For Pope Francis and synod organizers, though, taking issues like women deacons or seminary training off the table will allow the 368 synod members to focus on their main task:

Finding ways to ensure "the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelisation of today's world rather than for her self-preservation."

Aims of the synod

Cardinal Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, cited that quote from Pope Francis' 2013 exhortation, "The Joy of the Gospel," when explaining what the three-year process of the synod on synodality was all about.

The working document for the synod's second session Oct. 2-27 summarised as its task:

"to identify the paths we can follow and the tools we might adopt in our different contexts and circumstances in order to enhance the unique contribution of each baptized person and of each Church in the one mission of proclaiming the Risen Lord and his Gospel to the world today."

In the preface to a book on synodality, published in the Vatican newspaper Sept. 24, Cardinal Grech wrote that the consultations held with Catholics around the world starting in 2021-2022:

"noted, not without disappointment, the problem of a church perceived as an exclusive and excluding community — the church of closed doors, customs and tolls to be paid."

"What needs to change is not the Gospel, but our way of proclaiming it," he said.

Defining synodality

The task of synod members — bishops, priests, members of religious orders and lay men and women — will be to better define or at least describe what is meant by synodality and to suggest ways to live out that vision.

Specifically, that means:

helping people listen to one another and to the Holy Spirit;

looking at relationships within the church and making sure they empower every member to take responsibility for the church's mission;

reaching out to people who have felt rejected or excluded by the church; increasing the accountability of people in leadership positions;

ensuring parish and diocesan councils are truly representative and listened to; and increasing opportunities for women to place their gifts and talents at the service of the church, including in leadership and decision-making.

While those goals make sense from an organisational point of view, the Catholic Church sees itself as the body of Christ, not an organisation, and it has traditionally tied the task of governance and decision-making to ordination.

How that authority is exercised can vary according to church, country and culture. Synod members come from more than 110 countries and from 15 of the Eastern Catholic churches.

Balancing unity and diversity

Part of the synod's discernment involves listening to each other and to the Holy Spirit in respecting people's traditions with a small "t," while also being open to something new.

Pope Francis' frequent observation that the Holy Spirit takes diversity and from it creates harmony, not uniformity, is a test for a church that is universal while also incredibly varied. Read more

• Cindy Wooden is a journalist with Catholic News Service.

Belgium is consistently rated as one of the world's most secular societies, but Francis insisted that doesn't mean we can stop trying to follow our template of service, mission and joy.

"We have moved from a Christianity located within a welcoming social framework to a ‘minority' Christianity, or better, a Christianity of witness" he said.

"This requires the courage to undertake an ecclesial conversion for enabling those pastoral transformations that concern our habitual ways of doing things, the language in which we express our faith, so that they are truly directed to evangelisation."

It's also important to appreciate diversity, he added. "Unity in the Church is not uniformity, but rather finding harmony within diversity!"

Priests role

Priests have a special role in transforming the Church, Francis said.

They will need to step forward courageously, away from past legacies and show they are "in love with Jesus Christ and are attentive to responding to the often implicit demands of the Gospel as they walk with God's holy people" Francis explained.

"In doing so, they are sometimes ahead of their people, sometimes in their midst and sometimes behind them" he said.

Catholic Luxembourg

During his one-day visit to Luxembourg last Thursday, Pope Francis addressed the Catholic community and spoke again about service, mission and joy.

"The spirit of the Gospel is a spirit of welcoming, of openness to everyone. It does not admit any kind of exclusion" he said.

"What drives us to be missionaries is our desire to make known to as many brothers and sisters as possible the joy of encountering Christ.

"Love moves us to proclaim the Gospel, which opens us to others ... This is a beautiful, healthy, joyful dynamism that we would do well to cultivate in ourselves and among those around us ..."

"Faith is full of joy" he told the Catholic community.

"It is a 'dance' because we know that we are children of a God who is our friend, who wants us to be happy and united, who rejoices above all in our salvation."

We should show our happiness and joy in the Gospel, which makes us believe and grow so much, Francis said.

Source

• Catholic Culture
• Crux

He said proclaiming the Gospel should "always be done with great respect and fraternal affection for all".

Fraternal living means "accepting one another and recognising each other as equals in our differences" Francis said.

It is important "in a world in which the tendency to divide, assert and provoke seems to be increasing".

Christian charity is necessary as it requires we get closer to one another, he said.

Evangelise with patience, Francis recommended.

Missionary work means accepting people's "dreams and desires for liberation and justice".

It means caring for people, supporting them and working with them, Francis explained. Including others in this work is necessary to "widen the net and the boundaries in a great, expanding dynamic of love".

"We need to let go of everything that stops us from getting in touch with those who are down and so lift them up and give them new hope" he said.

Indonesia

The Pope praised the Church in Indonesia for its fraternal tradition.

He said he could see the "openness with which it deals with the different realities that make it up and surround it, on a cultural, ethnic, social and religious level".

Papua New Guinea

In Papua New Guinea Francis heard of testimonies about the joy and difficulties catechists and clergy experience when evangelising people.

"Don't be discouraged by difficulties or misunderstandings, even when they arise in places where we especially do not want to encounter them" Francis said.

Among those who spoke was a woman who went to the Synod on Synodality last year.

Praising her, Francis said it is possible to show how beautiful it is to follow Jesus together and proclaim His gospel among people.

Sources

• UCA News
• english.katholisch.de

"My mission is to spread the power of the rosary and our faith to the world through my business," Henry says.

It all started a few years ago when a friend made Henry an Irish penal rosary made up of just one-decade, a type used when Catholicism was illegal in Ireland.

Henry was so enthralled with the gift he immediately started an online business (Rings of the Lord) making and selling classic and Irish penal rosaries.

He says the rosary his friend gave him is beautiful, though not fragile.

"You could tell there was a lot of care put into it just by holding it.

"The beads are brass, so it felt really nice just to hold it in your hands. It looked pretty at the same time.

"You didn't think it was going to break on you, and you wouldn't have to order four rosaries a year.

"I think that's what really stuck out to me, that you could have one rosary that's both durable and beautiful at the same time.

"We use amazing materials like bronze and brass and sterling silver. Our rosaries are all very, very durable. So once you buy a rosary, you're probably not going to need a new one for a very long time."

Irish penal rosaries

An Irish penal rosary looks much like a typical rosary.

There are several significant difference, though.

The rosaries were designed to avoid detection during the Irish penal period (1695-1829) when the practice of Catholicism was outlawed.

The arms of the crucifix are shorter than is typical. This makes the rosary fit more comfortably in a closed palm.

The ring on the end of the rosary looks like one worn as a piece of jewellery. It can be moved from one finger to the next, helping the user track the decades as the rosary is prayed.

History, faith and mission

Henry says he was immediately captivated by the penal rosary's history.

The symbolism of the crucifix represents the Passion, he says. Images along the crucifix mark out a ladder, spear, hammer, crown of thorns, chalice and the wounds of Christ.

While his business is still at a fledgling stage, Henry is selling rosaries across the world, getting on with his mission to spread the Catholic faith.

Henry has also begun creating a rosary map - tracking rosary miracles and saints with a particular connection to the rosary.

He said the map, which is still in its early stages, was inspired by the Eucharistic miracle map maintained by Blessed Carlo Acutis. This was the Italian Catholic youth who died in 2006 at 15 years of age and is best known for documenting Eucharistic miracles and cataloguing them on a website he created.

Source

• The Pillar

I personally hope the synod deals with these issues, but making these topics the principal focus of the synod would be a big mistake.

They certainly are not central to Pope Francis's mind, nor are they central to the "Instrumentum laboris," or working paper, that will guide the initial meetings of the synod.

For the "Instrumentum laboris" and Pope Francis, the priority issues are communion, participation and mission.

If the synod does not foster greater communion, participation and mission, then it will be a failure.

Pope Francis' hope is that the fruit of the next assembly will be that the Spirit inspires the church to walk together as the people of God in fidelity to the mission the Lord has entrusted to it.

Communion is central to who we are as church.

According to the "Instrumentum laboris," citing the Second Vatican Council, the church is a sign and instrument of union with God and the unity of all humanity. People should see this union with God and this human unity in the life of the church.

The church should be a preeminent way for people to attain this union. Fostering that communion is at the heart of what it means to be a synodal church.

If we forget that while we squabble over who can or cannot be a minister, then we miss the point.

Likewise, arguing over who can be a priest should not make us forget that we are all responsible for the church's mission in service of the gospel.

If we all accepted our responsibility for the church's mission, the clergy would be much less important to the church's life.

Our need for communion and our co-responsibility for the mission lead to questions about participation, governance and authority — where authority is service and decisions are made through discernment.

Participation and discernment are not simply for the synod; they are the lifeblood of every local church.

