ARCHBISHOP John Bathersby has released a major document on the future direction of Brisbane archdiocese in the light of his Synod Promulgation in 2003.
The archbishop launched the document – Let Your Light Shine – at a ceremony in St Stephen’s Chapel in the City last Wednesday.
He said it ‘provides a practical planning focus for our efforts to be a vibrant and evangelising local Church’.
It is a response to the archbishop’s request to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (APC) for a document to assist him and the Council of Priests ‘to take forward the Jesus Communion Mission vision [of the synod] and the nine archdiocesan priorities’, which flowed from last year’s archdiocesan synod.
The aim was to draw together all the planning initiatives necessary to implement the synod outcomes.
Archbishop Bathersby said Let Your Light Shine was primarily for leaders and those who work with them, ‘enlivening the life and mission of our Catholic parishes, deaneries, groups and institutions’.
Prepared by a task group of the APC in collaboration with the Council of Priests, the document provides a broad strategic framework for the preparation of pastoral plans. It also calls for the development and sharing of plans.
Let Your Light Shine is to be implemented over the next seven years with a review of its progress in 2008.
The implementation and review will be overseen by the archbishop and Council of Priests and led by the APC ‘working with other bodies as appropriate’.
APC deputy chairman Mary Fama is a member of the task group which prepared Let Your Light Shine.
She said the document was a major step forward in the implementation of the synod outcomes.
Copies of Let Your Light Shine will be distributed throughout the archdiocese.
Additional copies can be ordered through the archbishop’s office at $5 each.
