Tag Archives: Catholic

when tradition becomes a trojan horse

Recently, I came across a video clip from a “March for Australia” rally that took place in Australian state and territory capitals on 31 August 2025, in which a senior academic at a Catholic institution made remarks that left me deeply unsettled.

In the video, the speaker – entrusted with the moral and intellectual formation of young Catholics – appears to suggest that Australia, from the time of European settlement, has always rightfully belonged to Anglo-Europeans. The clear implication was that national identity is something primarily, or even exclusively, tied to British heritage – a view that presents the country’s history through a narrow, ethnically defined lens.

What makes this rhetoric particularly concerning is that it draws on a well-worn tradition in Australia’s history, in which racialised understandings of national belonging tend to emerge not as a constant, fully systemic reality, but in waves – often in response to economic stress, political uncertainty, or social change. These waves typically target specific groups, who are scapegoated for broader structural problems.

Today, the targets may be Indian migrants; in previous decades, it was Asians, Italians, Lebanese, and Greeks, among others. These groups have been blamed for everything from housing shortages to wage stagnation – issues that are far more complex than the presence of migrants, but which get recast into a familiar politics of grievance.

In this context, advocating for a return to a homogenous or “original” Australian identity – or even a dominant Anglo-Saxon cultural “supermajority” as advocated by the Catholic academic – becomes not only historically reductive, but deeply exclusionary. It erases the contributions of generations of migrants who have played a vital role in shaping this nation’s social, cultural, and economic life. It also ignores the profound diversity of contemporary Australia, built not on a single ethnic foundation but on mutual respect and the contributions of many cultures engaging across generations.

Such notions are also based on a flawed premise: that there exists a coherent, singular “ethnogenesis” of an Australian ethnicity, which can be traced back to a defined cultural moment and preserved in amber. In reality, this is in fact a qualified social constructivist fantasy, resting on arbitrary start and end dates, or imagined histories that never fully existed. National identity, like culture, is dynamic and evolving. To claim otherwise is to deny the complexity and multiplicity of the Australian story.

Perhaps the only genuinely systemic racial issue in Australia – one which has never arrived in waves but been embedded in our national foundations – is our unresolved relationship with First Nations Australians. Political and cultural institutions have operated as though colonial history is the only real beginning, failing to fully acknowledge and reconcile with the fact that this land was inhabited by First Nations peoples for millennia before British arrival. The presumption that modern Australia starts and ends with colonisation is itself a form of historical revisionism, so often built into the very way we tell our national story.

But racism in Australia is not confined to history, nor is it always directed from majority to minority. It also exists within and between migrant communities, some of whom define themselves in opposition to wider Australian society or to other minority groups. This complexity demands an honest reckoning, recognising that racial prejudice can be internalised, redirected, or replicated across communities, especially when identity feels precarious or under threat.

Catholic institutions, in particular, must be vigilant in how they navigate these dynamics. There is a sobering historical reality here: racism has existed within the Church itself. While the Church has made important strides since then, its members must continually examine how their message and witness either confront or reinforce such ideologies.

Today, the vitality of the Catholic Church in Australia is closely tied to migrant communities. With declining religious participation among the broader population, the continued health of parishes, vocations, and Catholic schools increasingly depends on those who have arrived from the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Africa, and the Middle East. Ongoing racism, especially when implied by Catholic leaders, risks alienating the very people who sustain the Church’s mission and presence in this country.

This is why the remarks at the rally a fortnight ago are so troubling. If such a worldview were to influence the ethos of our Catholic institutions, it would raise serious concerns about how the Western tradition and the Church’s vision of human community are being taught – and to whom they are seen as belonging.

The Western tradition is a profound and meaningful inheritance, forged in the synthesis of Greek philosophy and the Judeo-Christian faith, but it is not the exclusive property of any one people. To conflate it with whiteness or Britishness is to distort both its content and its purpose. At its best, this tradition is capacious – a treasure open to all who seek truth, beauty, and goodness. It is meant to be shaped by, and shared with, people from every nation and background, animated by the universal vision of the Catholic faith.

As Pope Benedict XVI frequently affirmed, the heart of the Christian intellectual tradition lies in its openness to truth wherever it is found, and in its call to unity grounded not in ethnicity, but in the inherent dignity of every human person. When a speaker espouses ethnocentric nationalism and simultaneously teaches the Western tradition, it raises a serious concern: that this tradition is at risk of being misused or subtly misrepresented – not as a source of communion, but as a Trojan horse for racial and cultural exclusion.