This is not to say the synod will ignore real problems in the world.

The "Intrumentum laboris" reports the particular situations experienced by the church in different parts of the world.

These include too many wars, the threat of climate change, as well as "exploitation, inequality and a throwaway culture, and the desire to resist the homogenizing pressure of cultural colonialism that crushes minorities." Added to this is "persecution to the point of martyrdom," as well as self-inflicted wounds of sexual abuse and the abuse of power, conscience and money in the church.

But these problems will not be solved by resolutions or documents, according to Francis, but through greater communion, co-responsibility in mission and increased participation in the life of the church.

In other words, even if I got what I wanted out of the synod — married priests and women priests — but the church became less a sign and instrument of union with God and the unity of all humanity, then the synod would not have achieved its goals.

If I got what I wanted, and the church remained clerical with a passive laity, then the synod would have been a failure.

If we continued as usual with just different people in charge, then we missed the revolution Pope Francis is calling for.

Progressives are thinking too small.

Through the synod, Francis is calling for a spiritual shake-up much greater than anyone can imagine.

He is not looking for a few thousand new clergy to keep the church going.

He wants a mass movement that makes the gospel alive in our time. On the other hand, conservative Catholics fear this movement will get out of control.

They want the Spirit to be under the thumb of hierarchy.

According to the "Instrumentum laboris," this revolution has already begun in the preparations for the synod:

"The first phase renewed our awareness that our identity and vocation is to become an increasingly synodal Church: walking together, that is, becoming synodal, is the way to truly become disciples and friends of that Master and Lord who said of himself: ‘I am the way' (Jn 14:6)."

The spiritual conversations that have occurred in parishes and dioceses around the world have already fostered communion and helped people become more aware of their responsibility for the mission of the church in service of the gospel.

The synodal church began growing at the grassroots and hopefully will bloom at the synod in Rome.

The hope is that the synod will "continue to animate the synodal process in the ordinary life of the church, identifying which pathways the Spirit invites us to walk along more decisively as one People of God," according to the "Instrumentum laboris."

Pope Francis is betting his papacy on the hope that these local ripples of synodality will combine into a tsunami that will transform the church so that it is truly a sign and instrument of communion with God and the unity of all humanity.

The church will become God's instrument for the transformation of the world.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

The five priests seated with him laughed at this.

But, as the conversation turned to the realities of our failing diocesan infrastructures, the tone became more serious.

Two priests were managing three separate, cooperating parishes, three priests were managing two amalgamated parishes and the Vicar General had one parish.

The six priests around the table were managing thirteen parishes with a total of thirty distinct communities between them, doing the work of ten previous parish priests.

Amalgamation

Amalgamation looks like the solution until you ask what problem it is trying to solve.

The amalgamation of parishes is an attempt to solve the problem of institutional collapse in dioceses in three ways.

• amalgamation solves the problem of too few priests being available to provide sacramental ministry.
• amalgamation presumes that the parish structures are integral to pastoral life.
• amalgamation keeps the civil and canonical framework of parishes as a managerial structure that provides a living for a priest and income for a diocese.

As a diocese's infrastructure of pastoral and sacramental life becomes untenable, the notion takes hold that the problem lies with the parishes when the problem lies in the episcopal mindset.

Having solved the structural problem through amalgamation the newly blended parishes should function happily in this new future designed by others.

However, the gloss of efficient pastoral functioning covers a multitude of unresolved issues, like

• the independence of established communities,
• the lines of communication between previous separate parish groups, and
• the stretch of the clergy who are expected to respond.

The amalgamation of parishes does not ultimately solve the larger organisational and theological questions amongst which are:

• who can preside at the Eucharist?;
• are the laity part of the fabric of parish leadership, discernment and management?;
• are the liturgy, sacraments and priestly ministry just functional elements of diocesan structures?

Social and Cultural Elements of Change

Often the social and cultural dimensions implicit in ecclesial change are forgotten.

Solving the structural problem using clerical and lay workarounds takes little or no regard for the anthropological (human) and social (cultural) dimensions of worship and community.

They often ask fewer people to do more to keep the boat afloat.

Keeping former parishes going with liturgies of Word and Communion on Sundays as a stop-gap for Mass seems a nice alternative. However, it reframes our understanding of the Church by undermining the centrality of the Eucharist.

Eventually, the diocese reframes itself according to what it cannot provide.

Looking for answers among the dead

Many argue the real change will come with lay-parish leadership, lay-led liturgy, replacing the parish with the schools as the "new parish", importing clergy and seminarians, ordaining married men, ordaining women, geriatric men and similar solutions.

The answer might be found in some, or all, of these, but I am reminded of Christ's response in Luke 9:56-62, "leave the dead to bury the dead".

All these suggestions are deeply inauthentic because they do not address the substantive issue; the death of the local churches.

Churches do die; historically, we have only to look at North Africa.

The death of a local church—diocese or parish—is not a comforting experience.

There is a deep sense of loss.

Coming to the end of the present ‘organisational road' begs the question of a new ecclesiology and a new form of ecclesial leadership that isn't restorationist but more deeply missionary.

Pope Francis has offered a missiological vision similar to St Pope Paul IV's in Evangelii Nunciandi: "The conditions of the society in which we live oblige all of us therefore to revise methods, to seek by every means to study how we can bring the Christian message to modern man."

He acknowledged "the split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time" and that the ‘Gospel must be proclaimed by witness'.

Function and structure play a role in this, but they shouldn't drive the change because we are a theological community and theology immersed in life must lead us in the work of evangelisation and mission.

Downsizing and right-sizing

When people speak of downsizing, often they mean "right-sizing" the house and garden for their current and future needs.

Finding the right size for today's local church means relearning what it means to be a Missionary Church.

The experience of change and diminution will continue; nothing can stop it at this point because the cultural changes influencing contemporary Catholicism are very strong.

The Second Vatican Council sought to provide us with the tools we require to engage with the enormity of the change and reengage with the world as it has become.

What does a diocese or parish look like in the 21 century in a small, secular country like ours struggling to articulate its cultural self-understanding and not possessing a millennial-long shared language of religious institutionalisation?

Integral to this consideration is the emerging new church that is already replacing the church of my consciousness.

It will be different because it already is.

As the Church of my generation and older dies out a new Church may emerge and it will be different.

Then again, without a suitably led ongoing discussion about what it means to be Church and what evangelisation and mission look like today, the church may indeed look very different.=

• Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is: Liturgical Lockdown. Covid and the Absence of the Laity (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).

"The word apostolicos comes from apostolay in Greek, which means ‘to send' and the Latin translation of that word is ‘missionary', so to be an apostolic Church means to be a missionary Church, which means to be sent," Fr Mallon told The Catholic Weekly in a recent online interview.

The Divine Renovation approach is aimed a revitalising the missionary intention of parishes in the service of the new evangelisation, including practical ways to go about this process.

"That means to go out from ourselves, not stay in ourselves. Pope Francis says when we stay in ourselves, we become a sick Church, a self-referential Church, in itself, of itself and for itself.

"Going out on mission means going out to evangelise and going out to serve the poor. We're called to make disciples, but we're also called to clothe the naked and visit the prisoners. As someone once said, we go out to the last, the lost and the least."

"The giftedness that resides in any given parish among the laity animates the baptised laity for [this] mission. In contrast, parishes that make their primary purpose caring for the sheep never go fishing because even if they want to they never have time left", Mallon said.

"Parishes who put mission first also do a good job of looking after the sheep because if you're missionary, you're raising up other believers, and the gifts for caring are not just with the ordained; they're within the baptised."

"The ocean is teeming with fish, and Jesus has already said to put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.

"But most Catholic parishes are like fishing boats tied up in the harbour. We paint them and maintain the engine, and we have card socials and coffee socials and bingo in them - we don't go out, we stay in the shelter of our harbours because of fear, indifference, anxiety, uncertainty - and we don't actually obey the commandment of Jesus in a very real way."

"There is no trade-off between growing the faith of our people we have and the call to evangelisation to those we don't - our faith grows through mission, by being sent," he said.

"Like the first apostles in the Upper Room, we may be scared, unsure, not fully formed, but in the Spirit of Christ, we find the courage to embark on mission like those apostles of the Book of Acts who changed the world and the Church through their courage."

While obeying Christ's call to "go make disciples" should be good enough reason to strive to do so, Fr Mallon points out that it's also necessary for the survival of parishes.

"If we don't move to a missionary footing, there's not going to be a Church because the Christendom model of Christian faith being passed via traditional means of family, school, and parish is all gone," he said.

"The spiritual osmosis process that used to happen stopped working because the world around us has changed, and so if we rely on that methodology, all we're going to get each year is smaller and older."

