Hundreds of people responded to the invitation. Over 100 volunteers fed them in the spirit of community and charity.

The Archbishop, who joined the diners for the meal, spoke of his great joy at being able to offer and share a meal with them in the shadow of St Mary's Cathedral - which is Sydney's mother church — to share a common humanity.

"For me, it's such a special joy to share a meal with you and offer food and hospitality to you in this sacred heart of Sydney" he told those gathered.

Following the Pope's example

Fr Peter Smith had the idea for Street Feast after Pope Francis first observed the World Day of the Poor on 19 November 2017.

His theme for that day was "Let us love, not with words but with deeds".

What started as a meal has become "a great celebration for our city" Smith said.

It grows every year.

Smith's humble sausage sizzle and bread roll has turned into a feast.

Groups like St Merkorious Charity have been providing "a true feast, and groups like Payce Foundation who give us an enormous amount of funding" he said.

Stalls from charities like Vinnies abound. It's "just growing and growing" Smith said.

A great vibe

Mark Bampton, one of the guests at the meal, says he accepted the Sydney Archdiocese's invitations for food and fraternity.

"It's a great vibe here today" he said. "It's good to see so many people here. The volunteers have come up and have been with us. It makes you feel seen and loved".

St Merkorious Charity, which makes 4,000 meals a week for the elderly, homeless and disabled, oversaw the food provision at Street Feast. They says they made "about 500 kebabs, 500 falafel and lots of food and beautiful salads".

"It's an amazing event. And this is what we're here for. To put smiles on people's faces and show that we're here to support them in their hardship" Bampton said.

Other invited guests such as the Federal Member for Sydney were overjoyed at witnessing the spirit of generosity on display.

"It's really at the heart of Jesus' message. It's about love for everyone. I'm so impressed with the generosity of the people who come, their generosity to one another. The generosity of the organisations and the volunteers who come out to serve lunch, to be here to show fellowship. It's wonderful to see and be a part of."

When he finished eating, Bampton thanked the hundreds who made today possible for people "doing it tough" and especially "the church for all the goodwill".

We must all give up some of our time to stop and talk to the city's vulnerable, to get to know them and realise the struggles that they go through" Smith said.

"Jesus constantly went out to the margins. And I think that's what we need to do as a Church as well."

Source

• Catholic Weekly

One suggested option is to establish continental advisory and decision-making bodies with their own rules alongside or in addition to the existing national bishops' conferences.

This authority-sharing might even involve deciding on issues such as priestly celibacy.

Paolo Ruffini, the Vatican's head of communications, outlined the ongoing discussions.

Key topics include the relationship between local churches, fostering communion within and between bishops' conferences, and exploring the possibility of granting bishops' conferences greater doctrinal authority and local authority over practice.

However, a senior member of the Synod warned, "A fragmented faith also means a fragmented church!"

Call for concrete change

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod's content coordinator, emphasised the importance of sharing the experience of "synodality" with all church members.

"If we keep this treasure only for ourselves, we transform it into a privilege rather than a service to the whole church" he said on 15 October as discussions on the third and final part of the working document began.

Cardinal Hollerich urged participants to propose concrete changes to the Church's institutions, asking -

"How do we need to rethink our institutions? Which institutional and organisational forms need to be changed and how?"

He highlighted the need to consider different local and cultural conditions while maintaining the unity of the worldwide Catholic Church.

A global perspective with local roots

The debate on decentralisation has highlighted the importance of balancing global unity with local diversity.

Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini reminded members that faith is always practised within specific cultural contexts.

"If the ‘place' of the Church is always a concrete space-time of gathering, the journey of the Gospel in the world goes from threshold to threshold: it shuns being static, but also any ‘holy alliance' with the cultural contexts of the age" she said. "It inhabits them and is led by its life principle — the Spirit of the Lord — to transcend them."

Limit the scope of local and cultural universal faith

Despite the push for inclusivity, some church leaders have expressed concerns over the potential implications of decentralisation.

Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP voiced his apprehension, warning against the idea of "reinventing" the Catholic faith.

"We cannot ‘reinvent the Catholic faith' or ‘teach a different Catholicism in different countries'" he said this week in an interview with conservative-leaning EWTN News Nightly.

The Archbishop acknowledged that our understanding of the deposit of faith has developed and will continue to develop but told the programme that he is "very concerned" that Catholics "hold on to the deposit of faith, the apostolic tradition".

Fisher wants limits on the scope of the ‘local and cultural' elements in a universal Catholic Church.

Fisher took over from Cardinal George Pell as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, NSW and was recently overlooked in being elevated to the position of Cardinal.

Sources

• Katholisch.de
• CathNews NZ
• Our Sunday Visitor
• CNA
• Crux

Adams was a special guest speaker at the weekend conference which included discussions, workshops and inspiring testimonies.

Transforming parishes

The conference organisers aimed to equip participants from dioceses in Sydney, New South Wales and even New Zealand to transform their parishes into vibrant hubs of faith and service.

Sydney's Archbishop Anthony Fisher (middle) challenged participants to "rise to the occasion" in renewing their parishes.

"Creating communities of the faithful requires concerted effort by all if parishes are to be powerhouses of evangelisation" he said.

Adams' contribution

In his session, Adams spoke of leading his parish through Christchurch's post-earthquake trials and recovery.

Participants saw images of his beloved church reduced to rubble.

They heard how the seven-year trudge after the earthquakes saw his parish descend into a "dull pessimism" and his flock "masquerading in their faith".

He offered some practical advice based on his successful parish renewal experience which included fostering an atmosphere of spiritual growth and community engagement.

Inspiring a faithful fusion of clergy and laity, of vision and mission, to work together to foster a culture change in his parish needed fundamental change.

They started with creating 20-strong parish "project teams" he said.

The teams met weekly to begin the process of parish renewal.

He also created "leadership pipelines". The purpose of these was to identify parish leaders.

Another group encouraged parents of children preparing to receive the sacraments to complete the Alpha programme.

Deeper conversions occurred in a re-engaged parish that "became truly Catholic".

Baptisms grew from 30 to 90. Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults groups began to flourish.

Adams discussed energising parishes and initiating renewal in more detail at other workshops.

Participant responses

" As Bishop Adams so eloquently shared, we all have a part to play in fostering a welcoming and compelling environment in which Christ's love is personally encountered" said the Director of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation.

"It will be good to incorporate all the things Bishop John mentioned to open the doors and explore other ways people can come to church" a participant said.

"There is a real culture change ...  a little bit of revolution in our faith to reach out to our young people and older people to bring Christ to absolutely everyone. As people, not projects. And I learned that today." 

A young woman was encouraged to see so many young people in attendance.  

"We are the future of the church, and it's we who need to lead renewal in our churches, to experience the Eucharist and the joy of Mass ... after today, I am more confident to be what my parish needs me to be."

Bishop Richard Umbers thought it was an enriching day for everyone.

"Today people were very raw and real about sharing what they believe and that's what is missionary. There's a solidarity in that, in the mission. We're all in it and today has been a real sharing of faith."

Source

• The Catholic Weekly

It is "an important contribution to the efforts to establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission - as in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada" former High Court of Australia judge Michael Kirby commented.

He considers Pell's initial conviction was "a miscarriage of justice".

Witch hunting

Last month at the Mass marking the first anniversary of Pell's death, Archbishop Anthony Fisher described Pell's conviction and imprisonment as a result of "the corrupt Victorian legal system" following a media, political and policy witch hunt.

Pell's convictions for historical child sexual abuse were quashed by the High Court, in a seven-nil single judgment in April 2020.

"When the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney and a former High Court judge criticise the legal process in one of the most important cases in Australian criminal law, it would be expected that this would be regarded as news" Henderson says.

He expected interest from the ABC, Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian Australia - all active participants in "the Pell media pile-on" - to be interested.

