Faith communities have an important role to play in helping Australia to recover from the Bondi terror attack and in strengthening social cohesion, according to two experts in ecumenical and interfaith relations. Source: The Good Oil.
Fr Patrick McInerney SSC is the Columban Regional Director of Oceania and the Director of the Columban Centre for Christian-Muslim Relations, as well as a Consultor for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
He said that people of faith can play a special role as the entire community seeks to rebuild after the December 14 terror attack, in which two gunmen opened fire at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration in Bondi, killing 15 people and injuring dozens of others.
“I think that the faith leaders have a very big responsibility to lead their congregations and to educate their congregations and to give public witness, and I think that’s what they did in the immediate aftermath of the shootings,” he said.
“So many of them, including myself, issued statements in the days after the Bondi killings. Many of the faith leaders came together on the steps of St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney as a sign of unity and solidarity.
“So, the first thing that people of faith need to do is to reach out and to listen.”
Good Samaritan Sister Elizabeth Delaney, who is a former national director of the National Council of Churches Australia and serves on Sydney Archdiocese’s Commission for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, said that deepening understanding of different faiths was crucial to rebuilding the fabric of society following the shootings.
“There’s a wonderful thing, of which I’m part, where we have a prayer service each year on the first Friday of March. We pray for a particular country, we learn about that country, and we contribute to support a project in the country,” she said.
“I’m hoping that somewhere in all of this we can focus on those three things – that we can all learn a bit more about the other faiths, that we pray with them, and if we can’t pray with them, we pray for them, and we see what we can do to help in a practical sense.
“I think that the World Day of Prayer message is a wonderful approach for so many situations, and particularly at this time, I see how important it is.”
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People of faith can play a special role following Bondi attack (By Debra Vermeer, The Good Oil)
