Plenary Council

Applications open for Chair and Members for the Six National Themes Discernment and Writing Groups. Are you interested and available?

The Plenary Council has opened applications for the discernment and writing groups that will play a critical role in helping the Church move forward in considering the Council’s six National Themes for Discernment. Source: ACBC.

The themes invite people to consider how God is calling the People of God to be a Christ-centred Church in Australia that is:

• Missionary and Evangelising;
• Inclusive, Participatory and Synodal;
• Prayerful and Eucharistic;
• Humble, Healing and Merciful;
• A Joyful, Hope-Filled and Servant Community;
• Open to Conversion, Renewal and Reform.

Six groups will now be formed – one each to focus on those National Themes for Discernment – to review the responses made during the Plenary Council’s opening Listening and Dialogue stage, including people’s questions and stories.

The groups will also consider their relevant theme in light of Church teaching, tradition, Scripture and drawing from contemporary best practice within and outside the Church.

Each discernment and writing group will be composed of people — lay, religious, priests, and bishops — gifted with faith, knowledge, skills and attributes suited to the role.

Plenary Council president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB said there are many talented, faithful people across the country who will be able to make a valuable contribution to the next phase of the process.

He said while the discernment and writing groups will have a particular and important role in the coming months, the broader Catholic community will again be called to take part in the national process.

“There will be opportunities for groups of people in parishes, schools, Catholic ministries, homes and other settings to also pray together, to reflect and seek to discern how we, the people of God in Australia, are being called to be a Christ-centred Church in those many critical areas,” Archbishop Costelloe said.

Applications for the places on the discernment and writing groups close on Monday, 22 July 2019.

Details: www.plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au

From Father Richard Thomson