September 18, 2023
A Catholic bishop has asked ‘What would Jesus do?’ about the proposed Voice to Parliament during an interview at Cherbourg.
Auxiliary Bishop Tim Norton was accompanied on his visit last Wednesday by retiring priest Fr Gerry Heffernan – who was heavily involved with Cherbourg in past decades – and current Murgon parish priest Fr John Fowles.
During an interview with Cherbourg Radio, Bishop Norton referred to a video he made recently (see below) with Archbishop for Brisbane Mark Coleridge during which the pair discussed the upcoming Voice referendum.
“Archbishop Mark was making the point that this was never really a political issue. It’s a moral and an ethical issue,” Bishop Norton said.
“And moral and ethical issues are really important to the church. Trying to keep away from the politics of it all is extremely difficult.
“Mark was making the point very clearly that this was moral and ethical. We have a moral and ethical obligation to move into this space, into this referendum.
“As church people we are really involved in reconciliation. One of the main reasons for being church people and following Jesus is reconciliation wherever we are in the world.
“And when we have opportunities we need to grab those opportunities and go forward with them as well as we can.
“That’s why our involvement in this referendum as Christians, I think, is really critical.
“Our discernment is through that prism of ourselves as people who do follow Jesus and, therefore, what would Jesus be doing?
“What would Jesus say in this referendum?”
Bishop Norton noted that the history of Australia – of which he was a part as an Anglo-Australian – had been very dismissive generally of Aboriginal culture.
“(It’s) my heritage, I’m a part of that and I acknowledge that. I want to do everything I can to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders live their culture in the spaces here in Australia, and that we would continue to be learning from them.
“That has not been the dynamic. That’s why I think the Voice is really important.
“All those elements of Closing the Gap, but not closing the gap. We as non-Indigenous Australians, for all the goodwill in the world, we might have been trying but we have not been successful in closing the gap with Aboriginal people.”
Bishop Norton said Aboriginal people would have much more say in how to address some of the really difficult, complex issues that face them.
He said the Catholic Church’s commitment to reconciliation would remain strong, no matter what the result of the referendum was.
“But with ‘no’ there will be so much more healing that we will have to try and do with people,” he said.
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A conversation about the proposed Voice to Parliament between Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge and Bishop Tim Norton, who visited Cherbourg at Easter and returned again last Wednesday:
