Aborigines will establish a tent embassy at St Mary's South Brisbane under the terms of a treaty signed last year between the parish and the local aboriginal community.
Activist Sam Watson said St Mary's had tended to the needs of Aborigines for decades, the Brisbane Times reports.
"We have declared that land upon which St Mary's has been built is sacred land and we assert the fact that as Aboriginal people we have never ceded sovereignty to the British Crown," he said.
"That sacred Aboriginal land is land that should rightfully be occupied by Aboriginal people.
"Now that this schism has developed between the Catholic Church and the people of St Mary's we will stand behind the people of St Mary's and we will ... defy any attempts to remove us."
Mr Watson said the land was "very sick" when the treaty was signed but is now healing.
"We firmly believe that now the healing process has begun," he said.
"There are now fish coming back to the river, there are birds coming back."
The first Aboriginal tent embassy was set up in Canberra in 1972 and there is now a network of them around the world, Mr Watson said.
Fr Kennedy said the embassy was a fantastic idea.
"They see that site as a sacred site for them," he said.
While the indigenous claim of sovereignty may be legally uncertain, the symbolic gesture was "very powerful", Fr Kennedy said.
Source : Cathnews
Church
Aboriginal Tent Embassy Plan for St Mary's
Thursday, 12 February 2009, 9:28 (EST)
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