Its Church Mission team offers a range of learning and development programmes.

All focus on parish formation.

In providing the programmes, the Archdiocesan Church Mission team responds to findings in the archdiocese's 2017 synod and the 2021-24 global synod.

Both synods highlighted the need for lay people's formation.

The formation opportunities for lay parishioners have had to be carefully thought through.

The archdiocese says they must be accessible and flexible while covering academic, spiritual and pastoral dimensions.

Parish formation opportunities in 2024

The Church Mission team programmes include workshops on topics such as marriage enrichment, the teachings of Pope Francis, hospitality and developing pastoral plans - among others.

The module 'Creating and Implementing a Parish Pastoral Plan' aims to help communities in the post-Covid environment, the Mission teams says.

That module also aims to help parish communities that have had to amalgamate, given that Parish Councils are feeling the need to revisit their pastoral plans or create new ones to meet parish needs better and become more mission-focused.

"Whichever course or courses people choose to attend, they can expect to receive pastoral and spiritual formation and be equipped to serve in ministry" the Mission team says.

Those running the courses are very well qualified.

Programme engagement

There are various ways to engage with the programmes.

Parish leadership teams should contact the Church Mission team directly to organise a locally-based workshop for their community.

The team also runs public workshops during the year.

For other courses - such as the "Called & Equipped" new formation programme for lay people in Parishes - the parish leadership teams recommend potential candidates from their parish communities to the Church Mission team.

The Mission team says the workshops are usually a one-evening seminar or perhaps a day with the Parish Council regarding pastoral planning.

Called & Equipped can be taken in one or two years.

The Launch Out programme usually takes five to eight years and is a major commitment.

The Mission team stresses it is important that people realise Called & Equipped and Launch Out are both complete programmes.

Success stories

The various programmes are definitely paying off for the archdiocese's Catholics.

The Mission team points to three parishes that started working through their Parish Pastoral Plans this year.

They are enthusiastically implementing a new vision for their parishes.

There are 31 Launch Out graduates and six current candidates. All graduates are engaged in active ministry.

22 of the graduates are or have been employed by the Church.

Source

• Supplied

So said Francesca Albanese to a Catholic audience in Wellington recently.

Albanese is the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

But the Israel-Palestine issue has a simple solution, she says.

Israel needs to end its military occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza.

An international peacekeeping force then needs to move in to protect civilians for as long as it takes to reach a permanent solution.

Albanese said this "two-state solution" was where the international consensus lay, but that could not happen until Israel ended its occupation of the Palestinian territories it seized in the 1967 war with its neighbours.

Governments around the world needed to stop tip-toeing about the issue - they need to pressure Israel to withdraw.

"It's very simple. The solution cannot start without ending the military occupation, removing the soldiers and tanks.

"There should be an international force there to ensure stability and peace for the Palestinians and protection of the Israeli settlers [in the West Bank] until they withdraw and give back the land they have stolen.

"We need to go to a place where these two peoples live in peace and, when it happens, it will be the most beautiful place in the world. That is my hope."

Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, was appointed the Special Rapporteur in May last year. She has been making a brief visit to New Zealand.

The Ecology, Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington invited her to speak about the bloody war between Israel and Hamas.

It started on 7 October when Hamas, the group which controls Gaza, attacked Israeli civilians on a public holiday, killing 1200 and taking more than 200 hostages.

The Israeli response of declaring war on Hamas has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with thousands killed and more than a million people displaced.

"The seventh of October has been a ground zero moment" Albanese said. "The status quo between Israel and Palestine is gone. Nothing will ever be the same."

Israel had the right to self-defence but it was illegal to wage war against a civilian population.

"It is an inferno on Earth. I don't know anyone who would identify with the massacre Hamas did, but Palestinian civilians should not have to atone for what Hamas did."

The war was apocalyptic she said. Twelve thousand people had died and almost 30,000 injured.

Some 1.6 million people had been displaced by Israel, emptying 60 per cent of Gaza's small area. The UN had lost a record 100 staff. Forty-five journalists had been killed.

Gaza had been bombed for 46 days, with entire residential areas flattened. There was no water, no food. People were recharging their phones from bicycle-wheel generators.

"An ethnic cleansing will happen if Israel is not stopped" she said. "You can understand my shock when I hear Western leaders struggle to say the one word that can stop all this - ceasefire."

Mons. Gerard Burns of the Archdiocese Ecology, Justice and Peace Commission said Albanese's particular knowledge of the issues was helpful for local Catholics' understanding, preaching and action.

"As members of Christian Churches we have a special interest in what happens in the lands Jesus walked" he said.

"The conflict in those lands over the last 100 years, but especially since 1948, is deeply painful for all involved. It has also been a special concern of the UN, being so closely connected to the first steps of that organisation.

"The land is important to three great faiths which is why the UN, in 1947, proposed a special status for Jerusalem and Bethlehem."

Footnote: The Catholic Church and bishops of Aotearoa NZ have been concerned about events in the Holy Land. These links are to recent commentaries and articles.

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The sale includes the now-empty Catholic Centre, the Archbishop's residence, the parish house, and surrounds.

Earlier, Wel-Com, the Archdiocesan newspaper, reported that PwC is managing the process.

Ideally placed and considered one of the best locations in Wellington, the property is across the street from Parliament, close to the Central Business District, and up the road from the city's train station and central bus hub.

The Archdiocese says the site is underutilised commercially, so one objective is to unlock some of the capital tied up in the property.

The Hill Street site has been with the Archdiocese since the time of the first bishop, Philippe Viard.

Wel-Com reports that the property is considered very important for the archdiocese's future.

Poor seismic report

The Catholic Centre closed in April 2022 after a seismic report rated some key structural elements at just 20 per cent of the New Building Standards (NBS).

"Once the peer review is received, we will be in a position to make decisions around whether the Catholic Centre can be strengthened and we can one day return there, or whether our move out of the Centre needs to be permanent" said then Archdiocesan General Manager John Prendergast.

The peer review assessed the building at 40% NBS.

At the time, Prendergast said that the archdiocese's offices would be back on the site and incorporated within any redevelopment the archdiocese undertakes.

Prendergast has since resigned and taken up a position at Trust House in the Wairarapa.

The staff who worked in the former Archdiocesan headquarters now work at 204 Thorndon Quay.

The archdiocese has a four-year lease on the Thorndon Quay property with the right of renewal for another year.

CathNews understands several developers have expressed interest in the Hill Street development.

Sources

• CathNews
• Wel-Com