June (Web-only) 2000

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Leaders of nine Australian churches have completed a pilgrimage of reconciliation—a week-long 1,900-mile bus trip to Australia's remote heart.The pilgrimage—described as a "pilgrimage to the heart" and a chance for a "just reconciliation between races, cultures and churches"—began on June 4 in the Australian capital, Canberra, where the nation's head of state, the governor-general, Sir William Deane, bid farewell to the pilgrims. The journey wound up seven days later at Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) with an ecumenical Pentecost service in Australia's massive central desert, with the Mutitjulu people, traditional owners of the rock, one of the most powerful symbols of the nation and of indigenous spirituality.The journey came as Australians held the final celebrations for Corroboree 2000, a series of events marking a decade of reconciliation between the nation's indigenous and non-indigenous people. It also coincided with the churches' annual week of prayer for Christian unity. The church leaders' trek began a week after 200,000 people turned out in Sydney to "bridge the gap" between black and white Australians by walking together across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and ended on the day 55,000 people turned out for a similar walk in Adelaide, a city of just one million people.But it came also at a time of division: Australia's prime minister, John Howard, refuses to apologize to the Aboriginal people for their treatment since white settlement began more than 200 years ago, most notably the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families—the "stolen generations"—and their placement with white families in an attempt at assimilation, a process that continued until the 1970s. Prime Minister Howard maintains that ...