Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It's my honour to be able to take this opportunity to stand in the parliament to formally express on the record my condolences on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis. His passing was something mourned by me, my family, by many of my Catholic brothers and sisters across the world and, indeed, by many non-Catholics as well, recognising the important leadership role globally that Pope Francis provided not just as a faith leader for the many Catholics across the globe but also for his moral leadership in many complex issues confronting people of all backgrounds across the earth.

Francis's papacy was one clearly of humility, of progress, of fighting corruption and of a love for those that are less fortunate. Indeed, one of the things that really set him apart when he became Pope was the way in which he chose to forgo many of the traditional trappings of the office of the Bishop of Rome. It was through that humility and simplicity that he gained not just love but respect from those across the globe—and not just those of the Catholic faith. Pope Francis compelled us, though, to focus on the common good as a central and unifying principle of our social ethics. He had a compassion that embraced all humanity and he urged all of us to see Christ in our neighbour.

That focus on the concept of the common good and on social justice, as a Catholic, is something that I have borne with me not just as a core teaching of the Catholic Church but also as a guiding principle in my engagement with politics. It is something that I think has led me to why I am a member of the Labor Party. Indeed, it's something that I think we have seen in the impact that he had across the globe, being able to talk to and encourage people across the globe to focus on what we have in common with one another and how acting in the common good is in all of our interests.

There is a seminal teaching in the Catholic Church from the late 19th century, Rerum novarum, which is probably the most classic exposition of social justice teaching. Regularly, popes have issued their own, similar encyclicals, and Pope Francis issued his in Laudato si'. In it he said many things, but there is one part I want to place on the record as encapsulating that concept of social justice and our shared humanity and the work that it is incumbent on all of us here. He said:

157. Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society and the development of a variety of intermediate groups, applying the principle of subsidiarity.

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Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.

It is those concepts that I think leave a lot for all of us in this place as we act as representatives of our communities and act in the interest of the nation as a whole; they can provide us with guidance in the work that we do. For that, we thank him and we recognise his important leadership role not just as a faith leader in the Catholic Church, not just as a head of state on the international stage but as a moral leader across the globe. We acknowledge and we support this condolence motion.

May eternal rest be granted to him, O Lord, and the perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

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