Sydney, Australia
Catholic schools across Australia are full but “our churches are empty”, members of the Catholic Church’s Fifth Plenary Council have been told.
The national meeting is the first since 1937 and is attended by 278 members across the country – including bishops, members of religious congregations and laypeople.
St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. PICTURE: David Adams/File photo.
Among the issues being discussed are matters relating to the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse, euthanasia laws, education and women’s roles within the church. The role of First Nations peoples and church governance is also on the agenda.
During Tuesday’s livestream, a representative of each of the 10 groups provided a summary of Monday afternoon’s prayer and discussion. Addressing the full gathering, Virginia Bourke said within her group there was a sense of coming to the end of a particular way of being church in the world – “a change of era” prompting a new paradigm of church.
“We need new wineskins,” she said during her group’s report.
Sister Cecilia Joseph reported on talks held within her breakout group which discussed Catholic education.
Sr Cecilia told the full assembly the group acknowledged that Catholic education has served the church well for 200 years, but said questions had emerged about the effectiveness of their delivery of the Gospel.
“We further discussed the increasing number of non-practising families and non-Catholics in our schools and institutions and how we reach out to them effectively,” she said.
“It was noted that our schools are full, but our churches are empty and that the practice of the faith, post-graduation, is in decline.”
She said delegates discussed that Christ should be at the centre of places of learning, and the measure of success could not be based “solely on numbers”.
To this end, the role of catechists was seen as important.
“Leaders and teachers need to be formed in order to be able to form others, but if Catholic education is to be a place of encounter, then those within our institutions need to have first encountered Jesus…and need to be leading sacramental lives.”
The first “spiritual conversations” of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia covered a broad range of thoughts and topics from baptism being the place for fundamental conversion to the need for the church to tend to its past and current failures.
The group on governance reflected on “How do we as a church walk side by side, women, men, lay and ordained, priest and bishop towards the road to Christ?”.
The discussion included why women didn’t have a significant role in governance.
The assembly continues online for the most part until 10th October, with the second assembly to held in Sydney on 4th to 9th July, 2022.
Catholics make up 43 per cent of Australia’s Christian community, according to the 2016 Census.
