2025 Speech at the Catholic Social Serices Hope in Action Conference
Fellow pilgrims with God’s poor
March 20 2025
Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta
Dear friends,
It is my privilege to join you at this CSSA National Conference on Hope in Action. It is a particularly pertinent theme as we are living at a time when there is so much of the sense of chaos, uncertainty and instability in the world. The trade war, the stock market collapse, the war in Ukraine and Palestine, the about-face in US government policies … are just some of the reasons for collective consternation. The global community is in a precarious situation and the jitters are being felt across the board. People on the margins of society who are already bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis will be even more adversely affected. In the face of these mounting challenges, it is easy for us to be overwhelmed, numbed and despondent. Nevertheless, impelled by the God of compassion and solidarity, we who are custodians of the living Gospel are committed to walk in companionship with our suffering brothers and sisters on the journey of hope.
The world needs more than ever the witness of a Gospel-inspired community united in its effort to honour the dignity and worth of every human person, to serve the common good and to live as one with all creation.
Pope Francis has called this Jubilee Year ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. It is an invitation to renew our hope, a hope which comes from knowing that God loves each one of us, whoever we are. Only by caring for one another, for the most vulnerable and for all creation, can we harness the energy of love and embody the incarnate God. The whole Judeo-Christian enterprise is pivoted to the belief and the imitation of the God who listens to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Wherever people groan, wherever creation groans, there the community of the Gospel is meant to be with a message and a ministry of liberation.
Pope Francis asks us to be signs of hope for others, by putting Catholic Social Teaching into action through caring for our common home and supporting our sisters and brothers who are experiencing war, violence, oppression, hunger and poverty. Catholic Social Services in various ways showcase the Good News story. Your ministries portray the compassionate face of Christ and the sacrament of God’s unfailing love for his suffering people.
The Church can only be the conduit of compassion and speak the language of hope to a broken humanity when it stands where Christ once stood, that is, firmly on the side of the outcast and the most vulnerable. Again, the words of Pope Francis are a source of encouragement for us: “By our actions, our words, the decisions we make each day, our patient efforts to sow seeds of beauty and kindness wherever we find ourselves, we want to sing of hope… and reawaken in every heart the joy and courage to embrace life to the full.”
HOPE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
I have a strong interest in the biblical story of the exile. This year marks 50 years since the Fall of Saigon. As a survivor of that tragic event and, later on, a refugee, learning to build resilience is a lifelong lesson. My parents themselves were refugees before me. Following the Geneva Convention that divided Vietnam into two opposing sides, they took to the sea and sailed south. I thank God they made that courageous decision and instilled in me the sense of risk-taking. I took the motto “go further into the deep” partly because of the lesson I learned from my parents.
My personal story of being a refugee, my struggle for a new life in Australia, coupled with my Franciscan heritage have all contributed to the sense of hope which was the legacy of the exile of old and which should inform and enlighten our present exile experience. Like the prophets who accompanied their people, interpreted the signs of the times and led them in the direction of the kingdom, we must do the same for our people in the context of this new millennium.
I believe that the crucial task of Christian leaders in the time of uncertainty is that of reframing a harsh reality into a vision of hope. In the Book of Exodus, there are two female characters who are often overshadowed by their male counterparts. But Shiprah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives preceded Moses and Aaron not just in years but also in stature and agency. We could describe them as the pioneers of the civil rights movement. They nurtured hope for their people by acting prophetically. They defied Pharaoh’s orders and took the side of the vulnerable instead. Instead of staying under the radar and retreating into a collective apathy, Shipra and Puah showed faithfulness to God in delivering new life.
Mary McKillop and other women of hope similarly took a prophetic stance against a trickle-down, sectarian and merit-based society in colonial Australia. They pioneered a radical alternative system of equity, inclusion, solidarity and preferential option for the poor. Not-for-profit, caring and inclusive social services including Catholic schools, orphanages, clinics, hospitals and other institutions grew out of this overarching ethos. They did not come into existence because Catholics wanted to create a ghetto. They came into existence because in the words of Mary McKillop, our pioneers saw a need and decided to do something about it. That unmet need was the poor, the unmarried mothers, the indigenous peoples and the underprivileged. A collective witness to the Gospel of hospitality, generosity and compassion is set against the system of a socio-economic meritocracy which is often the default operating model.
Today, we owe it to the prophetic spirit of our founders and forebears in catalysing humanity to greater justice, inclusion and emancipation. When we stand in solidarity with those without hope and act together, we can be channels of hope. In opening our eyes and hearts to the sufferings of our world, hope can be awakened, a hope that allows us to see things from the perspective of God.
One of the great signs of hope for me is Pope Francis himself. In a world where some are deemed as undeserving and expendable, he has emerged as an increasingly solitary moral voice against perilous global trends such as nationalism, populism, xenophobia and indifferentism. In America, the new government have begun to enact the policy of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants many of whom have lived peacefully and productively with their local communities. Pope Francis felt compelled to raise their treatment with the American bishops. His defense of the human dignity of the vulnerable people, be they undocumented migrants, prisoners, homeless, victims of war and violence, LGBTQI+ etc. is relentless. We must move forward together, he keeps reminding us, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
The church, he insists, must not be content with status quo and cling to its security. Instead, it must move to the periphery. It must be the church of the poor and for the poor. Pope Francis has applied a critical lens through which the Church is renewed for the sake of its mission for the poor. The Church is helped to decentralise and impelled towards the peripheries. The Church, the People of God, should walk together, sharing the burdens of humanity, listening to the cry of the poor, reforming itself and its own action, first by listening to the voice of the humble, the anawim of God, who were at the heart of Jesus’s public ministry.
