Formation Events

Student Volunteering at PFC

On Thursday 18 October, 40 students from Kildare Ministries schools attended a working bee at Presentation Family Centre.  They rolled their sleeves up and got their hands dirty shovelling mulch, weeding, scrubbing and sorting to help PFC prepare for its busy summer program.  Thank you to Ishti Griffiths and staff at PFC for your warm hospitality and for sharing the story of your wonderful centre with students.  It is always such a joy to see our schools and community works in collaboration.

Trustees Meeting

Plenary Discussion with Lana Turvey-Collins

For those of you present at the Conference, you will remember that our guest speaker Massimo Faggioli encouraged us to have a voice in the Plenary Council so that we might have some influence in the future direction of the Catholic Church in Australia. In your feedback and evaluation, many of you indicated that you would be interested in pursuing further conversations about this and since the conference the Trustees have engaged in dialogue with Archbishop Coleridge and Bishop Long as well as Lana Turvey- Collins, Plenary Council Facilitator.

The Trustees are encouraging our ministries to become involved. In endorsing the Plenary Council, Pope Francis said that he hoped “through patient dialogue and faith-filled discernment, the conciliar journey will confirm the Catholics in Australia in a spirit of unity and missionary discipleship…enabling them to be a leaven of holiness, justice and reconciliation in today’s rapidly changing society”.  The call for respectful listening and dialogue is laudable, however, to be heard we need to say something, we need to engage. 

In this light, the Trustees invite you to

1. Subscribe to the website here: http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/
2. Take an hour to engage your staff, Board and Stewardship Council and even students in conversation through a process outlined here: http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/resources/have-your-say/
3. What is important is that the Council hears the voice of the ordinary people, the people who are marginalised in our community, the voice of the youth and so on. Therefore, you are encouraged to find creative ways to engage students, their parents and people in our community who you know have distanced themselves from the church, even if this means modifying the processes outlined on their web page.

Please keep in mind that responses need to be completed by Ash Wednesday 6th Mach 2019, after which the Council uses the responses it has to prepare papers for the Plenary Council. We learnt that organisations like Kildare Ministries will be encouraged to nominate a representative for the Council itself. This is not to say that we will be selected but that a least we might be seen as a potential contributor. All the more reason to engage with this first stage! Our Trustees, Principals and Mangers of Community Works will engage with this discernment before the end of the year.