Melbourne, Australia, Mar 20, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The parliament of the Australian state of Victoria is considering a proposal to end the convention of beginnings daily sessions with the Our Father. The prayer has been a fixture of proceedings for more than a century.
The proposal is being reviewed by a committee of the upper house of the parliament, the Victoria Legislative Council, after referral by Gavin Jennings, Special Minister of State for the Labour Party government.
The Our Father is currently recited during legislature proceedings in the Australian federal parliament and the parliaments of every state and province. In the assembly of the Australian Capital Territory, a jurisdiction similar to the District of Columbia, a moment of silent reflection is held.
According to a March 20 report by 9 News, Victoria state premier Daniel Andrews – who is Catholic – has indicated he is open to the proposal, as is Marlene Kairouz, Minister for Consumer Affairs and also a Catholic.
“If we need to share other prayers and recognize other religions or other traditions I am more than happy to consider that,” she said.
The plan has also been welcomed by the leader of the Reason Party, Fiona Patten, who called the plan “a nod to how diverse the Victorian parliament is.”
The Our Father has been recited daily in the Victorian legislature since 1918. Last year a Senate inquiry in the Australian federal parliament rejected a similar call led by Green Party MPs.
According to 9 News, the state of Victoria has the highest non-Christina affiliation rate in the country, more than 10 percent.
Anti-Christian, and anti-Catholic sentiment in particular, has been a much-discussed topic both in the state and nationwide. A Royal Commission report last year uncovered decades of incidences of child sexual abuse by personnel in Church-run institutions in the country.
The verdict to convict Cardinal Pell, formerly Archbishop of Melbourne, by a Victoria court last year has come under sustained criticism in some quarters of the national media, with many questioning if anti-Catholic sentiment, conditioned by years of negative media coverage of the Church, may have tainted public opinion – including the jury pool.
In the neighboring state of South Australia, the conviction of former Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson was overturned on appeal when a judge found anti-Catholicism had played a determining factor in the initial decision.
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Oh, the post-modern and postured high-calling of inventing a non-discrimination that does not discriminate! The theological equivalent of DOA Esperanto!
Perhaps Victoria should consider the matter-of-fact inclusivity of the deist (!) George Washington in his Prayer for the United States of America (as in the concluding line):
“Almighty God; we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States [read Australia] in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government…And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. (from Majorie Barrows, “One Thousand Beautiful Things” [Chicago: Peoples Book Club, Inc., 1947], 425).