Public confidence in the Catholic Church has eroded considerably. There are several reasons for this, but one for which it has failed to take much responsibility is its failure in regard to Indigenous affairs. Not just the part it played in the Stolen Generations, but also its role in the destruction of Aboriginal cultural integrity and language.
Present members of missionary orders, when writing up the story of their predecessors, tend to present these pioneer missionaries as enlightened men and women suffering hardship to spread the gospel. It is true, these men and women travelled into the unknown, poorly prepared, terribly equipped and unsuitably clothed — think of the nuns in their wimples and habits toiling under the sun — to share the story of the healer from Nazareth.
And today there is a vibrant body of Australian Aboriginal Catholics who delight in the gift of the faith passed on. The destructive effect of the approaches taken by some missionaries does not negate the good work of many others. But it is part of the story and should be told.
For two years in the early 1980s my family lived at Ernabella in the far north-west of South Australia. Ernabella was established by the Presbyterian Church in the late 1930s in an effort to prevent the destruction of Pitjantjatjara people in the region encompassing the lands abutting the Western Australian, South Australian and Northern Territory borders. It was a wonderful experience and I am still in touch with anangu from Ernabella
Dr Charles Duguid, who inspired the mission, told his missionaries to respect the local language and culture. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography he said there should be 'no compulsion nor imposition of our way of life on the Aborigines, nor deliberate interference with tribal custom' and that the vernacular language should be used, medical care offered, and responsibility passed to the local people as soon as possible.
He hoped the local people would see the gentle caring lives of the missionaries, recognise that their lives were based on the teachings of Jesus, and come to want to live like that.
Ron Trudinger, a young teacher and linguist from Adelaide, having been able to learn the language and develop Pitjantjatjara orthography quite quickly, began to teach the children in Pitjantjatjara. Photos and films of these early days show groups of laughing, naked anangu children attending school and singing and writing in their own language. Over many years Duigud's message worked — anangu became Christians.
Meanwhile the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSCs) were conducting a mission in Alice Springs. The first missionary was Father Paddy Maloney MSC, assisted by a lay missionary named Frank McGarry. As a community worker he worked side by side with the Arrernte men as they strove to build a mission that came to be known as the Little Flower Mission in Charles Creek, a kilometre from the centre of Alice.
McGarry's message to the Arrernte men was different from Duigud's. His story is recorded in the book Francis of Central Australia, by Frank O'Grady. O'Grady quotes McGarry ordering the children that they 'were not to speak Arunta [sic] in church or in school otherwise they would be sent home without tucker'. McGarry also sought to 'work quietly towards the elimination' of adherence to Arrernte cultural practices.
Soon the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) sisters arrived. Their impact was powerful. They forbade the girls to speak Arrernte within the school or dormitory. I have heard many older Arrernte Catholic women attest to their pain at having their language drummed out of them in the name of the Church.
The mission was moved to the abandoned gold mining centre at Arltunga 100km to the east of Alice during World War Two, then again to Santa Teresa (80km south-east of Alice Springs) in the early 1950s. It is today known as Ltyentye Apurte. It is a vibrant Catholic Community where until very recently the Marist brothers ran the Catholic School. The MSCs and OLSH sisters, suffering from a decline in numbers, have left the community.
I worked with the Arrernte people of Charles Creek, where the first Little Flower Mission stood, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Many of the Arrernte children I taught at the Catholic high school in Alice Springs could not speak Arrernte and their understanding of Arrernte culture was deeply fractured. And of course they were in serious trouble with the 'whitefella' law. Although nominally Catholic, they had very little connection to the Church.
Many missionaries tried to do better. Fr Tom Dixon MSC is famous for his intervention in the Rupert Max Stuart murder case, where his knowledge of English and Arrernte was crucial in confirming that the 'confession' signed by Stuart could not have been relied upon because it was written in a form of English that Stuart did not use. Fr David Reilly MSC used Arrernte as widely as he could in his relatively short ministry at Santa Teresa.
In the 1990s Fr Pat Mullins SJ in Alice Springs sought to recite the Eucharistic Prayer at Masses with the Catholic Arrernte community in Arrernte, and all the hymns were in Arrernte. Today these skills and attitudes are again lost and the Mass for Arrernte is distinctly English.
Today the clergy in Santa Teresa and Alice Springs are Divine Word Missionary priests recruited from a variety of overseas countries. These good-hearted men, coming from very different cultural heritages and having little understanding of the impact of settler colonialism on the Arrernte, have little appreciation of the struggle Arrernte have faced and make little effort to incorporate Arrernte language and cultural practices into liturgy.
Whereas the Presbyterians valued and assisted the maintenance of Pitjantjatjara and did not seek to undermine anangu's practice of the tjukurpa, the Catholics in Central Australia often achieved quite the opposite.
Today I received a Facebook message from a friend in Ernabella written in Pitjantjatjara and speaking both of her sadness at being in 'sorry camp' and of being consoled by her faith in her Christian God. Alice Springs Catholic Arrernte want the same experience but find themselves blocked to achieve it.
In Alice Springs the Ngkarte Mikwekenhe Community (NMC) (Mother of God community), largely the product of a symbiotic relationship between several local Arrernte women and Catholic religious, still does not have a viable centre. And in 2012, Irrkerlantye Learning Centre, a Catholic Arrernte education centre, was closed.
It is time for the Catholic Diocese of the Northern Territory to truly take on the 'mission' to the Arrernte, which might entail an apology, a rewriting of the history, a renewed effort to get the message right including placing Arrernte language at the core of practice, and significant financial inputs into the building of new worship and education centres, with a view to handing responsibility for them to the local Catholic Arrernte elders.
When you have a lot to answer for you are left with a lot to do.
Mike Bowden has a Master of Aboriginal Education at Northern Territory University. He was founding coordinator of the Ntyarlke Unit at the Catholic high school in Alice Springs in 1988. From 1993 to 2001 he was manager of community development at Tangentyere Council. In 2005 and 2006 he was acting principal at Ngukurr School and Minyerri School in the Roper River district of the Top End.