FAITH, POLITICS AND RECONCILIATION - CATHOLICISM AND THE POLITICS OF INDIGENEITY

This is a unique book, written by a New Zealand Maori academic, comparing indigenous policy in the Roman Catholic Church in Australia and New Zealand. The story of the Roman Catholic Church's involvement in current and historical indigenous policy debate in Australia and New Zealand is the story of inconsistent and often confused application of a perceived constant religious truth to complex and controversial questions of public policy. The book is an account, is an attempt, to make that story clear where at times it has been obscure, even to the Catholic Church itself; and to assess the circumstances of failure, as much as to define occasions of success. It is a story of a relationship between religious ideas and political decisions.