Having advised parishes and dioceses around the world, the Canadian priest says he is seeing the most growth in the UK where the Divine Renovation Ministry is working closely with around 14 per cent of all Catholic parishes.

"There are amazing stories in Canada and the US as well, and parishes in Australia which are very supportive as is the whole Archdiocese of Sydney," he added.

"One of the most powerful stories is of a small parish outside of Christchurch in New Zealand.

It had a church attendance of 500 people each weekend, and last Easter, they baptised 13 adults who came to the church through Alpha.

"It's incredible that this fruit is being produced in even a small rural parish."

Key to parish renewal is leadership from the pastor who has the support of his bishop.

"If you don't have a leader who's got the fire in his bones, it's never going to happen because even with that and also being willing to stay the course, it's hard. It's one of the most difficult things you can do in your life; it's not quick, it takes time.

"Not everyone will go with you; there'll always be a segment of people who absolutely refuse. But the aim is to take most people with you.

"Every time you clarify, you attract and repel, people say, ‘Oh my goodness, I don't want to be a part of that, but other people say, ‘Wow, I want to be a part of that'."

Mallon said his current pastoral role, spearheading an amalgamation of five struggling communities in Nova Scotia, has put him back in touch with the reality of getting parish renewal efforts off the ground.

The "cares of the sheep" can choke efforts at renewal, he said.

"It's the pull of maintenance, and I don't mean maintaining buildings. Most of our parishes are very inward-focused, and there's a gravitational pull towards the centre, whereas mission is about turning outwards," he explained.

"Even for me, who is pretty motivated and passionate, I still need to fight to give even 10 per cent of my energy towards the most important things.

"Sometimes it's the cares of the sheep, the demands of maintenance that strangle the impulse for renewal out of you. I speak to priests all the time, and they're getting crushed by the burden of everything they need to do. It's tough.

"But imagine for a second if we could see many parishes mobilise like this; this is our dream at Divine Renovation Ministry.

"We'll know we're successful when we're lost in the crowd when people no longer talk about us.

"That's our goal, and that's beginning to happen."

• First published in Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.

The diocesan documents were synthesised at a national meeting held in Wellington in June.

The introduction to the national document says participants throughout the country "spoke positively and with love about the place the Church has in their lives.

"They want the Church to be a life-giving and active presence in the world, an outward-looking servant Church; a welcoming, inclusive and transformative presence for individuals and communities.

"They see the synodal process itself being as important as the outcome, because in listening to one another the Holy Spirit is present," the introduction says.

However, this experience was not universal.

"For some people, especially those participating as individuals rather than in groups, the process provided an opportunity to express anger, cynicism, hurt and rejection of the Church due to past experiences.

"The Church was named as a place of alienation and irrelevant, especially in its teaching on human sexuality.

"The responses from those who feel ignored, excluded or who have been deeply hurt made painful reading, but their desire to be part of a welcoming Catholic community was clear.

"Their responses are valued and we are learning from them," say the bishops.

New Zealand's Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) says six themes have emerged from the diocesan phase of the 2023 Synod on Synodality.

These are: inclusion, gathering, leadership, education and formation, mission, and synodality and change.

Points from the six main Aotearoa New Zealand themes:

• Inclusion: We want the Church to be a non-judgmental and safe place of welcome and belonging. Church teaching which excludes some people from the Eucharist is causing pain and hurt. Awareness of those who feel marginalised or excluded can lead to new attitudes and action. Action on inclusion must be part of our synodal journey.
• Gathering: There is great love for the Mass, but also concerns about inclusion and lay participation. A new English translation of the Roman Missal is needed. Homilies must help people to encounter Jesus in the reality of their lives. If lay people are allowed to give homilies, they must have good formation. Small groups for prayer, formation, scripture study and mission to build community are needed.
• Leadership: Collaborative ministry should become the norm, with greater sacramental involvement for lay people. Co-responsible leadership with barriers to lay participation in decision-making removed. Women participate equally in decision-making and have greater participation in liturgical roles.
• Mission: Formation is needed for mission, and help with engaging in mission collectively. Ecumenical activity and interfaith dialogue need to be embraced as part of mission. Shame related to abuse in the Church makes evangelisation difficult. Prophetic leadership is needed in the community on social justice, ecological and bicultural issues. The only public voice of the Church for many is on euthanasia and human sexuality.
• Education and Formation: Further formation is needed for both lay people and clergy in discernment and synodality. There is a need for catechesis in Church teaching. Education and formation in safeguarding is essential for both lay people and clergy. Seminarians' formation should involve more community engagement and include biculturalism and cultural sensitivity. Both clergy and laity need formation in collaborative ministry and co-responsible leadership.
• Synodality and Change: The Synod process is exciting and transformative. We want to bring back those who are missing. Synodality and discernment can help us change while holding on to what is central to our faith. We want to learn to journey together in a synodal way.

The national document has been sent to Rome as part of the Pope's synodal path to the Church's future, which will culminate in the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October next year.

Similar national documents have been compiled by bishops' conferences around the world.

They will be used by the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops to draft a working document in preparation for the October 2023 synod.

Bishops' conferences will also take part in "continental" gatherings, in New Zealand's case a gathering of Oceania conferences which will include Australia and Pacific island states.

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference
• National Synod Synthesis

Francis has said his weeklong visit, which begins Sunday, is a "penitential pilgrimage" to beg forgiveness on Canadian soil for the "evil" done to Native peoples by Catholic missionaries.

It follows his April 1 apology in the Vatican for the generations of trauma Indigenous peoples suffered as a result of a church-enforced policy to eliminate their culture and assimilate them into Canadian Christian society.

Francis' tone of personal repentance has signalled a notable shift for the papacy, which has long acknowledged abuses in the residential schools and strongly asserted the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples.

But past popes have also hailed the sacrifice and holiness of the European Catholic missionaries who brought Christianity to the Americas — something Francis, too, has done but isn't expected to emphasize during this trip.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit who is a top papal adviser, recalled that early on in his papacy, Francis asserted that no single culture can claim a hold on Christianity, and that the church cannot demand that people on other continents imitate the European way of expressing the faith.

"If this conviction had been accepted by everyone involved in the centuries after the ‘discovery' of the Americas, much suffering would have been avoided, great developments would have occurred and the Americas would be all-around better," he told The Associated Press in an email.

The trip won't be easy for the 85-year-old Francis or for residential school survivors and their families. Francis can no longer walk without assistance and will be using a wheelchair and cane because of painful strained knee ligaments.

Trauma experts are being deployed at all events to provide mental health assistance for school survivors, given the likelihood of triggering memories.

"It is an understatement to say there are mixed emotions," said Chief Desmond Bull of the Louis Bull Tribe, one of the First Nations that are part of the Maskwacis territory where Francis will deliver his first sweeping apology on Monday near the site of a former residential school.

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse were rampant in the state-funded, Christian schools that operated from the 19th century to the 1970s. Some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to attend in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes, Native languages and cultures.

The legacy of that abuse and isolation from family has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on Canadian reservations.

"For survivors from coast to coast, this is an opportunity — the first and maybe the last — to perhaps find some closure for themselves and their families," said Chief Randy Ermineskin of the Ermineskin Cree Nation.

"This will be a difficult process but a necessary one," he said. Continue reading

Martin made the comment after attending Ireland's national pre-synodal assembly this week.

"The question is — what next?

"We are still not entirely certain, but we are open to what the Holy Spirit might be saying and to a quiet and gentle renewal of the faith. We are moving from maintenance to mission.

"In order to make space for something new, we have to accept that there is no point in trying to maintain a particular form of the life of the Church which was for a different time."

The facts are clear. In 2016, people identifying as Catholic in Ireland made up 78.3 percent of the population (approximately 3.7 million people), down from 84.2 percent in the 2011 census. It's predicted the 2022 census will show a further decline.

Ireland also has an ageing clergy and few vocations to the diocesan priesthood or religious life.

Martin noted the past year's synodal conversation with people all over Ireland culminated in the assembly, which was a moment to hear the fruits of that conversation.

"One of the things that is coming across is the (pre-)synodal conversations - an awful lot of people are very passionate about their faith in Jesus Christ ... with the Church. But they want the church to be open to something different," he says.

There are some big barriers to renewal though.

Feedback to the assembly revealed "a despair among a lot of our young people, a lack of hope, and a lack of a sense of purpose" and at the same time "a belief in faith, in hope and in love". This is "what we are trying to rekindle in the life of the Church," Martin says.

His confrere, Archbishop Dermot Farrell, says clerical sexual abuse had irreparably damaged the church's reputation in Ireland. This could spell the end for Catholicism in Ireland if major changes were not implemented within the church, he warned.

He said evidence of Christian belief in Ireland today "has, for all intents and purposes, vanished" and this "underlying crisis of faith was particularly acute among the younger generations". He added, "The current model of the church is unsustainable".