The speaker’s language – especially references to a unifying Anglo-European “crimson thread of blood,” which echoes Sir Henry Parkes but also carries troubling connotations of ethnic and racial purity – and the portrayal of Australia as fundamentally an Anglo-European project, dangerously approaches an ethnonationalism that the Church explicitly condemns. This is not the vision of nations embraced by Pope Benedict XVI, who warned against nationalism elevated above ethics and the rights of others, describing such tendencies as “a demonic force and the source of terrible disasters”.

When such ideas are voiced by figures in Catholic academic leadership and applauded by audiences that include far-right nationalists – met with triumphant shouts of “Amen” – they risk aligning Catholic witness with ideologies that are not only politically extreme but, as we have seen in countries like the United States, can escalate into acts of real-world violence when cloaked in religious or moral legitimacy.

As someone born in Western Sydney to migrant parents – whose family has worked diligently, contributed generously, and wholeheartedly embraced this country as their own – I find these implications deeply troubling. Regardless of the speaker’s intent, the message received is one that questions the belonging and legitimacy of many millions of Australians, simply because of their diverse origins. It strikes at the heart of a shared history, contribution, and identity.

Catholic institutions today face an urgent task: to form students not only with intellectual depth, but with a Gospel-rooted vision of the world – one that transcends race, class, and tribe. At a time when cultural forces seek to divide and categorise, our Catholic faith calls us to communion.

That’s why the implications of this video are so serious. This moment demands clarity – not silence or ambiguity. We must ensure that our faith and its traditions are never co-opted by narrow political or ethnic visions, which can lead people down deeply dangerous paths. The Church’s mission is universal. Her intellectual life is for all. And the future of Catholic education in this country depends on our ability to live and teach that truth with both conviction and humility. Our institutions have much to offer. But they must be courageous in defending the true scope of our tradition and the cultural wealth of our nation. 

the Church’s digital horizon

I was grateful to share some reflections on the growing opportunities for the Church in the digital space with colleagues in the Archdiocese of Sydney. As technology continues to reshape how we live, communicate, and form community, the Church finds itself at a remarkable crossroads — uniquely equipped to step into these platforms, not to replace in-person connection, but to expand its reach and deepen its mission.

Digital platforms offer more than just convenience; they open doors to connection, discipleship, and outreach in ways we have never seen before and cannot even predict. What is certain, however, is we can bring the unchanging message of Jesus to people in new ways. I believe it is a hopeful and energising time to reimagine how the Church can remain anchored in its calling while adapting to a rapidly evolving world. For those discerning next steps in mission, resource allocation, or leadership strategy, here are a few thoughts I shared that may help spark conversation, vision, and innovation in your own backyard.

Becoming Future Ready

Across the Church we are blessed with a rich tapestry of agencies and ministries – from pastoral care and parish support to catechesis, evangelisation, and works of mercy and justice. This vibrant ecosystem is already bearing great fruit. Many dioceses, apostolate and groups have strong foundations, and the Catholic Church now has a unique, unprecedented opportunity to build on this legacy. By embracing digital technology with purpose and imagination, we can extend the Church’s reach, deepen its witness, and strengthen its impact for generations to come.

In my own Archdiocese in Sydney a powerful renewal is underway, a “second spring” as it’s been described. At its heart is a profound call to personal conversion – a deeper, more engaged Christian life rooted in a genuine, lived encounter with Christ. When this encounter transforms individuals, it naturally overflows into acts of service, generosity, authentic community, and courageous proclamation. This ripple effect breathes life into the whole Church.

Looking ahead, the International Eucharistic Congress to take place in Sydney in three years promises to fill our sails with fresh wind – increasing engagement across parish life, evangelisation, fundraising, advocacy, and service to those in need. Its success will be measured not just by attendance but by how many are drawn into the Church’s mission from within.

A Strategic Moment for Digital Transformation

We face a strategic opportunity to expand engagement in every corner of the Church’s mission. Digital platforms and innovative tools offer scalable, powerful ways to amplify parish involvement, evangelisation efforts, fundraising, advocacy, and service delivery.

Yet, to realise this promise, I think we must invest deliberately in three critical areas: technology infrastructure, digital literacy, and content development. Embracing this change now – even amid uncertainty – is the least risky path forward. We can think of it like planting an orchard before knowing precisely how the climate will shift. We don’t yet know which fruits will thrive or how seasons will change, but we do know two things: the world is changing, and if we wait for perfect clarity, it will be too late to grow anything of lasting value. The real risk lies in standing still while the landscape transforms around us.

