OCEANIA/AUSTRALIA - Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne: “our mission is to minister to Australians who never come to church

Saturday, 15 December 2018 evangelization   mission   faith   local churches  


Melbourne (Agenzia Fides) - “One of the main and most urgent challenges we face in Australia, and it is an urgent mission, is to reach those who claim to be Catholic but do not come to Church ”. Fides was talking with Mark Edwards Auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, who explained that “according to the latest national census, 22% say they are Catholics”. “However nine times out of ten, we have no idea how to reach these people, and many of them are young. We are a nation of immigrants, in our Church here in Australia there are people of many different nationalities. But the question we ask ourselves daily: is how to reach the native Australians?”, the Bishops said.
The children and young people who attend parish activities are mainly children of immigrants: “Almost all of Filipino, Indonesian or Vietnamese origin. In Australia we have an important heritage: a widespread network of Catholic schools. About 20% of the children in this country attend our Catholic schools and therefore we have the opportunity make known to them Christianity, the Pope and the Church by means of our schools; but leading them to be active members of the Catholic community is quite a different story”.
In Australia the people of diverse national and ethnic origin generally consider themselves Christians for 58%, 30% affirm to be atheists and there are small minorities of Muslims, Jews, Hindu, Sikhs and Buddhists. With them we carry on interreligious dialogue”. However the most urgent challenge, the bishop says, is to reach, contact and involve in pastoral activities those who call themselves ‘Christians’ but are in actual fact Christians only nominally; how to lead them to renew their encounter with Christ so that faith may have a significant place in personal life.
In Australia, the Catholic Church has 33 dioceses spread out in 5 provinces Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. (LF) (Agenzia Fides 15/12/2018)


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