Plenary Council 2020 Update

Welcome to PlenaryPost The Plenary Council process so far has been an exercise in listening, in dialogue, in conversation -- in changing the way the People of God communicate with one another, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It has also been a process of numbers. Over 10 months, at least 222,000 people chose to be part of that period of listening and dialogue with one another. Their voices were represented in the 17,457 submissions that were received by the National Centre for Pastoral Research. From those submissions, quantitative and qualitative analysis pinpointed around 120 subject areas. And after a period of analysis, prayer and discernment, six National Themes for Discernment emerged, and will now shape the next stage of the Council's preparation period: Listening and Discernment. There's a lot more information below on the National Themes for Discernment, the process so far and going forward, and on initiatives around the country to start quickly on this new stage. At Pentecost, the Plenary Council website was also re-launched, with new material added to help people understand the National Themes for Discernment and how they can continue to be involved in the second phase of preparation.

Video: The National Themes for Discernment Click here for video FacilitatorFocus: Listening, dialogue and prayer have carried us to this point by Lana Turvey-Collins It is a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit that the Church in Australia has reached this point in the journey toward the Plenary Council. As we begin the second stage of preparation – Listening and Discernment – I have been thinking about what has brought us here. The past 18 months have been an experience of personal growth and professional inspiration and I am deeply grateful to every person who is a part of shaping this journey. Each person who has given time, prayer, skills and energy to any part of the Plenary Council journey is invaluable. Thank you from all of us here at the Facilitation Team. Earlier this year, Dr Trudy Dantis and her team at the National Centre for Pastoral Research began reading all of your submissions and then, in late May, the Bishops Commission joined by the Executive Committee and the Facilitation Team came together at St Peter Canisius House in Pymble, NSW, for three days of listening to Trudy and her team explain to us what all of you had shared so generously. They were days of deep prayer, open-hearted listening and intense conversation that I found personally very challenging and profoundly faith-filled. The six National Themes for Discernment that resulted from your submissions and those days of prayer provide for all of us a framework for taking the next step forward together. Now we are challenged to look forward, to face some “big questions”, to listen to one another even more deeply as we discern: How is God calling us to be a Christ-centred Church in Australia that is missionary and evangelising; inclusive, participatory and synodal; prayerful and Eucharistic; humble, healing and merciful? How are we called to be a joyful, hope-filled, servant community, one that is open to conversion, renewal and reform? CuriosityCorner We will address a new question in each e-newsletter. To catch up on previous editions, you can check out the Plenary Council FAQ page. If you have a question, email it to us and we will include it in future editions of PlenaryPost. The question for today is… What will be on the agenda for the Plenary Council in 2020? The agenda for the Plenary Council will be developed over the coming 12 months (2019-2020) in response to the fruits of discernment. During this second stage of preparation for the Plenary Council, Listening and Discernment, every person is invited to take time to read and reflect on the responses given during the Listening and Dialogue stage, to listen to all the many and diverse voices of the People of God in Australia. Each of the National Themes for Discernment will have a Working Group established and it will be the groups' task to write the working papers that will be the foundation for the agenda for the first session of the Plenary Council. TalkTheology How Pope Francis calls us to mission by Fr Noel Connolly SSC, Plenary Council Facilitation Team Friedrich Nietzsche, the atheistic, “death of God” philosopher, was fond of taunting his Christian friends with: “I’ll believe in your redeemer when you look more redeemed.” Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium makes a similar challenge. He asks, what kind of missionaries are Christians who look like “Lent without Easter” (6), or people “who have just come back from a funeral” (10), “querulous and disillusioned pessimists, sourpusses” (85), “defeated generals” (96)? He prays, “May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelisers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ.” (10) So, even at a time when the Church has never been more criticised and questioned, it is important that we rediscover our joy in being Christian and share this with our secular brother and sister Australians. We may never be a perfect Church, but hopefully we can come across as a more attractive, “redeemed” and servant Church. Click here to read Fr Noel's full article. Click here for previous post