"But no. They all threw the switch to effective censorship."

Henderson says 120 journalists were "engaged in the media pile-on against Pell.

"Not one has come back to me claiming that they were misquoted and/or sought changes to the text."

Media failure

When Henderson's updated edition was released, Fr Frank Brennan SJ described the journalists' failure to defend their work as "intellectual cowardice".

Following Pell's death, the High Court's judgment saw some media drop references to Pell's alleged paedophilia.

Instead, they focused on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse findings.

Henderson says its findings regarding Pell were hostile to the Cardinal.

Cardinal Pell did not act, when in a position of authority, to protect children from paedophile Catholic priests and brothers, the Commission said.

But Henderson says no forensic or documentary evidence supported that finding. Rather, the Commission found it was "inconceivable" or "unlikely" that Pell had not acted in a certain way.

"That's not evidence, it's opinion" says Henderson.

"Moreover, the findings were inconsistent in two important instances. It was a shoddy piece of work."

State education hid paedophiles too

Despite having time, money and resources, the Commission did not undertake any case studies into paedophilia in government schools.

However, after the Commission closed in 2017, Tasmania's and Victoria's state governments have been investigating historical child sexual abuse in state schools.

Evidence shows that, like religious schools, state education departments concealed child sexual abuse and moved male teachers from school to school.

A bad name sticks

Last May, Commission chairman Peter McClellan wrote about Pell in a foreword to a book.

He said Pell told the Commission the Catholic Church did not understand the rape of a child was a crime but regarded it as a moral failure.

That claim, repeated on TV, is false says Henderson.

Pell wrote to the Commission in 2014 and, in oral testimony later, called child sex abuse "crimes".

In 1996 while Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell established the Melbourne Response to deal with child sexual abuse.

"The archdioceses and dioceses in the rest of Australia created Towards Healing the following year" Henderson says.

"The governments of Victoria and Tasmania set up their inquiries into state schools a quarter of a century later.

"The other states and the territories have not done so."

Source

• The Catholic Weekly

The event marks it as one of the largest Australian contingents in the history of the gathering.

With just weeks remaining until the August 1-6 celebrations, a group of 25 World Youth Day pilgrimage coordinators recently gathered in Sydney, while others joined the meeting online for a final preparation day.

"This was a great chance for us all to pray together and also to encourage the leaders to remember that they themselves will be on pilgrimage," said Archbishop Christopher Prowse, chair of the Bishops Commission for Evangelisation, Laity and Ministry.

"These faith-filled Catholics, some of whom have attended several previous World Youth Days, can be an example of prayer, presence and accompaniment - and not be all business, all the time."

In addition to the week-long event in Portugal, numerous groups of young people from the Oceania region will embark on pilgrimages and retreats to significant locations such as the Holy Land, Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, Avila and Assisi.

The groups are being supported by World Youth Day organisers and Australian dioceses who are providing financial assistance to ensure their participation.

1,000 from Sydney going to Lisbon

Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP leads 1,000 followers from Sydney, the city's largest ever contingent, alongside Sydney Auxiliary Bishops Daniel Meagher and Richard Umbers.

Archbishop Fisher told nearly 400 pilgrims at a Fidelis formation event that they "will come back to Sydney, to your lives, families, friends, education and work, hopefully as saints-in-the-making, truer believers in God, better lovers of your neighbours, on fire with the Holy Spirit."

Protests may impact Pope's visit

On another note, there are concerns that planned protests and strikes in Portugal during August will impact World Youth Day and the visit of Pope Francis for the event.

The pope will also hold a Mass, visit the Fatima sanctuary some 130 km (81 miles) north of Lisbon and meet victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Portuguese teachers, railway workers, police officers and garbage collectors are taking action in an effort to force the government to raise wages and improve their working conditions.

Interior Minister Jose Luis Carneiro has said there will be enough officers to ensure safety at the events involving the pope, so "security will not be affected in any way."

Sources

Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference

Catholic Weekly

US News & World Report

CathNews New Zealand