Martin has a more hopeful view.

"We are moving into a new period of evangelisation, recognising that many people - even those who have been baptised in the faith - perhaps don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, don't have a personal sense of God, and indeed maybe don't have a sense of direction in their lives," he says.

"We are trying to find new ways of communicating the joy of the Gospel, which is very much a theme that Pope Francis has been revealing to the Church during his pontificate."

He stresses the importance of reaching out to young people who "are living in a very different space," suggesting the Church play an important pastoral role among an increasingly disaffected youth.

Source

• The Tablet
• Catholic News Service

"As the pope has often repeated, it is not for us to serve the economy, but for the economy to serve us," said Father Guerrero at a symposium on Tuesday in Rome.

Guerrero, 63, is the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. He was appointed as the Vatican's financial czar in November 2019, filling the post left vacant by Australian Cardinal George Pell.

"The economy is not the primary activity of the Roman Curia. But it helps us to make it possible to carry out the mission of the Curia. It must do so without losing the credibility of the Church's mission," Father Guerrero said.

Asked to comment on the consequences Curia reform will likely have on the economic bodies of the Holy See, the Spanish Jesuit insisted on the need for transparency in the use of funds.

"And when it is necessary not to make public the use of certain funds, the request must be submitted to a special commission which will then control the use of the sum granted," he detailed.

He pointed to the existence of this commission which Pope Francis instituted in September 2020 to manage the exceptions to the rule of budgetary transparency now obligatory in the Roman Curia.

Several top Curia officials also attended the symposium.

Among them was Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, one of the leading architects of the Curia's reform.

"We are living in an era of change," he underlined.

"We are no longer in a regime of Christendom. That means we are no longer in a time of doctrine, but of proclaiming the faith," said the 74-year-old Italian, one of the pope's closest aides.

During his address, Cardinal Semeraro emphasised that the Curia must be seen as a "structure of service", not one of power.

"Being at the service means being part of an adaptable, flexible reality," he said.

The remark was seen as a direct criticism of any form of rigidity or resistance to change detected in some Vatican officials.

Sources

• La Croix International

Many calls for reform have stressed the need to address changes in the church's culture.

However, the history of organisational and cultural change underscores leadership as being the most important element in successful change.

Lessons learned from the leadership of successful cultural reforms stress the importance of focussing on the nurturing of the organisation's culture through the alignment of values and mission.

Inconsistency between culture, mission and values leads to institutional dysfunction and reduced credibility.

Alignment between an organisation's mission, values and culture cannot be left to chance.

Leaders in well-functioning organisations know this. They ensure that structures for governance and administration are consonant with the overall mission; they foster cultures that reflect the organisation's values.

The character and actions of the leaders themselves have a major influence in shaping an organisation's culture. If the call for a synodal church is to be successful, church leaders will need to be able to discern, promote and live the values of synodality.

For Francis, 'synodality' is non-negotiable: 'what God wants' of the church at this time. It goes far beyond the collegiality between all bishops with the bishop of Rome through the Synod of Bishops established by Pope Paul VI in 1965.

Through the lens of theology, the church is a community of faith, the sacrament of Christ and the People of God. At the same time, it lives out its identity and mission through people and through its organisational structures.

Little needs to be repeated about the contemporary loss of credibility of the church, both in Australia and around the world.

The Australian church is not alone in being called to account by Government, rather than by its own leaders, for systemic mismanagement of child sexual abuse.

There are elements of culture in the contemporary institutional church that undermine the church's stated mission and values as a holy nation whose heritage is the dignity and freedom of the children of God and in whose hearts the Spirit dwells.

The 2023 Synod process is a call for all members of the church to take up what Vatican II began by way of both renewal (aggiornamento) and rediscovery of its early essence (ressourcement) to reform its culture and search for an authentic identity and form suitable for the Third Millennium.

The Synod's preparatory consultations carry an explicit focus on the structures and organisational processes within the church — the form, the style, the structure.

The call to synodality is a call to convert, reform and renew the church's organisational culture.

New cultures do not emerge automatically. It is not about turning upside down the present pyramid structure of the church with a clerical hierarchy at the top and the faithful on the bottom.

The church is not a political democracy, but a 'holy people' whose mission is to make God and Jesus present and, in a sense, visible to our world. (GS 21)

Participatory rather than unilateral, empowering rather than overpowering

Reform means change. Change can be uncomfortable and resisted.

Healthy organisations have all changed at some point in their existence, either in response to internal events (eg, loss of key personnel) or external pressures (eg, covid-19).

While leaders have the initial responsibility to drive change in an organisation, it is neither rocket science nor magic: it is all very possible.

For example, leaders can embed culture in an organisation through their allocation of resources (money does talk), how they respond to critical incidents of cultural misalignment (eg, sexual abuse), what is rewarded and how status is allocated (or removed), who they recruit (especially for leadership roles).

Leaders who consciously seek to embed a certain culture (eg synodality) will pay attention to it and assess it regularly.

Culture in an organisation is also shaped by its systems and procedures, rituals and celebrations, the design of physical space (eg, a church 'in the round'), the narratives leaders use and formal statements of an institution's philosophy, creeds and charters.

Among the many theories and models of leadership, one more suited to leadership in a synodal church, is that of the late Denis Edwards.

He described New Testament leadership as service-oriented rather than dominating, non-violent rather than coercive, from below rather than from above, participatory rather than unilateral, empowering rather than overpowering and based on hope in the resurrection of Jesus rather than on personal achievement.

Other models of a leadership sympathetic with synodality emphasise the relational character of leadership; leaders being truly part of the group they are called to lead and of their modelling and practising the values and beliefs of the people they lead.

Leaders who are perceived as having integrity and authenticity tend to elicit a sense of trust that the group is focussing together on a shared moral purpose.

Such leaders both affirm and extend ('grow') the resourcefulness of group members to contribute to the goals of the organisation, thereby shaping it further in that direction.

Such leaders continually seek to align members of the group to the larger realities, the macro context, in which they endeavour to pursue the organisation's goals.

It is difficult to imagine the emergence of a more synodal church culture unless those in leadership understand and exercise the key characteristics of synodality:

• mission-oriented to the pastoral needs of this place at this time;
• open to inclusive dialogue and mutual listening;
• humble and service-oriented;
• open to conversion, change and the bidding of the Spirit; engaged within their local community and discerning decisions with members of the community based on a faith that recognises the priesthood of all the faithful and the unerring sensus fidei of the whole People of God.

If the church is to move in the direction of a more synodal church, then it will need to have in formal leadership roles women and men who understand this vision and who are prepared for and supported in their leadership using the best tools of leadership theory and practice; leaders with the willingness and capacity to search out structures, forms and styles that are more synodal in character.

Local church communities, the faithful, have a right to expect such leadership.

• Anne Benjamin is a writer and researcher. She is an Honorary Professor at Australian Catholic University and was previously Director of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The purpose of ministries within the Church is to provide nurture and formation for that mission. It is the mission that matters.

Part I - Ministries

For some years we have all been aware of a growing gap between the number of parishes and the number of priests available to serve in them.

This reality serves as a wake-up call, but it is not the basis for greater lay involvement.

That involvement has its roots in Baptism and the very nature of the Church. Through Baptism we are all united to the priestly and prophetic mission of Christ.

This is the basis for our shared responsibility for what the Church is and what it does:

"Co-responsibility requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church, who should be considered not as "collaborators" with the clergy, but as persons truly "co-responsible" for the being and the activity of the Church…" (Pope Benedict XVI, 10 August 2012).

This is more than just a matter of management, or meeting an emergency. It, too, is rooted in Baptism and the nature of the Church.

So why does this require a "change in mentality" if it already belongs to the nature of the Church?

History gives the answer.

During the first four centuries of the Church, laypeople had roles in the liturgy, preached, had a say in the election of bishops and nomination of priests; contributed to the framing of church laws and customs, prepared matters for, and participated in church councils, administered church properties, etc.

Then, after the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the mass conversions that followed, responsibility shifted one-sidedly into the hands of the clergy. And following the barbarian invasions, responsibility for public order also fell to them.

Over the following centuries, society came to see the priesthood as a profession, with social privilege.

During earlier centuries it had been a point of honour for ministers of the Church to live and look like everyone else.

Perception changed also within the Church.

This is perhaps symbolized by the altar being pushed back to the apse of the church, where liturgy became mainly a clerical affair with diminishing involvement of the laity.

Scholarship and a better understanding of the early Church would eventually return the liturgy to the whole body of the faithful and restore roles of pastoral care and administration to laywomen and men.

Most see our own day as a time of privileged opportunity for renewal.

