This year marks 50 years of NAIDOC Week and yet there is no public holiday to celebrate the longest living culture on this planet, the culture of our Indigenous peoples, writes Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill.
NAIDOC Week (5-12 July) is being celebrated in Australia as I write. Annually, this week celebrates “the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. All Australians are invited “to learn about (our) First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth”. (NAIDOC.org.au)
The National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee chose ‘50 Years Deadly’ as the NAIDOC Week theme for 2026. All Australians are being encouraged to rejoice in this 50-year milestone of recognising and celebrating our Indigenous peoples, of hearing their voices “steady, unapologetic, and proud”.
This year, I am in Central Australia at the beginning of NAIDOC Week. I have taken the opportunity for immersion in some of the places and sites as I have travelled across the lands of the various Indigenous peoples: the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, Arrernte people of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), the Jawoyn people of Nitmulik (Katherine Gorge), the Bininj and Mungguy people of Kakadu, the Yolngu guide who introduced me into the stories and ecology of Kakadu, and the Larrakia people of Darwin.
Crocodile in Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge). Photo credit: Sister Catherine McCahill SGS/Sisters of the Good Samaritan.
I have appreciated visits to cultural centres and art galleries. I have delighted in the splendour of the natural environment and heard and read some of the countless stories from the Dreamtime and thereafter. I have viewed rock art and contemporary Indigenous art.
And yet, I find myself ambivalent. Yes, I want to rejoice, to celebrate and to stand with my Indigenous brothers and sisters. I am grateful for, delight in and am humbled by the committed efforts of NAIDOC to highlight so many aspects of Indigenous culture in our land, to invite all of us to share and enjoy this culture.
My ambivalence, perhaps it’s sadness or disappointment, comes because this week is not marked by a national holiday. The Committee requested such a public holiday in 1984. Australians appreciate public holidays. We know how to honour those who served this country in military service, and those who paved the way for just working conditions.
We have localised public holidays for the ‘annual show’ or a horse race or a major sporting game. We have a public holiday (somewhat contentious) to celebrate or remember the arrival of the first Europeans in Australia. But there is no such holiday to celebrate the longest living culture on this planet, the culture of our Indigenous peoples.
Olive Pink Botanical Gardens in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Photo credit: Sister Catherine McCahill SGS/Sisters of the Good Samaritan.
Perhaps, one day, the people of Australia will be proud enough of our Indigenous sisters and brothers – the original and ongoing custodians of this land – and of their culture to proclaim a public holiday in their honour.
Within the Catholic community, another milestone is being recalled: the fortieth anniversary of the 1986 visit and statement of Pope John Paul II in Alice Springs. The Pope outlined the long history of the Indigenous people in this land, saying to them that their “culture, which shows the lasting genius and dignity of (their) race, must not be allowed to disappear”.
He acknowledged the dispossession and loss of language and culture associated with the arrival of other cultures that failed to acknowledge the First Peoples and their long-term custodianship of the land.
Then John Paul II links the reality with the Church community:
“From the earliest times men like Archbishop Polding of Sydney opposed the legal fiction adopted by European settlers that this land was terra nullius – nobody’s country. He strongly pleaded for the rights of the Aboriginal inhabitants to keep the traditional lands on which their whole society depended. The Church still supports you today.”
I wonder, do we?
Indigenous rock art in Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge). Photo credit: Sister Catherine McCahill SGS/Sisters of the Good Samaritan.
I note, with hope, that the Pope’s admonition that day to the Church – “You are part of Australia and Australia is part of you. And 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” – was quoted in the Final Motions and Amendments of the Fifth Plenary Council of the Australian Catholic Church.
Again, I wonder, are we doing enough?
Yes, I am humbled and grateful that my Church said “sorry to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in and beyond the Church for the part played by the Church in the harms they have suffered”. I hear and see Acknowledgement of Country more often in Catholic parishes, schools and other gatherings. I have heard some endorsement of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
However, there are also motions about cultural competency, retreats and formation activities, liturgy, and inclusion on committees, boards and decision-making bodies.
This week, I ask myself, how well am I doing in these aspects of Church life? What about my religious Congregation? My workplace? My sphere of influence? I wish I could say that I am doing better than I am.
If I am going to be a good neighbour, then I must do better.
The Devils Marbles are a sacred site known as Karlu Karlu in the Northern Territory. Photo credit: Sister Catherine McCahill SGS/Sisters of the Good Samaritan.
