Catholic Identity & Mission News
Welcome back to Term 4!
The days are longer and the sun is beginning to shine a bit more, some staff and our Year 12 students have returned to onsite learning and the end of lockdown is looming – things are looking up! These are also exciting times for our Church as the First Assembly of the Plenary Council, a special 10-day period of discernment and discussion about the Catholic Church in Australia, has just concluded.
The Plenary Council was announced in 2016 and, according to the Bishop of Parramatta, Bishop Vincent Long, ‘the initial phase of listening drew nearly 220,000 people from across Australia and 17,500 individual and group submissions’. Bishop Long wrote a powerful piece about the then upcoming Council back in June. He stated that he hoped that the Church would embrace an ‘inner conversion and a radical revolution of our mindsets and actions’. He wrote honestly of the challenges faced by the Church and touched on these again in his Homily on the opening day of the Council. He preached that, ‘We are at a point in history where all the indications point to a perfect storm: the sexual abuse crisis, the near-total collapse of active participation, loss of credibility, a shrinking pool of clerical leadership etc.’ But he also noted, ‘It is providential that the Plenary Council begins on the feast of St Francis of Assisi. Let us pray that as a community of disciples, we once again take up the call issued to us as once to him: “Go and rebuild my Church that is falling into ruins”.’
Last week, we too at St. Peter’s College celebrated the life of St. Francis of Assisi, who is one of our House Patrons. Our students and staff heard this same message and how St. Francis took it both literally (he did indeed re-build the Church in which he heard this message from God!) and figuratively in that he started a ‘radical revolution’ of his own in rejecting virtually all of the cultural norms of his day and embraced poverty, a simplicity of living and an almost obsession with serving and helping all of God’s creation. St Francis’ story is one of hope, and so is the work of the Plenary Council.
The Council offers the opportunity to honestly reflect on how the ‘Church’ – the people of God – can respond to its successes, failures and challenges. The 278 members of the Council, including representatives from the Diocese of Sale including Bishop Greg Bennet and our own Fr Denis O’Bryan, prayed and reflected on 16 questions across six themes: Conversion, Prayers, Formation, Structures, Governance and Institutions. Among (many) other things, there was discussion and agreement on the importance of dialogue with the many ways that ‘Church’ is experienced around Australia, including with other religious traditions, and it was expressed that the Catholic Church would be ‘enlivened’ with the full participation of First Nations peoples.
As a Catholic community, we are encouraged to learn more about these and other vital issues that will reinvigorate and heal ourselves and our Church. I am on the organising committee of a public lecture held at Australian Catholic University each year, the ‘Walter Silvester Memorial Lecture’ and our lecture this year, at 5.30pm on Tuesday, 26 October 2021, promises to be very much related to these important themes: ‘Truth, Treaty and Transformation’ – A lecture delivered by Jason Kelly and Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO. The lecture is offered online this year, and a flier with the Zoom link is included in this newsletter. While we could not be at the Plenary Council ourselves, we have an important role to be a part of any changes we may like to see in the Church. Learning more about our First Nations brothers and sisters, and the journey towards reconciliation and recognition, with a Christian lens, is cause for optimism and progress. It may even be a first step towards that inner conversion and radical revolution that Bishop Long advocated!
Invitation to Attend the 2021 Walter Silvester Memorial Lecture - ‘Truth, Treaty and Transformation’
If you would like to attend, please click the invitation below:
Fiona McKenna
Deputy Principal - Catholic Identity & Mission