It is challenging because it involves the need for more personal responsibility and moving away from the forms of tutelage and guardianship that shaped Church practices right up till the time of Pope Pius XII.

Others feel safer clinging to that recent past, often misunderstanding the meaning of "Tradition".

Part II - Mission

In Christ, God became immersed in human life; showed us how to live it, destined us to its fullness, and sent the Holy Spirit to draw us into what Christ did for us.

That is God's purpose, and the Church can have no other - "Humanity is the route the Church must take" (Pope John Paul II).

How we do this comes down to how we "do" love.

There is a loving that does not go deep enough to transform society. It works at the level of what seems fair and reasonable and deserving. This is what governments are properly concerned with.

Society must do better, and the Church's mission is to be the leaven in society.

It deals with a deeper kind of loving - love that is not limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.

As Church, we are uniquely placed to do this because in the Person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus we see love that is unconditional, undeserved, and unstinting.

When we love as we have been loved, our love becomes a circuit breaker - precisely because it is not calculating and limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.

Running through family life, civic life, industrial, commercial and political life, this kind of love "changes everything".

It brings about a way of living - of being human - that is true to what God made us for.

But, note, it starts with seeing God's love for us - contemplative seeing!

Christians have the least excuse for not recognizing the intrinsic link between contemplation and working for social justice because in celebrating Eucharist they move from contemplating God's extraordinary love for us to receiving and becoming the body broken for others and the blood (life) poured out for others.

This is how faith makes a decisive difference to all of human life, while fully respecting the rightful autonomy of everything that is properly secular.

In the midst of life God is drawing us towards the fulfilment of our own deepest yearnings, and wonderfully more, involving God's purpose for the whole of creation.

On that understanding of "the route the Church must take", we come to know what ministries are needed to nurture us for that mission, and what kind of formation is needed for those ministries.

Part III - Formation

To be involved in the processes of making our lives more truly human is a wonderful mission.

So what kind of formation is needed for ministries that serve that mission?

Writing about the formation needed for priests, Pope John Paul II said it needs to be "human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral", and went on to say that continuing formation was a matter of a priest's faithfulness to his ministry, of love for the people, and in the proper sense a matter of justice, given the people's rights (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 70).

Commenting on some of the characteristics of human formation, the Congregation for the Clergy explicitly singled out the specific contribution of women, "not only for the seminarians' personal life but also with a view to their future pastoral activity" (Ratio Fundamentalis, 95).

The Congregation's reference was to Pope John Paul's emphasis on "what it means to speak of the ‘genius of women', not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God's plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as in the life of the Church; (Letter to Women, 1995, 10).

In our country, women have been carrying out significant roles at both Holy Cross Seminary and Good Shepherd College for some years.

What still needs to be developed, however, are ways of allowing parishioners generally to play a bigger part both in seminarians' formation and in the discernment of their vocation.

Those who will live with the results of formation, for better or for worse, should have a say in that formation and the selection of candidates.

Programmes for the formation of laywomen and men for parish ministries already exist, and I leave it to others to comment on them.

My concern here is with a very specific feature needed in Church leadership - both lay and ordained.

It is needed all the more because general education in our country has been gradually reduced to learning mainly practical skills.

Skills, both human/relational and technological properly belong within education, but not more so than the deeper aspects of what it means to be human.

Even when we know how to do the things necessary for successful living, we still need to know what ultimately gives meaning to it all.

Knowing that one's life has a purpose can make the difference between surviving, or not surviving, life's toughest times.

The will to live needs a reason to live. The need I am pointing to is the need for leaders who are "in the service of meaning" (Ratcliffe).

This is what it means in practice to be ministers of God's word. Knowing how much we mean to God is the most important thing we can know about ourselves, and truly life-giving.

Within a culture that has become superficial, reductionist and utilitarian, one of the ways we are in the service of meaning is by knowing how to identify flaws within that culture, especially where important aspects of daily life are devalued by becoming disconnected from what gives them their meaning, or at least their full meaning.

Formation will be incomplete unless it is formation "in the service of meaning".

Part IV - Where to start?

I referred to the increasing gap between the number of our parishes and the number of priests.

Simply combining parishes, whether for the sake of having a parish priest in every parish or out of due concern for future financial resourcing, does not resolve the problem because ultimately everything depends on pastoral effectiveness and enlivening.

An alternative to combining parishes is available where Church law allows for the pastoral care of parishes to be entrusted to laypeople, with a priest appointed to provide general supervision (canon 517/2), usually from another parish.

We already experience the insufficiency of suitable priests which is what justifies recourse to this canon.

Of course, where this happens, priests are still required for sacramental ministry.

It is possible that some priests might even prefer that kind of role, leaving the management of the parish to a team of qualified lay women and men.

Lay leadership of parishes requires proper formation - of parish and leaders - and proper remuneration.

Yet another starting point for renewal can be found in the experience of small base communities pioneered by the Church in some countries in South America and Asia.

Of course, we cannot simply transfer other local churches' experience to our situation. But we, too, can establish smaller communities within parishes, where leadership can be shared by teams and on a voluntary basis.

Such gatherings would be lay-led and need no official authorization. They can happen already, and develop in home-spun ways.

The Christian Base Communities in South American countries grew out of lay people coming together to pray and reflect on the scriptures and on their life situations, using the Catholic Action principle: "see, judge, act".

Their aim was a more just society and more truly human life for everyone - "the route the Church must take".

If this were happening in our own country, we could ask the kind of questions they asked: what are the causes of poverty in our country, and what can we do about those causes?

Indeed, this is an appropriate level at which to analyse whatever flaws in our culture leave us less able to deal with the epic issues of our time - those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights, and the planet itself.

Addressing those issues - through the lenses of divine revelation - is itself a way of participating in the mission of the Church.

It is a good place to start because it is already do-able; it can be inclusive of those who feel unable to participate in other aspects of the Church's life; it does not need clerical leadership or control, but makes room for the ordained priesthood to present itself as a supporting ministry; it can model shared leadership, and lead to whatever forms of ministry might need to come next.

It is also a way of being Church that is "synodal", i.e. being "on the road together".

The larger gatherings that we call "Synods" presuppose the experience of walking and working together before we are ready for the decisions we gather to make at Synods. It also gives scope and opportunity for the participation of many who will not be at the Synods.

Part V - What More?

Pope Francis has rightly said: "the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures" all need to be channelled for what best serves the Church's mission of evangelising the world"; (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, n.27).

To act on that would make big differences.

Yet, even these changes are ‘small change' compared with where the Church has already been, and can yet go.

Bigger changes rightly need wider consultation. And synodality is pointless if it isn't about the road ahead and exploring what might yet be.

Ministry that is authorized to speak and act in Christ's name has its origin in Christ's historical intentions.

But its structure and concrete forms were determined by the Church during the apostolic period and after, continuing until late in the second century.

What the Church gave shape to after the apostolic period, it can give a different shape to now.

Being faithful to the Tradition involves more than just receiving what the early Church did; it involves doing what the early Church did: it shaped its ministries to meet the needs of its mission.

So long as the fullness of ordained responsibility remains intact - as in the college of bishops with and under the bishop of Rome - lesser participations in ordained ministry can be redistributed.

The ‘powers' presently distributed within the three ministries of bishop, presbyter and deacon would live on but enshrined within a wider variety of ordained ministries.

This would open up significant new pastoral opportunities, and incorporate a wider range of charisms into ordained ministry.

Whatever about that, fifty years ago, the International Theological Commission said "It is urgent to create much more diversified structures of the Church's pastoral action as regards both its ministries and its members, if the Church is to be faithful to its missionary and apostolic vocation." (The Priestly Ministry, pp 99,100).

• Peter Cullinane is Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum, Rome and a Master of Theology from Otago University. Bishop Cullinane is a former President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference and between 1983 and 2003 he was a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

The initial phase of listening drew nearly 220,000 people across Australia and 17,500 individual and group submissions.

These submissions were distilled into the six national theme papers and then further distilled again into the working document and finally the agenda.

Momentum for the Plenary Council ebbed and flowed during this process, which has been disrupted by the pandemic.

By and large, there has been considerable goodwill, enthusiasm and even a sense of hope for the future of the Church in Australia in the post-Royal Commission period. Robert Fitzgerald who - among other prominent roles - is the new Chair of Caritas Australia, once enthused that the Plenary Council is the only game in town.

For a country of about five million nominal Catholics, the initial response was quite remarkable.

Perhaps, for many of the disenfranchised, it is the last throw of the dice. I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, though.

Some of you might have heard or even attended the first of the three convocation series organised by the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (ACCCR).

There were 3,000 participants, including myself.

We heard a powerful and inspiring address by Sr Joan Chittister.

Catholicism "must grow up", she said, "beyond the parochial to the global, beyond one system and one tradition, to a broader way of looking at life and its moral, spiritual, ethical frameworks."

