Thank you to everyone who attended the Plenary Council Listening Sessions last Wednesday. I found both sessions inspirational and very thought provoking. Just to give a bit of a big picture perspective, when we talk about a Plenary for the whole of the Catholic Church in Australia we need to see what it that looks like.
In Australia according to the 2016 census there are 5,439,268 Catholics in 32 dioceses with a total of 1363 Parishes. So if you were to imagine that each of all 1363 parishes were involved and they all submitted fifty comments/submission that would mean there would be a total of 68,150 comments, not to mention that private submission sent by individuals and religious priests, sisters and brothers, as well as lay organisations such as Vinnies and catholic organisations such as schools and catholic hospitals. In the Canberra and Goulburn Archdiocese we have fifty four parishes broken up into 5 geographical areas called Deaneries.
In the Canberra Deanery there are 17 Parishes, who had four Plenary Listening Sessions divided into a day and evening session, in the north and the same in the south, like us. Goulburn will be holding their sessions next week, the coastal deanery held their Plenary session in August, I am not sure where the Monaro and the Western deaneries are up to.