CONCERNED CATHOLICS CANBERRA GOULBURN
PUBLIC FORUM via ZOOM
Thursday 27 August 2020 - 5:00pm-6:30pm

Plenary Council Update
The writing and discernment papers: Where to from here?
  

REGISTER HERE

Chair
Andrea Dean
Chair, WATAC (Women and the Australian Church) 

Speakers
Terry Fewtrell
Lead author of CCCG submission to the Plenary Council

• A Review of the Plenary Council's Discernment Papers
  The six papers are central to the success of the Plenary Council process but Fewtrell argues they fail to bring together a coherent picture of the real issues confronting the Australian church and provide little confidence that an incisive and meaningful agenda will emerge. He says the Papers acknowledge the great desire of Australian Catholics for major reform of the church, but either through timidity or intent, fail to translate or marshal those reform ideas into initiatives and frameworks that the Plenary Council could consider. The Papers reveal a failure to imagine a church that is faithful to its origins and relevant to its time and place. The People can but the bishops can’t. Reform advocates need to consider how best to respond to this situation. In overall terms we need to call out the bishops on this process, highlight the contrast with the rich lode of thinking offered by the People and alert the broader catholic community to the risks of what is obvious manipulation and a rejection, in bad faith, of the earnest expectations of the People.
  
  Read Terry Fewtrell's paper here

Andrew Phelan 
Contributing author of CCCG submission to the Plenary Council

• Whither or Wither the Plenary Council?
  Phelan argues here that the purpose and scope of the Plenary Council have not been defined adequately or at all by the bishops, that the scope of what is to be considered is far narrower than it should have been and that the bishops are using the processes to justify making minimal changes to the status quo. When overlaid by the flawed structures and processes through which discernment and drafting of milestone reports have been conducted, and the poor quality of those reports, the failure to settle a clear purpose and scope of the Plenary Council has rendered the Plenary Council largely irrelevant. Phelan concludes that the point has been reached when remaining, erstwhile participants should reconsider their participation.
  
  Read Andrew Phelan's paper here

Respondent
Beth Doherty
Author of All the Beautiful Things: Finding Truth, Beauty and Goodness in a Fractured Church. 

The two papers we have listened to this evening speak to the interesting divisions we are experiencing in our church, and it makes for a fraught, and sociologically fascinating Plenary Council process. But is it worthwhile? Or is the PC simply an expensive public relations exercise being undertaken by the Bishops conference in reparation for the sins exposed by the Royal Commission?

Read Beth Doherty’s response here
 
Further details: www.concernedcatholicscanberra.org
 
Contact Mark Metherell 0417 603 697