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Author: Brian Mccoy

  • AUSTRALIA

    Living with the death of the referendum

    • Brian McCoy
    • 14 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Months after the referendum, can we allow this referendum to die while preserving the essence of its vision and optimism? This is akin to our response to the loss of a loved one — we hold onto their memory, reluctant to let go. How do we keep the deeply treasured aspirations of the referendum journey alive while facing the reality of its death?

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2023: The first Australian Aboriginal Liturgy

    • Brian McCoy
    • 11 January 2024

    Fifty years ago, the Aboriginal Liturgy was the first attempt by the Catholic Church in Australia to re-shape the Mass, and was the first time we had witnessed and experienced Aboriginal people expressing their Catholic faith in ways that were culturally different from our own.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Our country is hurting

    • Brian McCoy
    • 04 October 2023
    6 Comments

    The looming referendum challenges us to confront our shared history and consider a united path forward. Amidst the deep-rooted pain and the quest for truth, reconciliation and healing, can this vote be the turning point that signals a brighter, more inclusive future for all?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Listen – just listen!

    • Brian McCoy
    • 30 August 2023
    16 Comments

    The Kimberley region stands as a testament to both the enduring spirit of Australia's Aboriginal communities and the shadows of colonisation. As the Referendum looms, the potential for a united Voice beckons, inviting Australia towards a harmonious future.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A voice for the voiceless

    • Brian McCoy
    • 19 April 2023
    13 Comments

    Terence Darrell Kelly is not an isolated example of the intergenerational trauma that colonisation has brought to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As Australia grapples with the ongoing effects of colonisation, including the dispossession of land and culture, the need to listen to voices of Indigenous communities becomes increasingly urgent.

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  • RELIGION

    The first Australian Aboriginal Liturgy

    • Brian McCoy
    • 20 February 2023
    14 Comments

    Fifty years ago, the Aboriginal Liturgy was the first attempt by the Catholic Church in Australia to re-shape the Mass, and was the first time we had witnessed and experienced Aboriginal people expressing their Catholic faith in ways that were culturally different from our own.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The ones who came with chains

    • Brian McCoy
    • 14 December 2021

    I don’t write to State Premiers very often. However, a month ago I did. It was to the Western Australian Premier, Mark McGowan. It was not about Test cricket, the Juukan Gorge or opening the state’s borders. It was in relation to a photo on the front page of The Australian on the weekend of the 6/7 November showing an Aboriginal man in Western Australia boarding a plane under arrest. He was barefooted and with both a wrist and ankle chain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    COVID and remote First Nations communities: Why are vaccination levels so varied?

    • Brian McCoy
    • 22 November 2021
    5 Comments

    We are now watching the entry of the Delta variant into the Northern Territory and with increasing concern about its possible spread across First Nations communities who vary greatly with their vaccination rates. This question was posed last Friday (19/11) on the ABC’s Coronacast: ‘Why is Indigenous vaccination so patchy?’

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    ‘You just don’t get it’: listening and responding to First Nations peoples

    • Brian McCoy
    • 07 July 2021
    3 Comments

    But it is possible the members of the Plenary could begin to hear a deeper voice speaking in their hearts. There may arise a new courage to start a process of truth and reconciliation, reporting the process of this journey to the second Plenary Council planned for Sydney, July 2022. We can only begin that journey if members of the Plenary Council come and are open to listening to that deep inner voice.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The uncomfortable legacy: colonisation and the church

    • Brian McCoy
    • 07 July 2021
    17 Comments

    Reading the paper, Instrumentum Laboris, written in preparation for the coming Plenary Council, I found myself quite disappointed by the lack of depth, awareness and any sense of the need for an apology. Much less an openness to any serious conversion that is needed within the Church.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Countering Graham Richardson's Balgo claims

    • Brian McCoy
    • 28 August 2017
    20 Comments

    Richardson said that during a visit to Balgo, 'The real shock was that the women could not leave the children at home with the men because sexual assault was so common.' Community members find it very difficult to discuss publicly issues of shame involving others with whom they closely live. It takes time to build up trust.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Our unfinished business with the First Nations

    • Brian McCoy
    • 26 January 2016
    4 Comments

    Every time I cross Sydney Harbour by train heading to the North Shore I look for the Aboriginal flag that flies from the top of the Jesuits' St Aloysius' College at Milsons Point. It was first raised on 25 January 1988, on the eve of the Australian Bicentenary, to mark the final day, 200 years previously, that Aboriginal people had complete freedom to their lands and customs before the arrival of the First Fleet.

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