Australian students in Rome in the footsteps of Aboriginal scholar
By Joseph Tulloch
Every summer, the Francis Xavier Scholarship brings Australian First Nations students to Rome.
The scholarship – which is sponsored by Australian Catholic University and the Australian Embassy to the Holy See – owes its name to Francis Xavier Conaci, a 19th-century Australian Aboriginal boy who travelled to Rome to train as a monk before dying tragically young.
This year’s recipients are Zane Ratcliff, 23, a Wakka Wakka man, and Ryan St. John, 21, a Gamilaroi man.
At an event on Friday hosted by the Australian Embassy to the Holy See, they performed a pair of traditional Wakka Wakka dances.
A vocation for education
Both Ratcliff and St John are studying for a Bachelor’s degree in Education at Australian Catholic University. While in Rome, they’re taking a course in Catholic Social Teaching at ACU’s campus in the city.
“I'm a massive advocate for education of Indigenous people”, Ratcliff told Vatican News, adding that he wanted to use what he was learning in Rome to inform his future career as a teacher.
His aim, he said, is to “help my First Nations people to bring up their education, as we are a bit lacking in that area.” According to a 2021 report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 39% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders aged 20 and above have finished school.
St John said that he works as a First Nations support officer at a primary school. He added that he hopes to continue in this line of work after graduation, "working with the young ones, seeing them grow, and helping them connect with their culture."
Fighting for First Nations rights
Introducing Ratcliff and St John before their dance, the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See, Chiara Porro, noted that the event was taking place in the context of NAIDOC week, an annual celebration in Australia that honours the history and culture of First Nations peoples.
The event, she said, is an opportunity to celebrate First Nations heritage – the oldest continuous culture anywhere in the world – but also a “call to action”, a reminder to fight for indigenous rights.
This, Ambassador Porro noted, is a theme that is particularly important to Pope Francis. She discussed his visit to Canada in 2022, where he apologised for the ‘evil’ committed by Christians against indigenous people, and suggested that the Pope's concern for indigenous rights might be on the agenda again this September, when he travels to Papua New Guinea.
Education and culture
Also present for the event was Bishop Paul Tighe from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Noting that his office had been formed in a recent merger, he emphasised that the two different focuses are complementary, since education, at its best, is about “introducing people to a way of life, to a culture.”
He thanked Ratcliff and St John for their presence in Rome, and for introducing those present to their own ancient cultural heritage.
And, referring to their aspirations to one day become teachers for First Nations communities back in Australia, he said that this job - education and the transmission of culture - is "truly a great vocation."
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