So, digital technology is not a threat to tradition – it is a new soil where the Gospel can take root and flourish.

Context: The Technological Transformation

We are living through a cultural shift as significant as the arrival of electricity. That earlier transformation didn’t just power existing systems – it created new ways of living, working, and connecting. Today, artificial intelligence and automation are driving a similar revolution.

AI promises to reshape economies and workforces,  speeding up production, automating routine tasks, and changing how we find meaning and income. While productivity may rise, there is a risk of social fragmentation, unstable incomes, and diminished personal dignity.

Already, we see disruption in roles across administration, manufacturing, retail, finance, law, and health. The IMF estimates nearly 40% of global jobs could be impacted by AI.

Ownership of capital is shifting too. Whereas land and factories once dominated, today technology – data, algorithms, platforms – is the new capital. Yet this infrastructure is often controlled by a few powerful organisations, raising questions about access and equity. Many people may soon access rather than own essential capital – renting software, vehicles, even homes. In the future, people will own less and what they have will be by subscription.

In response, thinkers are calling for an “empathy-based economy,” one that balances innovation with care, human flourishing, and dignity. As AI takes on cognitive tasks, uniquely human gifts – empathy, emotional intelligence, spiritual discernment – will become more essential. This is where the Church’s prophetic role shines brightest. Not resisting change, but leading it with a vision rooted in the sacredness of the person, the gift of Jesus Christ, the dignity of labour, and the primacy of love and ethics in economic life.

Reaching Beyond: The Mission Field

In the city and suburbs of Sydney we enjoy one of the highest Mass attendance rates in Australia though the sum remains humbling at 10.4%, or 61,000 attenders. This means there are still over half a million Catholics who do not regularly engage with parish life. Beyond them, 2 million people within our Archdiocesan boundaries may never have encountered a living witness to the Gospel. In short, there are far more people to reach than have been reached.

PURPOSE FESTIVAL 2025 – Images by Giovanni Portelli Photography © 2025

Digital transformation offers bold and beautiful ways to extend the invitation. Through video, podcasts, social media reels, digital testimonies, and online series, the Church can meet people where they are – often far from a parish doorway. Many will never step foot in a church but they will watch a video; they will search for answers; they will pause while scrolling past a social media reel. They will listen to a podcast that articulates the faith with clarity and charity. They will encounter a digital testimony that bears witness to Christ’s transformative grace. They may engage with an online series that presents the truths of the faith in compelling and credible ways. They will read a well-crafted reflection that integrates the Gospel with the complexities of modern life. They may be drawn to sacred art or liturgical music shared through headphones, which stirs their heart toward transcendence. They will explore the lives of the saints with others. Digital technologies can create the ‘pause’ in people’s lives that allows the Gospel to speak.

There are great opportunities to experiment with AI, virtual reality, and emerging platforms to distribute knowledge, improve services, and bring the Gospel closer to people’s lives. However, this requires space to think, try, fail, and innovate – partnering with digital creatives, Gen Z entrepreneurs, artists, and developers who already shape culture online. Inviting them into the Church’s digital mission could infuse it with energy, authenticity, and excellence.

Technology can be a “force multiplier,” extending the reach of ministries and deepening Gospel engagement. But without the human heart – creativity, pastoral wisdom, prayer – technology remains potential without impact.

We could imagine AI-powered tools answering everyday queries, freeing up clergy and staff for mission. Or a central platform where clergy and parish teams can access all communications in one place – including memos, updates, forms, events, and support resources. With secure login, it would offer smart notifications based on role, vocation or responsibility (e.g. a priest might receive instant push notifications about liturgical directives, while a parish secretary receives reminders about compliance deadlines), a shared calendar that syncs with personal devices, a searchable archive of past messages (with statements and updates stored, searchable and timestamped), and a simple way to ask questions or give feedback.

No doubt there would be details to work out and it means habituating clergy and parishes into using such technology which takes effort but, as we already know, digital systems and archiving can save an enormous amount of later effort through efficiency, free up time for more mission-oriented work and reduce time spent on administrative catch up. Most new initiatives will gain more traction when framed as pastoral opportunities, rather than a mere tech upgrade.

