Catholic Religious Australia has signed on as a founding member of a new whole-of-Church initiative to help people and communities recover from the current bushfire crisis which will set the blueprint for how the Catholic Church responds to domestic natural disasters in the future.
Last month, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, CRA and a number of other national organisations encouraged Catholics to donate to the Vinnies Bushfire Appeal, which is supporting people who have lost loved ones, homes, property and animals.
Those national organisations, representing parishes, religious orders, social service agencies, schools, hospitals and aged and community care providers, have spent several weeks working collaboratively in response to the deadly bushfire season.
“Our response to the bushfires, and the drought that has exacerbated the fires, has demonstrated once again the collective power of the Catholic Church to respond to disasters in all sorts of ways,” Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge said.
“At its core, the Catholic Church is about people, about families, about parishes, about school communities, about ministries that proclaim and live out the Gospel of Jesus. Most of those ministries are local, but there is a national – and universal – dimension of the Church that can sometimes be under-utilised.”
The new national collaboration is called CERA – Catholic Emergency Relief Australia – and will serve as a coordination point for Catholic agencies responding to natural disasters.
The founding organisations are the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Catholic Religious Australia, Catholic Social Services Australia and the National Catholic Education Commission. Other Catholic organisations are expected to join the collaboration soon.
Susan Pascoe has been named as chair of the Catholic Emergency Relief Australia Advisory Council.
Susan Pascoe is the chair of the new Catholic Emergency Australia Advisory Council.
Ms Pascoe’s long list of contributions to public life includes serving as a 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commissioner and as the inaugural Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commissioner.
She said the Catholic Church has a significant role to play in helping people and communities respond to emergencies and to rebuild over a period of months and years.
“Catholic ministries exist in almost every Australian community and our people on the ground are keen to work alongside government agencies, emergency services and other faith-based and charitable organisations to respond now and into the future,” Ms Pascoe said.
“The Church’s key social services agencies, including CatholicCares and Centacares, are on the front lines finding people accommodation, providing financial assistance and helping address the mental and emotional scars that the bushfires have caused.”
About 150 Catholic parishes and more than 200 Catholic schools are located in bushfire-affected areas.
“Our people – priests and parishioners, teachers and parents – understand deeply the impact of the fires on their families, friends and neighbours,” Ms Pascoe said.
“The Church takes seriously its duty to respond to the needs of the whole community, and that can be done most effectively by harnessing its vast network of ministries.”
Justice Terry Sheahan, a former New South Wales government minister and former judge on the NSW Land and Environment Court, and former CatholicCare Melbourne CEO Fr Joe Caddy, who led the Church’s local response to the Black Saturday bushfires, will also serve on the Advisory Council.
Other members of the Council will represent key Catholic ministries: parishes, schools, social service agencies, religious congregations, hospitals and aged and community care services.
One of the key features of the CERA website is the volunteer management portal. It will allow organisations to list volunteer opportunities for people looking to provide practical, material and financial support in the journey of recovery.
CERA’s focus will be on domestic natural disasters. Caritas Australia is the Church’s agency tasked with responding to emergencies overseas.
Visit the CERA website at www.cera.catholic.org.au