Smashing the Sacred

On the 15 April 2019, just before 6.20pm the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral caught fire. By the time it was extinguished, most of the roof was destroyed along with the upper walls and beautiful windows. The world stopped in horror, tearful locals and tourists crowded the streets and the media speculated how their beloved icon had become an inferno. It didn’t take long for French billionaires to offer hundreds of millions to help heal rebuild what President Emmanuel Macron called “a part of us”. The emotional and spiritual connection to this 857 year old sacred site in Paris was palpable. Eighteen months on, after debating whether to restore or modernise, Christophe Girard the mayor for culture in Paris said, “Notre Dame is like a very strong lady – beautiful lady – belonging to the world. She’s asking us, the world and our country, ‘what can you do for me and how fast can you repair me?’”

Earlier this year, at a remote heritage site on the other side of the planet, a mining company accidentally blew up a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal cave, dating back to the last Ice Age. The Juukan Gorge rock shelters in the Pilbara region of Western Australia were destroyed on Sunday 24 May 2020. Chris Salisbury, the Chief Executive of the iron ore firm said, “we are sorry for the distress caused… we pay our respects to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura People’ the traditional owners of the land. Unfortunately, the financial assistance of billionaires will never be enough to restore this sacred site, but the chief executive responsible for the disaster will be stripped of his $4.9 million bonuses this year. An enquiry found $135 million worth of precious high grade iron ore was extracted at Juukan Gorge, but Native Title Council’s deputy chairman Kado Muir explains that nobody really profits and “we are all left a little impoverished as a result of having lost this major, significant site”.

The contrast in media coverage, level of frustration and outrage between #notredameburning and the blasting of Juukan Gorge is vast. Should the popularisation of a sacred site like Notre Dame afford it more significance than a little known heritage site in the Western Australian desert? Meanwhile, multinational corporations continue to inflict devastation on the environment and no amount of money can rebuild these national treasures. It’s a shame that until conflict arises over land ownership, the significance of these cultural sites goes unnoticed by the majority of Australians.

"an education of the heart is also required; an ecological conversion with a metanoic transformation of both heart and mind"

Australian Catholics pay respect to the original custodians of these lands, but we also need to consider how much respect we show to the lands themselves. As stewards of the earth, Catholics must also fight to protect all of creation and as Pope Francis suggests, we need “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (Laudato si’ 14). This also includes preventative measures aimed at helping to reduce the wild fires that swept through our country at the start of 2020. According to Oliver Costello, from Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation, cultural burning and “land management techniques have been used for tens of thousands of years in this country" and it has “environmental outcomes, it's got conservation outcomes, it's got community values, it's fantastic".

Beyond a simple transfer of knowledge, an education of the heart is also required; an ecological conversion with a metanoic transformation of both heart and mind (Laudato si’ 217). Regarding the Australian Plenary Council 2020, Fr Frank Brennan said the Church “must be shaped by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and spirituality for it to be authentically a Church of this land. When the Church sinks its roots deep into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, it will authentically be a Church in the land with a new vision and energy for mission.” We need to be proactive in discovering our common ground and appreciate, respect and celebrate “the ray of that truth which enlightens all” people (Nostra Aetate 2). Our Judeo-Christian roots are deeply enriched by agricultural symbolism and we see this in the Gospel’s repeated use of pastoral imagery. As modern people grow further detached from the land, they miss the lessons it teaches about life: patience (in the growing), trust (in the weather) and joy (in the harvest). English poet, Alfred Austin, elevated the “glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul”.

Saint John Paul II put forth the challenge in 1986: “the Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you [Indigenous People] have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by other”. National Sorry Day, or the National Day of Healing, is an annual event that has been held in Australia since 1998, to remember and commemorate the mistreatment of the country's Indigenous peoples, as part of an ongoing process of reconciliation between the Indigenous peoples and the settler population. Just over a decade later in 2008, Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd issued a national apology to the Indigenous people of Australia. An apology that no other Prime Minister before him was prepared to make. Ten years on, at the 2019 Amazon Synod, Pope Francis apologised for the removal of the Pachamama statues from the Traspontina church, “which were there without idolatrous intentions and thrown into the Tiber”. The statue used in several of the Amazon Synod’s events stirred major controversy due to its speculated similarity to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), the Andean peoples’ goddess of fertility. The Catholic Church has a long tradition of incorporating and adapting different forms of belief and practice from around the world, acknowledging that no culture or tradition has unique access to the true and the good. According to Indigenous educator Dr R. Marika, “Ganma is the name of a lagoon where salt and fresh water meet. Water is a symbol of knowledge in Yolŋu philosophy, and the metaphor of the meeting of two bodies of water is a way of talking about the knowledge systems of two cultures working together” (1998). Perhaps the next decade will see us step into Ganama, moving beyond apologies and towards proactive and reciprocal exchange and respect.

Ngunnawal Elder, Aunty Agnes Shea, concluded her 2010 NAIDOC speech with a reminder, “whatever you do, tread lightly across my Country as we have done for thousands of years”. Will we ever be able to call this land of ours a common home and share in a collective responsibility and care for the earth? Pope Francis reminds us that for Indigenous people “land is not a commodity but a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values” (Laudato si’ 146). It is our collective responsibility to protect the sacred from being smashed and invest in the rebuilding of the Church in Australia, a community of faithful that has been damaged by scandal, misplaced trust and an erosion of faith and practice. Perhaps something new will emerge from a hybrid of both the traditional (ancient seeds of wisdom activated during fire) and modernist (unexpected regrowth and resilience). An approach with room for a renewed Australian spirituality and culture to regrow, like green shoots emerging from the blackened earth.

How do you contribute to an authentic expression of Church that respects the sacredness of place and people?