Data-driven systems can track faith journeys, strengthen formation, and personalise outreach – building a more missionary, welcoming Church. This enables the Church to understand who is coming to faith as adults, their motivations, and how they engage over time. Such insights are critically important for building a more responsive Church. Where the Church once shaped the message and the medium, today it is the audience, guided by algorithms and personal habit, who decides what is seen, heard, and believed.

AI can accelerate multilingual engagement and customise content to meet diverse communities with cultural sensitivity. making formation more contextualised so that everyone feels seen, heard, and invited. We can create and schedule social media posts in multiple languages, reaching different language groups with culturally sensitive messaging and invitations to parish life or special events.

Digital platforms also open new horizons for fundraising and advocacy – connecting local causes with global communities, turning parish projects into worldwide movements. If a local animal shelter in Ohio can raise funds through short reels on TikTok, raising 15,000 new followers as a donor base, and surpassing their goal by 300% in 10 days, so the Church could do the same. Church communities have done so, supporting clean water projects in Uganda and other mission related causes, breaking geographic boundaries and turning community projects into global efforts.   

Technology is shaping culture profoundly. As Pope Leo XIV reminded us recently, this technological age will transform how people seek truth, belonging, and encounter God. The opportunity before us as a Church is not just to adopt new tools but to reimagine the Church’s mission through them – to go wide and deep, reach the margins, and enrich the centre. We have a firm foundation of faith, the vision given to us by Jesus’ Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, and the momentum built by generations of faithful witnesses in our Church.

Now is the time to plant the orchard and trust the Spirit to bring the harvest.

the man of the Shroud

On Friday 27 June 2025, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I was privileged to speak at the inaugural Holy Shroud Conference at Liverpool Catholic Club. In preparing for the introductory address, I was drawn more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s Passion – not merely as historical event but as a living reality, imprinted not only on linen cloth but on our human situation today. The Shroud invites us to contemplate the face of the suffering Christ, to consider what it means that God chose to reveal Himself not in splendour, but in the vulnerability of a broken body out of love for us. I’m grateful to the organisers for their vision and hospitality, and to all those who came – not simply to learn more about a cloth, but to seek the One it points to: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. May devotion to His Sacred Heart draw us ever closer to the love that knows no bounds.

First, let me thank you for your warm welcome and for gathering for this significant conference. It is an honour to be here with you tonight, and I bring greetings on behalf of the Archdiocese of Sydney.

I warmly welcome our esteemed speakers Fr Andrew Dalton, David Rolfe, William West and Dr Paul Morrissey, and congratulate the organising committee for bringing this opportunity to gather around the mystery of the Shroud in this Jubilee Year of Hope.  

The topic before us, the Shroud of Turin, is one that has intrigued believers and non-believers alike for centuries. And in recent decades, it has become increasingly clear that the Shroud is not merely a religious curiosity. It is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary artefacts in human history. For many, it is a relic. For all of us, it is a mystery. And for those who seek truth, it can be a profound source of encounter with the Gospel.

We are living in an age that hungers for evidence, for the tangible, for something real, especially when it comes to faith. And it is here that the Shroud speaks powerfully.

Many now know that there is a great deal of scientific and historical evidence suggesting that the Shroud could not have been the work of a medieval forger, as claimed by the carbon dating results of 1988. In fact, the deeper we delve, the more difficult it becomes to dismiss the Shroud as merely a product of human hands.

What is often less well known is that many leaders within the Catholic Church have expressed not just interest, but belief in the authenticity of the Shroud. Among them are the past three popes – Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis – each of whom made personal pilgrimages to venerate the Shroud.

Each of them stood before it not as sceptics, but as men of prayer and reverence, seeing in it a profound connection to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When Pope John Paul II visited the Shroud in 1980, he called it a “distinguished relic linked to the mystery of our redemption”. Eighteen years later, after the carbon dating controversy, he returned, this time thanking God for what he called “this unique gift”. That is no small statement. No pope would thank the Lord for a forgery.

More than that, John Paul II called us to gaze upon the Shroud with what he described as “the believer’s loving attention and complete willingness to follow the Lord”. In those words, he gently redirected us – not to get lost in the science or the debate – but to encounter the One whose image we believe is preserved on that cloth.

Pope Benedict XVI went further, stating that the Shroud had “wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus”. Pope Benedict, who was always precise with his language, offered here a clear rebuttal to the carbon dating claims.

Even Dr Michael Tite, the man who oversaw that 1988 testing, later admitted in a 2016 BBC interview that he had come to believe a real human body had indeed been wrapped in the Shroud.

