause of all indigenous peoples who seek a just and equitable recognition of theiridentity and their rights". It said it would support their aspirations for "a just solution to the complex question of the alienation of their lands". The Pope's message, his first sent to the world directly over the Internet, also apologised to victims of sexual abuse by priests and other clergy. "Sexual abuse by some clergy and religious has caused great suffering and spiritual harm to the victims," the Pope said in a small part of the 120-page document. "It (sexual abuse) has been very damaging in the life of the church and has become an obstacle to the proclamation of the Gospel." The apologies are the latest in a series of instances the Pope has asked forgiveness from those who had been hurt by members of the church.
In what appeared to be a reference to the sexual abuse of nuns in parts of the developing world, the Pope said: "The synod fathers wished to apologise unreservedly to the victims for the pain and disillusionment caused to them." He said the church in Oceania was seeking what he called "open and just" procedures to respond to complaints. The church, he said, also was "unequivocally committed to compassionate and effective care for the victims, their families, the whole community and the offenders themselves". Last March, the National Catholic Reporter, a major US-based Catholic weekly, ran a series of articles on internal reports in the Vatican about the sexual abuse of nuns and other women by priests and bishops around the world. The Vatican acknowledged that the problem existed. The internal reports said some priests and missionaries had forced nuns to have sex with them, and had in some cases committed rape and forced the victims to have abortions. The author of one of the internal reports was nun and physician Maura O'Donohue, who presented it to the head of a Vatican department in February 1995. The Vatican ordered a working group to study the problem with Sister O'Donohue. She made In the NCR story, a former Canadian nun said the church did nothing after she was raped by her supervisor, an Irish priest, during a retreat in Durban, South Africa, in April 1985. The woman, who had been a nun for 24 years at the time, said her superiors imposed a gag order on her after the rape.
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