05/07/2026
This year, in October, marks the 40th anniversary of the papal visit to Australia of St John Paul II. Arguably the most remarkable part of that visit was when the Holy Father travelled to Alice Springs. St John Paul II became the first Pope to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples on their own Country – speaking words of respect, solidarity, and deep spiritual recognition. He began by saying, “It is a great joy for me to be here today in Alice Springs and to meet so many of you, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia. I want to tell you right away how much the Church esteems and loves you.”
John Paul’s watershed Alice Springs speech was prophetic, stating that God's Holy Spirit had been with the Indigenous peoples of Australia since the beginning of time, acknowledging God’s abiding presence among our first peoples and their communities.
He went on to say, “The silence of the bush taught you a quietness of soul that put you in touch with another world, the world of God’s spirit. Your careful attention to the details of kinship spoke of your reverence for birth, life and human generation. You knew that children needed to be loved, to be full of joy. They need a time to grow in laughter and to play, secure in the knowledge that they belong to their people.”
These words are remarkably similar to the words St Paul wrote to the Roman Christians many centuries earlier, “Your interests are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you.”
And, indeed, they resonate with that great cry of joy from Jesus Christ, himself, “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”
God’s children of this Great South Land of the Holy Spirit, both ancient and recent, are planted in this presence of God, who is with us, and always has been. We are, together, generative from God, whose Spirit animates us and gives us his life. Jesus Christ bears this same yoke, guiding us to opening our hearts to the gift of the ancient cultures and traditions that have shaped our land and country for more than 60,000 years. Our country – and our peoples, all of us – is called to be a land of hope and light, of reconciliation and belonging, in a world and at a time desperately in need of respect and peace.
There is work to do, in this regard. Recognition is still to be realised. Walking together remains a challenge. Burdens continue to be carried inequitably. But it is Jesus Christ who can lift for us these burdens, giving us the courage to persevere in faith and hope.
As St John Paul said to our indigenous people on that remarkable day in November 1986, “The Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.”
This remains our common task in Christ’s spirit – to recognise; to reconcile; to receive.
