‘Borders on the immoral’: Why Catholic Church is in the firing line over this small Redfern building

Australia’s most senior Indigenous leaders have issued an urgent moral plea to the Archbishop of Sydney, warning the Catholic Church risks looking greedy and out of touch unless it steps in to help secure the future of a groundbreaking Redfern health service.

“Father of reconciliation” Patrick Dodson, academic Marcia Langton and former federal minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney rallied behind the Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) Redfern after the Herald revealed church officials were standing in the way of a much-needed expansion.

While federal cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek and prominent business figure Catherine Harris also encouraged the church to help, NSW’s two most senior Catholic politicians – Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – declined to express a view.

Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher has rejected requests to gift a key Turner Street building to the pioneering health service, which conducts 50,000 patient-visits a year.

The building, which needs repairs and has been earmarked for an expansion of mental health services, forms the only component of the Redfern health campus not owned by the AMS. The service has operated from the property for 55 years.

Dodson, Australia’s first ordained Aboriginal Catholic priest, said the building had no real value to the church but was essential for Indigenous residents.

“What the church is doing is very disappointing, but more than that it borders on the immoral,” Dodson said.

“Reconciliation without restitution is pretty meaningless. This is also an opportunity to heal some of the old wounds and the church isn’t taking it.”

Owning the site would deliver the service a stronger balance sheet, certainty of tenure and better chance of securing capital funding to fix the two-storey brick property and incorporate more treatment areas for services such as mental health.

A congregation of sisters donated their own buildings to the AMS in 1978 but Fisher and his predecessor George Pell have declined to do the same.

“Maybe they are saying no because they think it would be setting a precedent,” Dodson said. “But when you look at some of the odium that surrounds the church’s moral leadership as a consequence of sexual abuse and other things, this should be a very good thing to do.”

A spokesperson for the archdiocese claimed gifting the building was not possible because it would require a technical subdivision of the site. However, an AMS report found a subdivision was not a major issue to resolve.

Burney, the minister for Indigenous Australians between 2022 and 2024, urged Fisher to reconsider his position.

“The AMS is tried and true ... it’s the central point in Redfern for First Nations people and there is an enormous respect within the Aboriginal community for it. People feel comfortable there,” she said.

“My question is: is this an institutional response, or is it the lack of vision of individuals within the organisation? I suspect it’s the latter.”

The Archdiocese of Sydney did not respond to a series of questions about whether the church envisaged retaking possession or whether there were any circumstances under which it would review its decision.

Harris Farm Markets co-founder Catherine Harris, a prominent Sydney business figure who has served on archdiocese advisory committees, said the church had an opportunity “to find its true roots and strength”.

“Strength does not come from owning things,” she said. “The church needs to take a good look at itself. It should learn from the amazing women in the church like Mary MacKillop.”

Professor Marcia Langton, who worked as a nutrition officer at the Aboriginal Medical Service in the 1970s, said the appalling health outcomes facing First Nations people were often forgotten.

“Before Redfern came along, Aboriginal people were just not being treated,” she said.

“I remember being discriminated against by a doctor in a hospital, who when he wrongly thought I was unconscious said to the nurse ‘don’t bother giving her antibiotics. She’s Aboriginal, she won’t take them anyway’.”

More than 2 million Aboriginal people have died from massacres and disease, Langton noted. She credited the AMS with working to deal with the ramifications of that “terrible history”.

“If the church claims, as it does, that reconciliation is at the core of Christian belief and practice, then allocating this building to the Aboriginal Medical Service after all these years is essential to having people believe that this is in fact what the church stands for.”

The request has also been backed by Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and prominent human rights lawyer who once worked in Redfern. Brennan said he recognised “stable patrimony” – a term used to describe church assets – was important and likely subject to certain rules, but was sure that hurdle could be overcome.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek has said she would “love” to see the archdiocese gift the property. “The Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern has been a lifeline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for generations.”

Dodson said it should not require a political intervention to encourage Fisher to change his mind. “I would hope that the leadership in the church had enough courage to do this themselves,” he said.

While some of Sydney’s Aboriginal population has moved to the western suburbs, Redfern remains a cultural and emotional ground zero for many residents, including members of the Stolen Generations who access AMS services.

Shane Phillips, the chief executive of Redfern-based non-profit Indigenous maritime training company Tribal Warrior, grew up around legendary figures like Father Ted Kennedy, activist “Mum Shirl” and nuns who worked alongside them.

“Those nuns were involved in Australia’s great civil rights movement,” Phillips said. “It was a beautiful relationship of a community and the church working together. I believe in God, and what happened here in the past is the sort of church I believe in.

“The church has got a connection with some of the most terrific parts of the history. It would be an amazing gesture if the archbishop decided to honour that.

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