The Kiddies
As a wise friend once said when i asked if his wife knew he smoked pot: Yeah, she knows. She doesn’t know the extent … I knew MSC was involved in mission work in the NT, didn’t fathom the extent … until i started researching this.
Historically, MSC has been the main religious group conducting missionary work in the NT. That means: MSC was the face of Australia’s interaction with NT’s indigenous tribes re education, religious inculcation, assimilation. All conducted according to government-backed policy.
Pop question: What percent of adult First Nations People were converted to Christianity?
Ans: zero
Yeah surprised me at first, too, but when you think about it …
Hi, i’m some alien guy here to spread the good news that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus who died on the cross to save us then ascended into heaven!
Yeah … no. We’ve got our own beliefs - the Everywhen
Maybe that’s how the great Aussie Yeah-no thinking came into being?!
The Jesuits, best-in-the-business at connecting to indigenous tribes - learn the language, do the Sunday mass in it, permeate into the culture, incorporate it, the whole bit - they had first crack, naturally …
They gave it their best shot … then … gave up. Abandoned their humble mission structures - said: it can’t be done …
That left THE Church in a pickle. If your stated goal is world mind-control - you can’t throw ya hands in the air coz a whole continent of humans says: yeah - no
The responsibility was then delegated by the THE Church to MSC. They didn't want it - their focus was PNG. But you can accuse THE Church of whatever you like, you can’t accuse them of not being a disciplined hierarchy. If you’re told to do something, then it’s like someone said to De Niro’s character in Casino, but more-so: consider it a papal bull …
MSC reluctantly took on the job - then, depending upon your criteria, succeeded in converting large numbers of First Nations People …
The adults were still a dead-end of course, in fact trying to convert them was banned from the on-higher-up-ers as a waste of resources. The magic trick?:
Get into the kiddies
aka: the Stolen Generation (1905-67)
The MSC missions in NT were the Vocational Training Camps for stolen kids. They were their main customers. Although Govt/MSC child-stealing was officially discontinued as a policy in 1967 (lingered into the 70s, unofficially), kids taken in the 60’s would have been 11-years old through to teenagers from the mid-seventies to eighties - so it's formative years impact stretches into recent history. Many of the stolen-ones, now in their 50 years-old +, are still dealing with the impacts today.
Stolen-generation was mainly about removing mixed-blood children from their parents. The (misguided) thinking was that in order to protect a dwindling pure-blood population from extinction, the half-castes needed to be segregated & assimilated into the white population.
But when that program was discontinued, it was Aboriginal children in general that were brought under the control of the Catholic Church. Although not stolen as such, they were offered accommodation/education at the missions where they were raised as Catholics. In the early seventies, many adult indigenous worked on the surrounding ranches, so the missions functioned as a place where they could leave their kids whilst they were away for extended periods.
As such, MSC would serve as a melting pot for different skin groups, united in the love of Jesus …
How did that work out? Let’s take a look …