Another year - a time to reflect

Well, today is my birthday and Sunday was the last Sunday of the Church year.  So it is a natural time for me to stand back and reflect and take count. 

To be honest neither has been the immediate impetus for my sitting down and writing this at such at an early time in the morning.  They serve rather as the context for my motivation which comes from watching last night's Q&A on the Australian Network.  Q&A is a weekly political and social forum put on by the ABC where politicians, thinkers, writers, actors and others respond to the questions of the public audience. 

The issue once again was asylum seekers and the government's handling of it.  One member of the night's panel, a playwright, spoke like this on the issue. 
  "Not enough Australians care enough about these poor bastards to make a difference."
I would have gone one step further and said that not enoiugh Australians seem to know anything beyond their own limited experience of life and so they don't even know about these poor bastards in any real and rational way.  They only know what they hear and read. 

Then the other side was expressed.  It went like this. 
  The government is about stopping people smugglers and controlling who comes to Australia. 
Both stances may be admirable and justifiable when looking at the role of government but they just lack any sense of compassion. It is just a blatant, public presentation of the party line without any expressed sense of being with these poor bastards. 

Senator Penny Wong was there from the government side.  When questioned about another present and pressing social issue - gay marriage - she was full of compassion.  On asylum seekers, her public demeanour was the party line - people smugglers and controlling the borders - with a basic lack of compassion. 

I ask where is the consistency?  How do you be so full of compassion on one issue of social justice and so lacking on another?  What is it that we don't get on asylum seekers and refugees?  Or maybe we do get it and so we act in response according to specific interests.  They just aren't always the interests of the underdog. 

The now deceased but great Cardinal Bernadin of the US Church was the one who noted that all social justice issues lie together.  One cannot be looked at in isolation from another.  His image was that of the seamless garment which cannot be dissected to be fixed.  It has to repaired as a total garment or not at all.