2008

Tuesday 1st July 2008
Local Aboriginal Group Takes Centre Stage for World Youth Day

About 50 young indigenous people from the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle are busy preparing for the significant role they will have at both Sydney World Youth Day events and those organised in this region for Days in the Diocese.

The local indigenous group will participate in Sydney’s World Youth Day Week Opening Mass on July 17, where they will perform a special welcome and gathering ritual. They will also be performing at the Youth Festival and the Stations of the Cross, as well as the Papal Mass at Randwick on Sunday 20 July.

The group is being coordinated by well-known local indigenous woman, Ms Louise Campbell, who has been busily planning and preparing for many key indigenous elements in Maitland-Newcastle’s Days in the Diocese and World Youth Day week in Sydney next month. Aboriginal Education Officer at the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle’s Catholic Schools Office, Ms Campbell is a member of the Indigenous Advisory Committee for World Youth Day, chaired by Bishop Christopher Saunders from the Catholic Diocese of Broome.

Louise will form part of a Papal Guard of Honour, made up of elders and people who have played a significant part in Aboriginal spirituality and the Catholic Church.

She is also looking forward to narrating one of the Stations of the Cross and has enjoyed helping to plan the Aboriginal components of this and other rituals.

Locally, the indigenous group’s first major public involvement occurs towards the end of “Corroboree”, the major diocesan celebration on July 12 at Newcastle’s Foreshore Park.

“As darkness begins to fall, they will perform a dance, and I’ll tell a story about the struggle for indigenous acceptance within the Australian church,” Louise explains.

“I hope that Days in the Diocese will provide opportunities for conversation with people from across the world; that it will be a chance for the young people to share their cultural stories.”

Louise is hoping that there will also be opportunities for a couple of small groups of overseas pilgrims to experience a cultural sacred journey to Aboriginal sites around the diocese, camping out overnight at Wollombi with local young indigenous Australians. “All the young people will come together, tell stories and dance.”

“I hope that some of our indigenous young people will camp at Kilaben Bay with the overseas visitors too, so that they will be part of the excitement in this diocese, and travel with the pilgrims on their spiritual and faith journey.”

“What’s most important to me is the fact that aboriginal spirituality has been included in World Youth Day – it is not an add-on, not separate events but part of the family; everyone is included.”

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