Pope Francis made pilgrimage to the Shroud in 2015. He not only prayed before it. He reached up and touched it. With great reverence, he said: “In the face of the Man of the Shroud, we see the faces of many sick brothers and sisters… victims of war and violence, slavery and persecution”.

For Pope Francis, the Shroud was not just about the past. It is about Christ’s presence among the suffering of today. And so the Shroud remains a powerful sign of hope as it witnesses to Christ’s solidarity with all those who suffer, who carry heavy burdens of illness, poverty, war, and injustice. It speaks to them not only of Christ’s passion, but of His enduring compassion – a reminder that they are not alone in their pain.

The late Pope concluded, saying: “By means of the Holy Shroud, the unique and supreme Word of God comes to us: Love made man… the merciful love of God who has taken upon himself all the evil of the world to free us from its power”. That is the evangelical heart of the Shroud. It is a silent sermon, a visual Gospel, a testimony in linen to the mystery of divine mercy.

In the context of this new pontificate, one cannot fail to recognise the providential continuity in Pope Leo XIV’s choice of name — Leo — which echoes that of his venerable predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, who in his own time zealously fostered devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. This resonance serves as a quiet reminder that the Church’s memory is long, and that the Lord continues to speak to every age through signs both old and ever new.

Other Church leaders in our day have also drawn attention to the Shroud’s powerful witness. Just this past Easter, Bishop Robert Barron reflected in his Easter Sunday homily on the burial cloths mentioned in the Gospel of John. He called them “strange and wonderful cloths” and said they “opened the door to faith long ago”, and may well do the same today. Rather than referring to the Shroud as a mere “icon”, Bishop Barron described it as a relic, “one that is venerated as the cloth the disciples Peter and John saw on Easter Sunday morning”.

He is not alone. Popular priests such as Fr Mike Schmitz and Fr Andrew Dalton, who we are blessed to have as a speaker at this very conference, have powerfully and effectively evangelised through their engagement with the Shroud, especially among younger Catholics.

But perhaps most remarkable is the Shroud’s impact beyond the Church. Over the years, it has impressed and even converted many non-believers – atheists, agnostics, and sceptics who were drawn into a journey of faith by what they encountered in the scientific and spiritual mystery of the Shroud. It has spoken, too, to Protestants and Jewish seekers. Some have testified that their belief in God was rekindled through their encounter with the Shroud and the sense of the supernatural it evokes.

This brings me to what I believe is the Shroud’s most urgent and timely gift: its power to evangelise.

The Shroud is not just a matter of interest for scholars or theologians. It is something ordinary Catholics, young and old, can share in conversations with friends, colleagues, even strangers. It opens the door to a conversation not only about Christ’s suffering, but about His love, about His sacrifice, about the reality of the Resurrection.

And in a world that is increasingly sceptical of faith, increasingly disengaged from tradition, the Shroud is a bridge. It offers people a reason to pause, to question, to wonder.

It invites them to consider: Could this really be the burial cloth of Jesus? And if it is, what does that mean for my life?

After all, we live in an age in which so many do not believe in God, and yet so many still miss Him – a time when people chase progress without presence, and in which a Shroud, paradoxically, unveils something about life: a mystery that speaks to us, a silence that invites us to respond, a hiddenness that in Christ reveals us to ourselves, as sons and daughters of the crucified Son of God.

So, this evening, as we begin our conference, I encourage each of you not only to listen and learn, but to reflect on how you might carry this message forward. How the Shroud might be part of your own call to evangelise – to bear witness to a love that left its mark not only on human history, but on a simple linen cloth that continues to confound, inspire, and convert.

Thank you for your commitment to this mission. May the Man of the Shroud draw us ever closer to His heart.

building God’s house together

I’ve just returned from an inspiring visit to New Zealand, where I had the privilege of working with several dioceses who gathered in Palmerston North and with Fr Simon Story and the vibrant parish community of New Plymouth. This parish is courageously stepping into a new way of being Church – one that is not driven by busyness, maintenance, or self-preservation, but by a deep and intentional commitment to evangelisation.

What follows are reflections shared during a breakfast meeting with the Parish Pastoral Council of New Plymouth. As a relatively new Council, we were exploring together their unique role within parish life, in collaboration with the Senior Leadership Team, parish staff, and the wider faith community. In my experience, the effectiveness of a parish’s mission is often shaped by how each body within it understands its identity and purpose – and the Parish Pastoral Council is a key example of this dynamic. I sought to engage the metaphor of a building site to draw out the different but interrelated roles of parish bodies as they seek to build God’s Church.

