Plenary Council 2020 update
Momentum is building as people across Australia get together in groups, download the Listening and Dialogue guide, get together for conversation and then are sending their responses in online. More than 120 responses have already been received by the Plenary Council team.
Does my voice, my experience, sharing my story really matter?
Yes, absolutely! Each of us is called as children of God to respond to Pope Francis’s invitation to become a “synodal” Church – a Church of faith-filled people who speak boldly and with passion, and who listen deeply with an open and humble heart.
In his address to the Bishops of the world, Pope Francis explains the importance of listening, dialogue and prayer.
“A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realises that listening is more than simply hearing. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. The faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’ (Jn 14:17), in order to know what he ‘says to the Churches’ (Rev 2:7).”
Also from the Plenary Council’s June newsletter:
A recently-published document from the International Theological Commission has emphasised the place of lay people as key contributors to decision-making within the Catholic Church, creating a more “synodal” Church.
Synodality in the Life of the Church, published last month with the approval of Pope Francis, said the lived experience of lay people can inform the Church and Catholic leaders in their work.
Lay people are “the immense majority of the People of God and we have much to learn from their participation in the various expressions of the life and mission of church communities, of popular piety and of general pastoral care, as well as from their specific expertise in various fields of cultural and social life”, the document said.
It goes on: “This is why consulting them is indispensable in starting the processes of discernment within the framework of synodal structures. It is therefore necessary to overcome obstacles represented by a lack of formation and recognised forums in which the lay faithful can express themselves and act, and from a clerical mentality that risks keeping them at the margins of ecclesial life.”
Click here to read more about the document from The Tablet.
Click here to download the whole document.
