Michelle Draper, AAP, March 20, 2008
GOOD Friday should be dumped as a public holiday and replaced with a national reconciliation day recognising Aborigines, a Melbourne cleric says.
The Reverend John Evans, the Uniting Church Minister at the Church of All Nations in Carlton, said Good Friday had lost its religious significance outside the Christian community.
He also said Australia was becoming a more multicultural, multifaith society and having Good Friday as a public holiday may no longer be appropriate.
Dr Evans applauded Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s public apology as a major step towards reconciliation, but said a day such as Good Friday should be set aside to mark the recent steps forward.
“We have done a great thing with the national apology but when you look at our public holidays there are no public holidays that recognise the role and place of Aborigines as the first people of this land,” he said.
Dr Evans said any day, not just Good Friday, could be suitable for a national reconciliation day. The exact day should be put to the Aboriginal community, he said.
In a statement released today, Dr Evans said: “Whether Good Friday is a public holiday or not will not change or challenge the day’s significance. In fact, in the place of Good Friday, there should be a national holiday to mark our endeavours towards Aboriginal reconciliation”.
When asked about the statement, Dr Evans said: “That would be the gift that I would be prepared to make, that if the only way we could get a public holiday for national day of reconciliation is that it’s Good Friday, I’d be for it.”
He said Good Friday would not lose its name or significance as a result.
“We will never not have Good Friday. The question is should it be a public holiday,” he said.
“And I would welcome it to be a public holiday but I would also observe that it is not being treated as a holy day.”
Dr Evans said a national reconciliation day fits in with the message of Easter, which he said was about reconciliation between individuals, God and each other.
But Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Christopher Prowse said despite the importance of reconciliation it would be inappropriate to have such a day on Good Friday.
“Aboriginal issues are very important for Australia, however the Good Friday observance has a different focus and that focus should not be deflected by other issues, however important.”
But another day could be set aside for reconciliation, he said.
Original article
(Posted on March 24, 2008)
Comments
Bow your heads in contrition, White Australia! And teach it to your children and grandchildren too — if American history is any guide, the sins of the fathers also stain their great-great-grandchildren.
Posted by at 7:08 PM on March 24
They will try anything against the Christians….when will anyone get it…they hate Christians and Jews….
Posted by lydia at 7:30 PM on March 24
I believe we tried that in New Zealand - 30+ years later, New Zealand prides itself over it’s “Maori heritage”, and ignores that of the hundreds of thousands of white settlers that died making New Zealand what it is today, while the Maori themselves have adopted the “worst” aspects of the American black - that is, “gangsterism”, high crime/reproduction/poverty/welfare dependency rates….
Posted by Obscuratus at 7:35 PM on March 24
The minds of these people are so perverted, so leftist, so anti-white that the idiocy of what they are saying totally escapes them. Let us take Good Friday, a day in which the Son of God took upon Himself the sins of the world, suffered horribly and was crucified and died so completely selflessly for us, and turn it into a national day of recognition for a people who have contributed absolutely nothing to the betterment of the Australian state. Brilliant!!!
Posted by at 9:04 PM on March 24
What Australia NEEDS is a bit of common sense. To stop pandering in to the abos, Muslims and other third-worlders and remember their manhood! White European (as in Britsh) settlers were responsible for Australia’s wealth and economic growth over the centuries.
NOT the aborigines not the Asiatics or Muslims — not that either of those groups could ever come to terms with that inconvenient reality. If the abos got themselves pushed into the back woods by White arrivals, call it Darwin’s “survival of the fittest.” An occurrence mirrored countless times throughout human history.
Treat the abos fairly, decently, but never cave in or know-tow to them. Above all, someone should invite “Reverend” John Evans to go fly a kite, jump in a lake — or whatever the popular expression might be.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:36 PM on March 25
What no one ever points out is the fact that the maoris exterminated the people who lived on New Zealand before they arrived.
If any thing, the abos ought to be glad that the Aussies didn’t exterminate them.
If anyone wonders why church attendance is declining, the Rev. Dr. Evans has just provided the answer.
Posted by at 7:35 PM on March 25
Historically, in pre-welfare days, aboriginal contributions to Australia have been the men working on cattle stations and the women working as domestic servants.
Without a welfare system that encourages sloth and alcoholism, things might return to that relatively better set of circumstances.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:48 PM on March 28