That is the kind of stretching of the imagination and dreaming of the transformation of the Church that many Catholics are thirsting for.

Few Catholics have any appetite left for cosmetic changes, mediocrity or worst, restorationism dressed up as renewal.

We have struggled under the weight of the old ecclesial paradigm of the clerical order, control and hegemony with a penchant for triumphalism, self-referential pomp and smugness.

We yearn for a Church that commits to a God-oriented future of equal discipleship, relational harmony, wholeness and sustainability.

The revitalisation and convergence of many lay reform groups in response to the Plenary Council is no small development for the Church in contemporary Australia.

It is a sign of the "growing up" that Joan spoke about.

Australian Catholics are growing up beyond the passive, subservient to the co-responsible agents for the transformation of the Church.

In Germany, there is a lay body called Central Committee, which plays a key role in their Synodal Assembly, including having one of its members as co-president of the said structure.

Perhaps this unique feature is part of the legacy of the Reformation in the German Church.

Is the Church in Australia in pole position for deep reform?

The Church in Australia is uniquely positioned to move into a new fresh future.

Yes, it is true that we have been humbled and reduced to near irrelevancy by the sexual abuse crisis.

The Royal Commission, though being the lightning rod, has also served as a necessary wake-up call for Australian Catholics.

Indeed, no other country in the world has conducted a similar national inquiry, which is as comprehensive in its scope as ours. This has brought about a heightened level of consciousness and an unprecedented momentum for deep reform.

In many areas, Australia punches above its weight.

• Could we be a leading light in the struggle for a more fit-for-purpose Church in this place and in this time?
• Could Australian Catholics rise to the challenge and co-create the synodal Church that Pope Francis has envisaged?

While the Plenary Council may not address all of the issues of importance, it is certainly worth the effort in discerning the roadmap for the future.

Recently, Cardinal Marx of Germany tendered his resignation in a personal gesture to take responsibility for sexual abuses by priests over the past decades.

In Chile, the bishops after a period of discernment offered to resign en masse for similar reasons.

This collective act of contrition is totally unprecedented, and it shows the depth of the crisis in the Church.

Whether or not we bishops of Australia should make the same radical gesture remains an open question.

However, what is indisputable is the need for deep institutional change that will restore confidence and trust in the Church. Nothing less than a root-to-branch reform that will align our minds and hearts to the Gospel will do.

What the Church needs is not simply a renewal or an updating of methods of evangelising.

Rather, what we desperately need is an inner conversion, a radical revolution in our mindsets and patterns of action.

Gerald Arbuckle speaks of refounding as opposed to renewal. This refounding means going to the very cultural roots and a hope-filled journey into the paschal mystery for mission under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Unless we genuinely repent of institutional failures and unless we convert to the radical vision of Christ and let it imbue our attitudes, actions and pastoral practices, we will not be able to restore confidence and trust in the Church.

Conversion is one of the key areas on the agenda of the Plenary Council.

It is framed in terms of our openness to learn and meet the needs of the world we live in.

As a result, the questions revolve around our engagement with First Nations peoples, with the marginalised and the vulnerable.

However, one wonders if conversion needs to be framed not just in terms of our openness to learn and meet the needs of others but also in terms of our examination of the Church's attitude and treatment of racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+ individuals and others.

Until we have the courage to admit the old ways of being Church, which is steeped in a culture of clerical power, dominance and privilege, we cannot rise to a Christ-like way of humility, inclusivity, compassion and powerlessness.

There is a sense in which the Church must change into a more Christ-like pattern of humility, simplicity and powerlessness as opposed to worldly triumphalism, splendour, dominance and power.

Christians in the post-Royal Commission are like the Jews after the exile.

The future of the Church, like the New Jerusalem that the exilic prophets often speak of, will not be revitalised by way of simply repeating what was done in the past.

It will not be simply a restoration project or doing the old things better. Rather, we must have the courage to do new things; we must be open to the Spirit leading us to new horizons even as we tend to revert to the old ways.

Change of era and new way of being Church in the world

Many Catholics hope that the Australian Plenary Council of 2020 will see a change in a number of priority issues such as greater inclusion of the laity, the role of women, clerical celibacy et cetera.

While it is important that there is an openness and boldness to discuss these matters, what is more important is to envision a new way of being Church in the world.

The model of the Church based on clerical hegemony has run its course. Insofar as it is deeply embedded in patriarchal and monarchical structures, it is incapable of helping us to meet the needs of the world and culture in which we live.

We have long moved out of the Ancien Régime and the age of absolute monarchs.

We are on this side of the secular state and the rise of democracy.

Yet it seems that the deeply entrenched patriarchal and monarchical structures of the Church have failed to correspond with our lived experience.

For the Church to flourish, it is crucial that we come to terms with the flaws of clericalism and move beyond its patriarchal and monarchical matrix.

What is urgent is that we need to find fresh ways of being Church and fresh ways of ministry and service for both men and women disciples.

New wine into new wineskins!

The new wine of God's unconditional love, radical inclusivity and equality needs to be poured into new wineskins of humility, mutuality, compassion and powerlessness.

The old wineskins of triumphalism, authoritarianism and supremacy, abetted by clerical power, superiority, and rigidity are breaking.

It is worth noting that at the recent Synod on the Amazon, the synod bishops say they consider it "urgent" for the Church to "promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.

"It is the Church of baptised men and women that we must strengthen by promoting ministeriality and, above all, the awareness of baptismal dignity," they state.

Beyond these generic statements, it remains to be seen how women can share in the decision-making power and institutionalised ministries in the Church.

The Church cannot have a better future if it persists in the old paradigm of triumphalism, self-reference and male dominance.

• So long as we continue to exclude women from the Church's governance structures, decision-making processes and institutional functions, we deprive ourselves of the richness of our full humanity.
• So long as we continue to make women invisible and inferior in the Church's language, liturgy, theology and law, we impoverish ourselves.
• Until we have truly incorporated the gift of women and the feminine dimension of our Christian faith, we will not be able to fully energise the life of the Church.

In the world where the rules are made by the strong and the structures of power favour the privileged, the Church must be true to its founding stories and responsive to the living presence of God.

It must find ways to promote a community of equals and empower men and women disciples to share their gifts for human flourishing and the growth of the Kingdom.

Our founding stories are those of emancipation and liberation.

• It is the story of Moses and the movement of the new social order against the tyranny of empires that lies at the heart of the prophetic imagination.
• It inspires Mary who sings of the God who overthrows the powerful and lifts up the lowly.
• It is the story of Jesus who washes the feet of his followers and subverts the power structures that are tilted towards the strong.

This narrative of the new reality that envisions radical reordering of human relationships was in fact the hallmark of the earliest Christian movement.

The Church must continue to embody the alternative relational paradigm.

This alternative relational paradigm turns the world's system of power structures on its head because it is rooted in the biblical narrative of the new social order of radical inclusion, justice and equality.

The Church cannot have a prophetic voice in society if we fail to be the model egalitarian community where those disadvantaged on account of their race, gender, social status and disability find empowerment for a dignified life.

Towards a Church of co-responsibility and synodality

Martin Luther King, Jr famously said that the arc of history is bent toward justice.

The parallel statement I want to make is that the arc of the Church is bent towards co-responsibility or synodality. Let me explain.

The way of being Church has evolved over the centuries.

When, after the early centuries of persecution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the early tradition of egalitarianism gave way to a more clerical and hierarchical governance system that actually took on many features of the Empire.

Throughout the long reign of Christendom and up to the Second Vatican Council, the Church often understood itself predominantly as a perfect society. Its institutional functions and dynamics were steeped in clericalism.

Ministries gradually became the domain of the ordained.

They were all subsumed under a very cultic priesthood (set apart for the sacraments). Even the ancient ministry of deacon became a casualty of the process known as the "cursus honorum". This means that no one could begin "the course of honour" unless he is destined and qualified for the priesthood (no married and certainly not women!).

The shift towards the celibate priesthood as the normative form of ministry effectively deprived the Church of the richness of ministries as attested by the New Testament.

At the Second Vatican Council, there was a shift in the Church's self-understanding.

The dominant metaphor of "a societas perfecta" gave way to a more biblical image of a pilgrim people.

The priesthood of faithful was rediscovered along with the affirmation that the working of the Holy Spirit was granted not to the ordained only but to all baptised. Ecclesial ministries were understood in such a way as to fully honour what Paul says, "everyone is given the grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ".

Pope Paul VI accordingly suppressed the minor orders and opened some of these ministries to the lay faithful.

Now some 60 years later (talk about the glacial speed of change in the Church), Pope Francis took a step further with two recent important decisions.

In January this year, he opened to women the "installed" lay ministries of lector and acolyte, previously restricted to men.

