Australian Catholic Church to hold first Plenary Council in 80 years

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-03/australia-church-first-plenary-council-80-years.html

 By Richard Marsden

 Pope Francis has given his approval for the Catholic Church in Australia to hold its first Plenary Council – the most significant national ecclesiastical gathering – in more than 80 years.

The Council in 2020 will address the way forward for the Church in Australia in light of the challenges it faces in contemporary society.

Discernment on the way ahead

Delegates from the 34 “local churches” of Australia will gather across two sessions in 2020 and 2021 to enable deeper discernment, further learning, and dialogue. The process begins at Pentecost 2018 and will help form the agenda for the Council.

In a statement by the Australian Bishops Conference, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, chair of the Bishops Commission for the Plenary Council, said the gathering “will be a unique opportunity for people to come together and listen to God in all the ways God speaks to us, and in particular by listening to one another as together we discern what God is asking of us at this time – a time when the Church in Australia is facing significant challenges.”

He added: “We sincerely hope the preparation and celebration of the Plenary Council is a time when all parts of the Church listen to and dialogue with one another as we explore together how we might answer the question: ‘What do you think God is asking of us in Australia?’”

“Seize the opportunity”

In approving the Plenary Council, Pope Francis also endorsed the bishops’ nomination of Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth as the president of the Plenary Council. The Archbishop said: “I encourage all Catholics, whether devout or disillusioned, fervent or frustrated, to seize this opportunity to speak what is on their minds and in their hearts.”

A series of planning meetings has already taken place in which faith-filled people across the country have shared their hopes for the Church.

Website launch

The bishops of Australia have launched a website for the Plenary Council to help people better understand how they can participate in the discussion process. The website can be found at plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au.

Decisions made at the Plenary Council will become binding for the Catholic Church in Australia, subject to the approval of the Holy See.

 

Similar Posts

“Banging on about God”

Articles
3 Comments

Brian Fahy shares some thoughts provoked by his memories of his mother’s parish in Mayo. “The Church (in Bangor) is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus …. My own little church in Lancashire, where I grew up and went to mass is also dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so I was very pleased to discover that my mother’s place of worship carried the same name and the same message of love.”

Vatican II; the ‘sure compass’ of Pope Francis

Articles, Pope Francis
1 Comment

Richard R. Gaillardetz writing in the National Catholic Reporter maintains that Pope Francis’ correcting Cardinal Sarah’s misrepresentation of ‘Magnum Principium’ is but “another concrete confirmation of the pope’s single-minded intention to realize the council’s reformist agenda. He may be the first post-conciliar pope not to have played a role at Vatican II, but no pope has more comprehensively summoned forth the council’s comprehensive call for reform and renewal.”

The War against Francis

Articles
12 Comments

Brendan Hoban, in his Western People column, writes about tensions that exist in church.
“While the big battle – and battle it is – is going on in Rome, there are more minor skirmishes taking place at national, diocesan and parish level, between those convinced of the need to introduce sweeping changes in the Church’s laws and practices and those holding on grimly to the past.”
“It is difficult to see how there can be any agreement between sides that are mutually and diametrically opposed to one another – sometimes to the point of bitterness – and every reforming effort by Francis is being fought tooth and nail, even reforms that are necessary for the very survival of the faith in parishes all over the world.”

Sharing an intimate act of love

Articles
2 Comments

Chris McDonnell suggests that the Washing of Feet on Holy Thursday is in danger of being seen as “seen as a liturgical dumb show with little meaning other than a mimed re-enactment of the gospel of John.”
“…we shouldn’t regard the Washing of Feet as an action related only to the liturgy of Holy Thursday, but rather as an action that can and should be shared on other occasions of prayer………. The Washing of Feet is an action of gentle kindness, an act of service and an intimate act of love …..We shape communities not by being the audience at events but by our actions in a shared act of love. Messy, untidy, with water spills during washing and the drying of feet with a towel afterwards, but that’s life, that’s how it is. .”

One Comment

  1. Frances Burke says:

    The Catholic Church in Australia is in crisis. I have no doubt that its active role in the cover-up of child sexual abuse – which has been thoroughly investigated and documented by the Royal Commission, whose findings are freely available to read online – has contributed significantly to this crisis.

    Yesterday, on the other side of the globe, the American police have had to take the extraordinary step of procuring search warrants to raid a Bishops home. This is ‘due to a lack of co-operation on the part of the dioceses related to an ongoing clerical sex abuse investigation’.

    https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/police-search-michigan-bishops-home-citing-lack-of-cooperation-in-sex-abuse-investigation-29991?platform=hootsuite

    Is this Bishop living in the real world? Does he have one ounce of compassion for victim/survivors? How big is this can of worms that is being opened at the moment?

    Reply

Join the Discussion

Keep the following in mind when writing a comment

  • Your comment must include your full name, and email. (email will not be published). You may be contacted by email, and it is possible you might be requested to supply your postal address to verify your identity.
  • Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Comments containing vulgarities, personalised insults, slanders or accusations shall be deleted.
  • Keep to the point. Deliberate digressions don't aid the discussion.
  • Including multiple links or coding in your comment will increase the chances of it being automati cally marked as spam.
  • Posts that are merely links to other sites or lengthy quotes may not be published.
  • Brevity. Like homilies keep you comments as short as possible; continued repetitions of a point over various threads will not be published.
  • The decision to publish or not publish a comment is made by the site editor. It will not be possible to reply individually to those whose comments are not published.