WITH laptop, mobile phone and an image of St Mary MacKillop beside him, Brisbane Auxilliary Bishop Ken Howell is preparing to join the next daily session of the Church’s historic Plenary Council.
Bishop Howell is seated in an office in the St Stephen’s Cathedral precinct in central Brisbane ready to log in and virtually join Catholic members of the Plenary from across Australia.
278 Plenary members from Broome to Brisbane and from Darwin to Adelaide are seated in similar offices, or at home, waiting for the meeting to start. They are bishops, priests, religious, deacons and lay men and women.
The last Plenary Council assembly was held in 1937 in Sydney and was a very different affair. It was a face-to-face meeting of only bishops and priests.
“Who would have thought that the next plenary would be held online… and to broaden the Church into the whole process… which reflects on where we have come as a Church in the country and what our future is,” Bishop Howell said.
Even in a virtual environment he holds out great hope that this latest Council gathering can find new directions for the Church by following a centuries-old practice of “spiritual conversations”.
Using that process, 10 groups of members are praying with and reflecting on 16 questions across six themes: Conversion, Prayers, Formation, Structures, Governance and Institutions.
Each morning, via livestream, a representative of each of the 10 groups provides a summary of the previous afternoon’s prayer and discussion.
While many issues confront the Church today – including its need to tend to past and present failures – Bishop Howell said the plenary process is about listening for ‘the voice of the Spirit’ to discern how to go forward, rather than pushing any individual agendas.
“.. because at times that may be blocking the voice of the Spirit speaking to us… there’s always that discernment that goes on between what we think the Church should be and where we can actually be with the discernment of the Spirit,” he said.
“The fact (is) that we need to be more converted to Christ, because I think once that happens everything else starts fitting into place… because then you’ve got the foundation to work from… the more you get to know Christ, the more you appreciate what he’s asking you to do.
“That’s always my number one.”
Another plenary member Professor Renee Kohler-Ryan the National Head of the School of Philosophy and Theology at The University of Notre Dame in Sydney, said holding the Plenary Council in the online space was “very different to what we had first imagined”.
“We’re all just trying to wrap our heads around how this is going to work,” Professor Kohler-Ryan said.
“What I sense is there’s quite a bit of excitement about what it is that we might find out together.”
In a very different setting, Council member Fr Mick Lowcock, whose Mt Isa parish stretches across outback Queensland, said he “saw the Spirit at work in the listening” that has gone on so far”.
“I don’t know if there was an acceptance of views, but at least there was no rejection of views.. and that to me says there’s an openness to diversity, and there’s an openness to building something from the diversity,” he said.
“If there’s true dialogue there’s trust.”
A livestream of each morning’s plenary sessions, including the full reports from the 10 groups, can be accessed here.
