Archbishop of Sydney

Australia Day

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
27/1/2008

“I love a sunburnt country,
 A land of sweeping plains,
 Of ragged mountain ranges,
 Of droughts and flooding rains,”

Dorothea Mackellar was right about “drought and flooding rains”, both hardy perennials in the Australian story.

Droughts are by definition stayers, like the Federation drought and the present one.  Floods in Australia come and go quickly, as the shortage of rain means we have no network of might rivers.

New South Wales has known both drought and floods recently, provoking much suffering but also bringing out the best as community members rally around to help.

Australia Day is an opportunity to be grateful while evaluating what is happening for good or ill in Australia.

I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt to the past, unless the contrary is clearly proved.  This should not be a white wash, but the past cannot be changed and we can rarely fully understand the motives and circumstances of distant times.  Neither are we responsible for past generations of Australians in the way we are responsible for our own actions, although we belong to our ancestors and they to us.  But the present is a different story.

It is always appropriate and generally useful for adults to know what is happening.  Are we slipping or improving, and in what areas?  Are personal standards slipping?

The English dramatist Alan Bennett specializes in rough truths.  “Standards are always out of date “he wrote in 1969.  “That is what makes them standards”.

Are the standards which became general after 1968, the permissive revolution which followed the invention of the contraceptive pill, already out of date?

Has sex without babies for the rebels of the sixties and seventies now become sex without love or commitment for many in their twenties and thirties?

Can sexual activity be reduced to a casual recreational right without poisoning the wells which feed stable, life long marriages?  Has the decline in self discipline, the encouragement of self love brought more suffering and personal unhappiness?

Drugs are still causing havoc; anyone doubting this should visit an overnight shelter for the homeless.  Sexually transmitted disease is not declining, despite the public silence.

The initiatives against smoking, drink driving and racial abuse have made headway, but New South Wales is still one of the world’s gambling hot spots and the spread of internet pornography is producing addiction and wrecking marriages.

The number of the super-rich is increasing and the gap widening between them and the most disadvantaged.  A widening gap is not in anyone’s interests.

Aboriginal welfare remains as a mighty challenge and it is crucial that Noel Pearson’s general approach fostering indigenous leadership, self help and self discipline for communities is not lost with the change of Commonwealth government.

Australia is a good country but in many areas the social capital is being run down.  Governments can help, but only good individuals and communities can bring good change.