PASTORAL LETTER - YEAR OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
TIME TO GATHER FOR AN ARCHDIOCESAN ASSEMBLY – WITH A VIEW OF
RE-ESTABLISHING A DIOCESAN PASTORAL COUNCIL
Dear FRIENDS IN CHRIST,
8th AUGUST 2022 - 8 AUGUST 2023
YEAR OF WALKING TOGETHER.
We are coming towards the end of our Walking Together Year. This time has always had modest expectations. It arose immediately after the Plenary Council of Australia. The focus was on its themes of synodality. It asked the Archdiocese to scrutinise how she can truly Walk Together in evangelisation.
I have observed that the expression itself is now quite widely used around the Archdiocese. It carries a hope of listening better together. Another hope is the networking of our pastoral activities more acutely towards evangelisation. This latter aim has been difficult to activate. We tend to do what Pope Francis warns us against: “walking together in parallel lines that never meet”.
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8th AUGUST 2023 – 8TH AUGUST 2024
YEAR OF THE HOLY SPIRIT - “IT SEEMED GOOD TO US AND THE HOLY SPIRIT” (Acts 15/28)
I believe it is now time for us to journey the next steps together in a focussed manner. The next year is to focus on the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
We need to gather for an Archdiocesan Assembly with a view of re-establishing a Diocesan Pastoral Council.
To move towards this end under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, four important focus areas need thorough discussion in our parishes and local communities of faith.
FOCUS ONE: AN ARCHDIOCESAN UNDERSTANDING OF EVANGELISATION.
We need an articulated and shared understanding of evangelisation within the Catholic Tradition. This forms a pastoral/theological foundation for all that follows.
Recently the Australian Bishops have published a short and helpful document articulating just this from a biblical/theological perspective. It is titled: “Evangelisation: Encounter, Discipleship and Mission”. In our listening / sharing circles, we are to deepen our communal understanding of this vision of evangelisation.
FOCUS TWO: EVANGELISATION IN A SYNODAL AND MARIAN WAY.
Following on from this agreed understanding, we then examine how evangelisation is expressed in a synodal and Marian way. This dynamic topic is the source of much present day global discussion within the Catholic Church. Also, past Synods of the Archdiocese still offer us wisdom for the future.
We examine how this arises from our shared Baptism (Confirmation/Eucharist).
The Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelisation. This belief involves examination of the charisms of the Holy Spirit in our lives of faith. What Holy Spirit gifts do we discern in our own lives and the lives of others to project forward the mission of the Church in the world of today?
There are many new and helpful statements on these topics on the national, regional and international levels. We can examine some of these to assist us in our local and communal discernment.
FOCUS THREE: SPECIFIC AREAS OF EVANGELISATION.
Responding with the above foundations, we can then consider a local appropriation to the 8 main Decrees of the 8th Plenary Council of Australia.
Just recently, a helpful Australian pastoral resource has become available for us to gather in evangelisation circles and consider these Decrees.
FOCUS FOUR: ARCHDIOCESAN ASSEMBLY.
With the above sensibilities in mind and heart, we can gather as an Archdiocese and share the fruits of our listening to the Holy Spirit together. Relying on the movement of the Holy Spirit, we discern, for example, the exact nature of a Diocesan Pastoral Council for our Archdiocese.
Learning from the creative ways we responded electronically to the Covid pandemic, we could utilise the multi-modal ways of gathering not simply physically in one place but in many places simultaneously around our rural diocese.
We need to pose the question also during this assembly regarding the move towards an Archdiocesan Synod in the near future and what form such a formal gathering would take.
I notice that the young adults of our Archdiocese have shown conspicuous leadership in gathering using all the electronic means available. They have developed also creative ways of leading such discussions. Perhaps they could offer some leadership in advancing an Archdiocesan Assembly. Maybe we could gather in the second half of 2024.
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I suppose when we place our own present day challenges and hopes in advancing the great mandate of the Lord Jesus to evangelise, we can look contemplatively to the Acts of the Apostles for biblical leadership and pastoral authority. After all their communal discernment of the Holy Spirit in the particular pastoral problems of the apostolic times, they concluded by using a wonderful expression that ought to animate our own humble attempts. Before articulating a specific response to an issue, they exclaimed:
“IT SEEMED GOOD TO US AND THE HOLY SPIRIT” (Acts 15/28)
Let us pray that as we set out on a new journey of evangelisation as an Archdiocese, we can reach this same statement of faith in a synodal and Marian way.
Soon a further document will be sent out with further details and resources listed.
Archbishop Christopher Prowse Pastoral Letter-INDIGENOUS VOICE TO PARLIAMENT REFERENDUM
PASTORAL LETTER
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
INDIGENOUS VOICE TO PARLIAMENT REFERENDUM
– SOME MORAL/ETHICAL REFLECTIONS -
Regarding the Voice to Parliament Referendum, the Bishops of Australia have encouraged us to consider the moral/ethical dimensions and not simply political arguments.
To assist us in forming our individual and collective consciences, may I offer the following very brief and initial reflections.
We are to ask: “How ought I/we vote? … What ought I/we DO?” This is a good place to start. However, if we leave the question simply at this we may well end up with an answer based on political arguments alone.
The deeper moral/ethical question probes our conscience further. It asks: “What ought I/we BE as Australians given this issue now before us?”
To answer this deeper moral question requires considerations on two levels simultaneously: social structures and human attitudes.
On the level of social structures, there is a strong argument for change. At present, simply being born an aboriginal person places an Australian seemingly in a highly marginalised position.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) expresses this succinctly. “Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.”
The entrenched nature of this crisis seems to indicate an intergenerational social structure that is diseased.
Good ethics would insist that a deeper diagnosis of this situation would involve the interplay of structures with human attitudes. This dual consideration assists us in discovering foundations for the common good – the doorway to true justice.
This requires dialogue and listening with our First Australians. It is in this area of attitudes that Aboriginal activist, Noel Pearson (27 October 2022, Boyer Lectures), identifies a major weakness in finding healing solutions. He says in a most disturbing refection: “We are a much unloved people. We are perhaps the ethnic group Australians feel least connected to. We are not popular and we are not personally known to many Australians. Few have met us and a small minority count us as friends. And despite never having met any of us …… Australians hold and express strong views about us, the great proportion of which is negative and unfriendly.”
Regardless of the result of the 14 October 2023 Referendum and the social structural changes proposed, this area of conversion of attitudes would remain.
We all surely have a communal responsibility to ponder deeply on the type of Australia we want to become because of the Referendum. Let us educate our individual and collective consciences on the issues involved and vote according to these deep reflections.
As Pope St John Paul II so famously stated in the much quoted speech he gave to Aboriginal Australians in Alice Springs (29th November 1986),
You are part of Australia and Australia is part of you. And the Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.”
Archbishop Christopher Prowse
Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn
3rd October 2023
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv1PIk9d5p8