Then just a few weeks ago, he responded to an idea that sat untouched since the Council and established the installed ministry of catechist.

The Pope called for "men and women of deep faith and human maturity, active participants in the life of the Christian community, capable of welcoming others, being generous and living a life of fraternal communion."

Pope Francis affirms that ‘this path of synodality' is precisely what "God expects of the Church of the third millennium."

He gave new impetus to the doctrine of the sensus fidei fidelium, stating that the path of synodality represents an indispensable prerequisite for infusing the Church with a renewed missionary impulse: all the members of the Church are called to be active subjects of evangelisation and "missionary disciples".

The Church has entered a new era that is characterised by a crisis of a top-down centralised ecclesiology.

With Vatican II, the ressourcement and aggiornamento led to a more biblical paradigm of a pilgrim People of God, called to be the sacrament of the Kingdom and the prophetic witness in the world.

The emphasis on the superiority of the ordained gave way to an ecclesial communion based on common baptism.

Pope Francis has applied a critical lens through which the Church is renewed for the sake of its mission for the poor.

The Church is helped to decentralise and impelled towards the peripheries.

The Church, the People of God, should walk together, sharing the burdens of humanity, listening to the cry of the poor, reforming itself and its own action, first by listening to the voice of the humble, the anawim of the Hebrew Scriptures, who were at the heart of Jesus' public ministry.

Conclusion

The COVID crisis, the Pope says, has exposed our vulnerability.

It has revealed the fallacy of individualism as the organising principle of our Western society.

It has given the lie to a "myth of self-sufficiency" that sanctions rampant inequalities and frays the ties that bind societies together. If we want a different world, we must become a different people.

I wonder if the crisis in the Church today could be framed in analogous terms.

In fact, we are at a point in history where all the indications point to a perfect storm: sexual abuse crisis, near-total collapse of active participation, loss of credibility, shrinking pool of clerical leadership et cetera.

Some have likened the state of the Church to Shakespeare's state of Denmark.

It is hardly an exaggeration!

This monumental crisis above all has exposed the weakness and indeed the unsustainability of the clericalist model.

Hence, if we are to emerge out of this, we will need to boldly embrace a new ecclesiology from below that has regained momentum thanks to the prophetic leadership of Pope Francis. We must take up the call issued to St Francis, "Go and rebuild my Church that is falling into ruins".

It is not only possible; it is the most exciting time for us to construct a new future.

It humbles us to know that God is with us in the mess and even in the perceived irrelevancy of the Church.

It comforts us, too, to know that the Church was not at its best when it reached the heights of its power in what was known as Christendom.

It was the Church of the Catacombs that shone forth its best rays of hope ironically when it was poor, persecuted and powerless.

Christendom and for the most part of history, we have tried to be great, powerful and dominant.

It was no coincidence that Dom Helder Camara and many of his Latin American colleagues chose to make the so-called "Pact of the Catacombs" as a way to return to the roots and foundations of the Church.

They weren't just letting the fresh air of the Second Vatican Council blow away the cobwebs and the manacles. They were determined to recapture the original and radical spirit of the earliest Christian movement.

It may be a long and winding road to a vision of the poor, humble but empowering and leavening force in the world. But as Teilhard de Chardin wrote: "the only task worthy of our efforts is to construct the future".

I pray that this historic once in a generation Plenary Council may be an expression of such effort.

May we have the courage, boldness and parrhesia to move from the old paradigm of triumphalism, power and splendour to the new ways of being Church that will convey the freshness of the Gospel.

• Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta - Dom Helder Camara Lecture.
• First published by Catholic Outlook. Republished with permission.

Faced with declining resources and a faithful but increasingly small cohort of weekly Mass attendees—between 2 and 11 percent of the province, according to The Economist in 2016—Cardinal Lacroix called on the church in Quebec not to struggle to hold on to what it has left but to see itself as a mission church moving outward.

"We must reorient our pastoral teams toward a more intensely missionary activity, turned toward the people and groups that we join too little," the cardinal said.

"Cardinal Lacroix's decision is fully in tune with what the Quebec bishops have called the missionary turnabout, following Francis's ‘Joy of the Gospel,'" said Frédéric Barriault, a researcher at the Jesuit-run Center for Justice and Faith in Montreal, in an email.

"For years, there were too many churches and too few priests and faithful to tend them.

"They needed to dispose of many of these ageing and sometimes crumbling churches to kickstart the real church, the one that is not made of concrete, brick and mortar, but of flesh, blood and faith.

"They needed to dispose of these aging churches to kickstart the real church, the one not made of brick and mortar, but of flesh, blood and faith."

In recent years, hundreds of churches in Quebec have been slated for demolition or conversions into mixed-use facilities—homes, theatres and more—reflecting the waning presence of institutional Catholicism.

The number of baptisms in the province has sharply declined.

The economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have exacerbated the budget challenges of already struggling parishes.

Still, 64 percent of people in Quebec identify as Catholic, according to the polling firm Angus Reid, even if weekly Mass attendance is no longer the norm.

Barriault suggests that out of such challenges may emerge new expressions of authentic Catholicism in the province. "It means less parochial churches, priests and Sunday Masses," he said, "and more smaller meeting rooms where laypersons would animate the liturgy of the Word and be a sign of God's love for humanity by their personal and collective [action] for the common good."

It is an opportunity "to become the ‘field hospital church' that Francis so often speaks about."

While the missionary direction may be new, Barriault insists that the church has a long tradition of engaging people in Quebec, especially through efforts in pursuit of social justice.

To help explore that tradition, the Center for Justice and Faith has been compiling stories and information about past social justice campaigns by Catholics in Quebec in an online archival project, "Mémoire du christianisme social au Québec."

Young people in Quebec, according to Barriault, born after the Second Vatican Council and the so-called Quiet Revolution, when civic institutions in the province experienced rapid secularization, have never known the ultramontane and Tridentine church of the past.

They are "rediscovering the prophetic heritage of Catholic social activists involved in labour, feminist, ecological and decolonial struggles," he said.

"The church would be wise to tap into that vein, with the hopes and dreams of Quebec's youth."

The church in Quebec also has a rich, living tradition of missionaries to draw upon, including those who have wrestled with what it means to preach the Gospel under the province's unique conditions.

Among them is the Rev. Claude Lacaille, who worked as a missionary with the Société des Missions-Étrangères in some of the most difficult political contexts in Haiti, Ecuador and Chile.

Though he had to navigate dictatorships and violence abroad, he says his return to Quebec in 1986, after the province had secularized, "was my most difficult mission of all."

Lacaille left Quebec for Haiti in 1965, when most Quebeckers were still practising Catholics.

He adapted himself well in foreign countries, he said.

His memoir, Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants, is full of stories of enculturation, throwing in with the struggle of others, living alongside other missionaries like the Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Carla Piette.

"But when I came back to Quebec, secularism was something that I was not confronted with before," he says.

"In Chile, I was working all the time in my environment with communists, atheists and so on. There was never a problem that I was a priest. ‘He's on our side,' they would say."

But "to be a priest in Quebec was a problem. That was difficult for me because I was surprised; I didn't know what to do." Continue reading

The video-centric app is credited with popularizing the runaway hit "Stunnin'" by Curtis Waters.

In another instance, it exposed to millions of viewers a dance sequence known as "The Renegade" created by a 14-year-old girl in a suburb of Atlanta, resulting in teens mimicking the moves in school hallways around the country.

That TikTok's 15- to 30-second clips are perfect for making new songs and dances go viral is obvious, less so is its potential to #MakeJesusViral.

But the hashtag garnered 362 million views, proving bite-sized chunks of theology just as edible.

Similarly, #Christian has gotten 10.5 billion views #Jewish 1.1 billion and #Islam a whopping 23.7 billion.

To say that religion is big on the platform is an understatement.

These lessons aren't lost on young people hoping to build faith communities.

Christian, Muslim and Jewish creators alike are utilizing TikTok to spread the word — with evangelicals, in particular, embracing the platform as they historically have with new technology.

Religion's outsize presence on the app also calls into question the widely held belief that Gen Z, those born after 1996, is following the decades-old American trend away from religion.

Maybe TikTok isn't exactly bringing them into the fold — but some religious leaders say the proliferation of faith-related clips suggests the young are searching for something.

In search of the flock

Many TikTok creators making religious content use the same methods as other TikTokers —they ride the waves of the trending content to bring religion to the masses — to maximize attention to their posts.

Father Matt Lowry (@catholic.jacks 73.8K followers) is a Catholic priest who leads a church at Northern Arizona University.

He's not a Gen Zer but "Father Matt," as he's affectionately called, has a team of college students who help him create social media content to reach local students.