Another sign of hope is that the Church is being cleansed, renewed and revitalised even through the sexual abuse crisis. Increasingly, it is becoming the Church of the minority. In Australia, this is strikingly evident in most parishes. The Church is revitalized where there are migrants, refugees and the socially disadvantaged. It is the sign of the times when the Church returns to its ancient role of being a refuge for the poor and an oasis for the oppressed, as opposed to an enclosure for the privileged. When I was in Italy, I was very intrigued by the private tombs in many churches. In medieval time, it was not uncommon for ecclesiastics, royals and even well-heeled citizens to be buried in ornate church buildings. I wonder if this was a vestige of the time when the Church was the arena for power. I wonder if this was the natural progression of the imperial Church. Thank God we have moved on and the vision of Church of the “anawim” is being rightfully reclaimed for our time.
Finally, I believe that one of the greatest signs of new life in the Church today is the arrival of the age of the laity and the increasing awareness of our co-responsibility in the building up of the Kingdom. Pastoral ministry is no longer the exclusive realm of the ordained or religious professionals. It is being delivered in abundance by a variety of the baptized. Today, leadership of the Catholic community rests just as much if not more in your hands than it does in the hands of the declining number of ageing clergy. The fact that you are here today not as surrogate priests and religious but as full partners in the mission of Catholic Social Services speaks of new and deeper ways of being Church. The re-imagining of our partnerships in the life of the Church beyond its clerical structures can only be a source of blessing and enrichment for all. In an increasingly secular age, you who live “in the world” are called in a particular way to be leaven, transforming the culture from within in an invisible yet powerful way.
JUBILEE OF HOPE
Jubilee fundamentally means a reset and a fresh beginning in favour of freedom, equity, regeneration and sustainability. The ancient Jewish observance of the Sabbath and the Christian celebration of the Sunday Eucharist are both invitations to live lives from divine perspective. Jubilee is a time to attend to relationships and a timely reminder to build a community that is aligned with the Creator’s intention -a flourishing community for all. It is a basis for a Jubilee hope.
Jubilee has its roots in the Jewish Sabbatical tradition that is related to the care of the poor, the indebted and the oppressed. In exile, the observance of Sabbath became an intentional discipline that distinguished the membership of the covenant community to that of the empire. Keeping Sabbath was pivotal for formation of a community that God intended, a community where there would be no permanent underclass. The practice of Sabbatical rest and jubilee stood in sharp contrast with the exploitation and grab-what-you-can modus operandi of the empire. Yet, it was the practice that maintained human dignity, long term sustainability and fruitfulness. Today, we must turn away from imperial values of domination, extraction and recover the sabbatical values of regeneration, reciprocity and conviviality.
Our spiritually alienated society, based on an economic model of constant growth and productivity, is ‘open all hours’. People have to find their own form of ‘Sabbath’, largely absent now from our mainstream culture. In Laudato Si, Pope Francis acknowledges the Jewish origins and the importance also for Christians, of the concept of ‘Sabbath’. Rest opens our eyes to the larger picture and gives us renewed sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centred on the Eucharist, sheds it light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor.”
The Church is called to be the conscience of society and the voice of justice in the world that prioritizes wealth, power and individualism over charity, humility and the common good. When public responsibility is on the wane and the most privileged desperately work to improve their private estate, we are called to be an economy of solidarity that takes care of all, especially the poorest among us. Given that we are likely to become a minority in the future, our call is not to batten down the hatches and circle the wagons but to be the critical yeast for critical times ahead by modelling a new way of being together for the sake of the poor and God’s creation.
We live in a particularly polarized time. In some countries, partisan politics is so entrenched, it threatens to undermine social cohesion and unravel the fabric of a democratic society. Australia is not immune from these global trends. Ideological positions are widening on every issue whether it is immigration, environment, gender or the Voice for indigenous Australians. As Catholics, we are called more than ever to listen, discern and act with Christian wisdom, integrity and truth. It is more important than ever that we do not lose sight of our calling, which according to the Second Vatican Council, is a sacrament of God’s love and a sign of hope for the world.
The early Christians understood this and showed to the world a way forward in how they lived, how they related, how they shared resources. In the face of a fractured society, they shone as a community of radical inclusivity, hospitality and justice. Against the dominant system of exploitation, self-interest and greed, they enacted an ethos of communion, justice and compassion. The Church was transformed beyond the original company that Jesus had gathered and yet this creative process remained faithful to his core values.
We are a community grounded in God’s love. Despite all of our failings and distortions, individually and institutionally we host God’s power for life. The Church in a quite specific way is the place where large dreams are entertained, songs are sung, boundaries are crossed, hurt is noticed, and the weak are honoured. We have no monopoly on these matters. Yet we take this agenda as our primary mission. The church raises the human questions of justice, reconciliation and peace, of welcome and friendship, of hospitality and love.
We are heirs to a rich legacy, born out of inspiring vision, unwavering resolve and prophetic courage. Just as our pioneers did before, now it is our turn to apply the boundary breaking spirit of Jesus. We can not only envision a different world to the fractured, polarized and destructive one we are living in, but also live it out. Inspired by Jesus’ model of privileging the downtrodden, we can work towards an economy and a social structure that prioritizes the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Let us go forward in hope embracing our call to be the critical yeast for our critical time.
