The Anglican Church of Australia has ordained an Aboriginal bishop in a ceremony that combined elements of Aboriginal and Anglican cultures and is being hailed as a step towards reconciliation.
Bishop Christopher McLeod was consecrated as an assistant bishop at St Peter's Cathedral in North Adelaide, South Australia. He is the third Australian bishop of Aboriginal descent, and the only one currently serving, but is also the first with a ministry specially dedicated to the indigenous people of the land.
Bishop McLeod is from the Gurundji people, originally from northern Australia in the Victoria River region. He is also one of the Stolen Generations, children who were taken from their families by church and government, in some places as recently as the 1970s. His own mother and grandmother were removed and placed in institutions.
He has already spent the last 20 years in Anglican ministry, working with Aboriginal communities.
"I think I'll be able to bring something of the pain of that story to my role as a bishop and also to help other people with that same story to find healing," he said after the ceremony.
"My background is very much part of that Stolen Generations history.
"My mother was a member of the Stolen Generations and her mother was a member of the Stolen Generations.
"My mother was removed from her mother at a very young age and placed in a number of institutions in the Northern Territory.
"The priest who brought her to Adelaide wasn't involved in that process, but he kindly set up a number of places for Aboriginal people to come to."
Bishop McLeod plans to work towards strengthening ties between the church and Aboriginal population.
"The role is to be listening to the cares and the concerns and the joys and the spiritual needs of the Aboriginal people here in Adelaide but also throughout South Australia. A lot of it too, I have to say, is dealing with some of the attitudes towards Aboriginal people from non-Aboriginal people.
"The church has a role too to educate everybody about accepting a difference within our community and, in particular, rejoicing in our Aboriginal history and heritage, and building some bridges along that sort of line," he told ABC.
Aboriginal leader Lowitja O'Donoghue said: "It really is very exciting to have an Aboriginal bishop. He seems to be quite shy. He knows a lot of Aboriginal people in South Australia."
The Archbishop of Adelaide, Most Rev Jeffrey Driver, said the appointment was one of advocacy and was a step towards reconciliation: "I think Australia has much yet to receive from its Indigenous heritage and from its Indigenous people and the church certainly has much to receive as well by way of the gifts of spirituality and leadership. In the late '90s, it was here in Adelaide that the Anglican Church first apologised to the Aboriginal people for the sorrow of the things that have happened in the past."