When Father Matt and his Gen Z advisers combined two trends — the song "Stunnin'" with the "What I'd wear" concept — he went viral to the tune of 3.7 million views and over 350,000 likes.

Father Matt was shocked at the success of the clip, which simply shows him in different robes for various holy days.

He was also surprised by the popularity of a clip in which he and young members of the church did the "COVID Slide" — a humorous, socially distanced version of the song "Electric Slide" that starts with putting masks on, continues with elbow taps, and concludes with washing hands.

"It got over a million views," he says.

Out of curiosity, he searched the app to see who else was using the same track.

It seemed to be mostly people between 14 to 21 — "a demographic that the church struggles with right now," says Father Matt.

"They're in TikTok. And if this is where the people are, this is where we want to go."

Using TikTok to reach out to Catholics, Father Matt says, is an "attempt to emulate Jesus, who goes in search of the flock." Continue reading

The decision to postpone has been made before setting a new date, to provide clarity and certainty for people around the April dates in the face of the rapidly changing pandemic issue Read more

He is encouraging Christians to create bridges of hope rather than hostility.

The comments were made by Pope Francis during his weekly general audience on November 6.

"Paul does not look at the city of Athens and the pagan world with hostility but with the eyes of faith," he said.

"And this makes us question our way of looking at our cities: Do we observe them with indifference? With contempt? Or with the faith that recognizes children of God in the midst of the anonymous crowds?"

Francis said the paganism of the Greeks did not cause St Paul to flee.

Instead, "Paul observes the culture and environment of Athens from a contemplative gaze that sees God dwelling in their homes, in their streets and squares."

"In the heart of one of the most famous institutions of the ancient world, the Areopagus, he realizes an extraordinary example of inculturation of the message of the faith," the pope said.

"He proclaims Jesus Christ to idol worshippers and doesn't do it by attacking them, but by making himself a 'pontiff,' a builder of bridges."

Francis said St Paul engages with empathy and it is in this way that he builds bridges of hope with culture, with those who do not believe or with those who have a different creed from ours.

Calling on tradition, Francis, cited Pope Benedict XVI, saying that acting with empathy is not proclaiming the unknown god, but rather "proclaiming him whom people do not know and yet do know - the unknown-known".

According to tradition, St. Paul preached to the Athenians at the Areopagus, an area that was not only a symbol of Greek political and cultural life but also the location of an altar to the "unknown god."

Source

• NCR

We know how to be Christian when we are poor, under-educated, and culturally marginalized, but we struggle to be Christian when we are affluent, educated, and have a full place in the culture.

These over-simplifications speak volumes about the state of the church in the Western world.

Simply put, today we are better at dealing with someone already sitting in our church pews than we are at getting anyone there in the first place.

Our churches are strong on maintenance, weak on being missionary.

This is everywhere evident.

We look at our churches today and we see so many wonderful things:

• faith-filled individuals,
• good liturgies,
• good preaching,
• good music,
• wonderful programs sensitivity to justice,
• faith-sharing groups,
• excellent theology,
• ecumenical openness,
• soul-work in our renewal centres,
• beautiful church buildings, and
• an ever-increasing lay involvement.

It has been centuries since we have done so many things so well and maintained church life with such quality and balance.

But we see something else too, less positive:

• One-half of all baptized Christians rarely enter a church,
• our churches are greying,
• the culture is increasingly marginalizing the church, and, most serious of all,
• too often we cannot pass on our faith to our own children.

Even as so many good things are happening within the church we are losing ground.

The crisis, it seems, is not in the area of parish program, liturgy, or theology but in the area of the missionary dimension of Christianity.

We know how to run a church, but we don't know how to found a church.

What's needed?

We need to become more deliberately, reflectively, and programmatically missionary within our own culture, to our own children.

We need to send missionaries into secularity in the very same way as we once sent them off to faraway countries.

The church in the secularized world needs a new kind of missionary.

What will this new kind of missionary need to bring?

Before anything else, real faith.

What we need are men and women who can walk the workplace, the marketplace, the academy of learning, and the arts and entertainment industry, and radiate a faith that is not infantile, over-protective, paranoid, colourless, or compromising.

We need men and women who are post-affluent, post-sophisticated, post-liberal, post-conservative, and post-fearful in their faith.

Their faith needs to have a double strength: It must be strong enough not be defensive in the face of secularity, even as it has the capacity to sweat the blood of self-renunciation rather than compromise the great future for present consolation.

Beyond personal faith, the missionary to secularity will need these things too:

• A new language for a post-ecclesial generation,
• a new gospel-artistry to refire the romantic imagination of a secularized mind,
• a new way to connect the gospel to the streets,
• a new way of moving beyond personal gift and charism to the building of lasting community,
• a new way of connecting eros and spirituality, justice and piety, energy and wisdom, and
• a new way to combine God's consolation with prophetic challenge.

No easy task.

In all these areas we are, right now, still searching for new ways.

Perhaps the person we can look to for guidance is Henri Nouwen.

To the extent that our age has had a missionary to secularity, he fits the bill. His life and his writings touched people in all walks of life and not just inside church circles. His approach was deliberate and faith-filled, he was trying to speak to the heart of secular culture from the perspective of the gospel.

Slowly, through many years of writing, he developed his own language.

He re-wrote his books many times over in an attempt to be simple without being simplistic; to carry real feeling without falling into sentimentality; to speak the language of the soul without falling into psychological jargon; to be personal without being exhibitionist; to put forth Christ's invitation and challenge without being preachy; to challenge towards community without being churchy; and to offer God's consolation without falling into mushy piety.

He didn't always succeed, but he did it better than the rest of us.

And more so even than the popularity of his writings (that unique appeal and effectiveness of the language he developed) Nouwen is a model to us in terms of the quality of his faith.

He walked inside secularity with a visible faith, raw, without fear and without compromise (albeit not without tears, heartache, and breakdown).

In the end, what shone through was faith, his belief that God's existence is real and is the most important thing of all.

We need to learn from people like him, learn the difference between providing church-maintenance and being missionaries.

We know what to do with people once we get them into a church but we must learn again how to get them there.

• Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his website, www.ronrolheiser.com. Now on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

Every week, the single Sunday liturgy in the modest church building in an impoverished neighborhood is filled to capacity with a passionate mix of young and old; black, white, and brown; and religious and lay from dozens of zip codes.

St. William is a missional church.

Everything on Sunday—from the opening song to the 20 minutes of announcements inviting action—is about mission.

What the parish does in between Sundays is equally important.

With over a dozen active ministries and projects that have evolved into important and impactful nonprofits, St. William has changed the city of Louisville.

It is exactly what Pope Francis would hope for.

The parish Pope Francis is hoping for can happen.

If it doesn't, we will have to satisfy ourselves with being members of an exclusive club or find somewhere else to go.

Sadly, data show that finding somewhere else to go is exactly what millions of Catholics, especially young people, are doing and will continue to do.

In 2019, after six years of leadership by Pope Francis and 50 years of beckoning by the Second Vatican Council, the American Catholic Church is at a crossroads.

Will it choose the path of Jesus, St. Francis, Dorothy Day, and now Pope Francis—the path of discipleship?

Or will it preoccupy itself with "house rules," self-contained recipes for salvation, and clerical fetish?

In many ways, everything is at stake: the future of the church's social mission, the future of the parish, and even the future of the planet.

Think of the church as a lifesaving station on a dangerous seacoast with frequent shipwrecks.

The building was originally just a hut and there was only one boat, but the completely devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many were saved by this station, so it became famous.

Some of those saved and others in the surrounding areas then gave their time and money to support its work.

New boats were bought and crews were trained.

The little lifesaving station grew.

Time passed.

Some members of the lifesaving station became unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped.

They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.

So they replaced the cots with beds, put in better furniture, and enlarged the building.

Soon the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its proud members; they redecorated it beautifully and used it as a kind of club.

Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.

The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club decorations, however, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where club initiations were held.

About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, half-drowned people.

They were dirty, wounded, sick, and some had differently colored skin.

The beautiful new club was left untidy and muddy.

So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where shipwreck victims could clean up before coming inside.

At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership.

Some leaders wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities, seeing them as an unpleasant hindrance to the normal social life of the club.

Some of the members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose.

But they were voted down and told that if they wanted to save the various people shipwrecked on those waters, they could start their own lifesaving station down the coast.

They did.

But as the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old.

It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded.

History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.

Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

As with the life station, over time the church's mission, initially so inspiring and life-changing, gradually atrophies into something much less than it had been in its origin.

The seemingly innocuous choices—perhaps reasonable, maybe well‑intentioned, but ultimately uninspired—of generation after generation can steer what had been a heroic project into a cozy but irrelevant organization.

In time, there is little left that resembles the courage and sacrifice of the original narrative. Continue reading