Synod Themes Workshop Cathedral - Insightful Discussions on Archdiocesan Renewal
A workshop held at the Cathedral on 23rd March focused on key themes for the renewal of the Archdiocese. Topics such as youth ministry, marriage, family life, and discipleship were discussed. The event highlighted challenges and opportunities for engaging with parishioners, especially the youth, to create welcoming environments and foster spiritual growth.
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Synod Themes Workshop Cathedral, 23 March
A Prayer for our Archdiocese O Lord our God, send forth your Holy Spirit, and renew the face of our Archdiocese! Grant to our Archbishop and his auxiliary the gift of wisdom; To our clergy and religious, understanding, To our laity and families, counsel; To our youth and all students, knowledge; To seminarians and novices, fortitude and perseverance; To our pastoral councils, piety; To our political leaders, fear of the Lord; And to our archdiocese and the entire universal church, unity and love. O Lord, renew your Holy Spirit within us and we shall work to renew the face of the earth. Amen
Of the 123 parishes of the Archdiocese who were surveyed, 59 responded. The quality of the responses has been impressive, with a large number of parishes showing that they engaged with the process in a thoughtful and prayerful manner. Eight topics emerged from those submissions: 1.Youth 2.Creating a welcoming environment, addressing discrimination and social class 3.Formation and catechesis 4.Marriage and family life 5.Liturgical renewal 6.Governance and leadership 7.Spiritual renewal 8.Creating missionary disciples
From Topics to Themes
After some deliberation the Synod Preparatory Committee concluded that trying to cover each topic would not do it justice and hence distilled the 8 topics into 4 themes which we proposed for consideration, and which the Archbishop has accepted. They are as follows: Youth; Marriage and Family Life; Renewal and Discipleship.
Approximately 75% of respondents highlighted the importance of ministry to youth, concerned that the Church is having great difficulty in retaining youth members post confirmation. There seems to be a lack of engagement between authorities/structure in parishes and the youth, who find welcome and connection in other denominational churches. The conclusion of many is that youth do not find our parishes places of welcome, where their own particular giftedness is appreciated, and their voices heard. Do we know the real issues and questions which the youth of today are grappling with? Are we simply providing solutions to problems which do not exist? A number of parishes touched on the issue of child abuse, though they did not explicitly connect it with youth. It would be appropriate here to address concerns of abuse, reporting, best practices and structures to create a safe environment for all young people in our parishes.
Marriage and Family Life
There is a recognition of the challenges facing Christian marriage today, and a great desire by the local church to support marriage. What might that mean for us today? Areas that are mentioned are marriage preparation prior to marriage, addressing honestly the clash between the traditional idea of marriage as process and the Christian understanding of marriage as sacrament. There is also the desire for the Church to be more accepting of the diversity and complexity of the modern family. One cannot address this theme without situating marriage and family life within its broader socio- economic context. What aspects of our broken society need to be healed in order to provide a nurturing environment for children? What can the Church do in order to adequately form children growing up in fatherless homes? How does institutionalised patriarchy affect how we see and treat women? This would also be an ideal place to deal with the encyclical The Joy of Love .
Renewal covers areas like spiritual growth, formation in the faith, how to conduct liturgies that are life-giving and fulfilling, and creating the parish communities that are open and welcoming to all, irrespective of gender, language, race, national origin or socio-economic class. An important concern which came out from a number of parishes is the need to resolving racial, economic and social divisions in the Church. There is also the awareness that the activities of the Church, pre-eminently the liturgy, should create moments of greater connection with God, so that spiritual renewal and conversion can occur.
The theme of discipleship poses the question: what is our mission as the Church, what does it mean for us to be disciples in today s world? Connected to the theme of renewal would be what kind of Church best helps us produce missionary disciples for Christ. An idea mentioned by a few is that the New Evangelisation stems from a welcoming parish. Also mentioned is the call by Pope Francis to become a Church that exists to serve and not to be served. There is to some extent an overlap between renewal and discipleship, as the fruits of renewal should be evident in the discipleship of the Christian. A number of parishes mentioned the need for better leadership in the Church, recognising that without well-formed leaders, both clerical and lay, the mission of the Church is unobtainable.
The Next Steps Panels of Experts
Each theme has a panel of experts whose mandate is to prepare study and reflection material which will address the ideas raised, which will be sent out to the parishes together with a set of questions to help the parish communities focus more deeply on each theme. The responses will be fed back to each panel who will then prepare a summary of the responses for the Synod steering committee. This will enable the committee to prepare for the process of discussion and discernment which will take place at the Synod itself. The materials to be prepared should consist of a 20 page resource pack, a one page executive summary of the material, and five to ten focus questions which will help parish communities to engage more deeply with the topic.
Next steps Role of Synod Champions
To promote the synod process on the PPC To ensure that reflection on the four themes takes place and the information is fed back to the Synod committee To attend the synod with the other representatives of the parish (Parish Priest, PPC Chair, Parish Youth Forum Representative) After the Synod, to promote and monitor the implementation of the Synod Resolutions
In groups of 4-5 people What strikes you about the theme summary? Does it seem to capture the spirit of the issue in your own parishes? Does the theme summary leave you feeling hopeful and excited, or does it leave you feeling pessimistic? Can you pinpoint why you feel that way? Come up with one or two questions for the theme which will help your parish to reflect even more deeply on the issues raised in the theme