The Parish as a Movement, Not a Monument

Many parish communities today are asking hard but necessary questions: How do we grow again? How do we bring people back or reach those who’ve never come? How do we move beyond simply maintaining what we have, and step into the bold mission we’ve been given by Christ in his Great Commission?

These questions do not signal failure; they mark a turning point. What is needed is a new way of seeing the parish itself – not as a finished product, a heritage site, or merely a place we visit once a week, but as a living construction site.

This metaphor captures the parish not as a static monument, but as a dynamic, Spirit-filled mission still very much in progress. It is a place where every person is called to participate, where the work is ongoing, and where God’s house is being built – not just for us, but for the whole world.

At the heart of it all is God in Christ – the ‘Master Builder’ or divine architect of communion and mission, the One who calls, gathers, equips, and sends. God does not dwell in buildings made by human hands alone, but in the people who gather, grow, and go out in His name. It is God’s mission that builds the Church, and our parishes only have life and meaning if they align with His eternal design: that all might know His love and come home to Him.

Many in our communities remain spiritually homeless. Some have never stepped inside a church while others sit quietly in the pews, uncertain whether they are truly part of the mission or simply occasional users of the space. Many say they do not believe in God but still miss His presence in their life and feel this absence at turning points in their life. A missionary parish must always ask, “Who are we building for?” The answer is everyone, especially those without a spiritual home.

Building God’s house, then, means more than creating a welcoming space. It calls us to go out, extend invitations, and form a community of disciples who actively join in the work of building alongside us.

The Priest and Senior Leadership Team: Architects of the Vision

Every construction site begins with a vision. Experience has shown that the parish priests of the most fruitful and growing parishes, both locally and abroad, have established senior leadership teams. While models may vary, the priest and this team can well serve as the architects of the parish vision. Their role is to pray, discern, and shape the mission of the parish, to draft the blueprint for a vibrant community where Christ is the cornerstone and ensure that the parish remains on track.

They must ensure that what is being created is not just beautiful or functional, but mission-shaped: open to the world, inviting to the lost, and empowering to the faithful.

The priest’s leadership here is not simply to maintain, but to nurture and expand the living body of Christ. As recent popes have reminded us, the Church is not called to self-preservation but to bold evangelisation. True pastoral leadership moves the parish beyond comfort and routine – literally out of the pews and into the streets – answering the call of the Master Builder who sends His Church to the margins, where the Gospel must be lived, proclaimed, and embodied.

Parish Pastoral Council: Engineers of Strategy and Alignment

The Parish Pastoral Council can take the blueprint provided by the parish priest and senior leadership team and help figure out how to build the parish according to its vision. As the engineers of the parish, a key role this body can play is to translate vision into action, to discern priorities, assess needs, and develop strategies that are practical and fruitful. They ensure that what’s being built is sound – not only structurally, but pastorally. They listen deeply, respond thoughtfully, and help ensure that every part of the community is included in the building process.

Some critics caution that talk of “strategy” reduces the Church’s mission to mere management or secular frameworks. This concern is valid and serves as an important reminder that any planning must remain deeply rooted in prayer, discernment, and fidelity to the Gospel. The members of the Parish Pastoral Council are not managers of a project but co-responsible stewards of a living mission. They are spiritual vision keepers, as all parishioners must be, providing ongoing feedback to the priest on overarching priorities and helping to develop plans that serve the parish’s evangelising mission.

In the New Testament, Jesus selected and trained twelve apostles, sent them out in pairs, and gave clear instructions for their mission. The early Church, guided by the apostles, organised communities, appointed leaders and made practical decisions to sustain and grow the mission under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The members of the Parish Pastoral Council can assist the parish priest to do the same, acting as a trusted body of advisors.

Above all, council members understand that their work is not inward-facing. The Church exists to evangelise, so their strategies ask not only “What do we need inside?” but also “How do we reach those outside?” This mission-driven planning ensures that practical steps serve the spiritual calling, not the other way around.

Parish Staff: Coordinators and Witnesses on the Site

On any construction site, it is the site coordinators who keep the project moving. In the parish, this is the role of the parish staff and teams.

These team members – responsible for administration, sacramental preparation, youth ministry, communications, coordinating catechists, and other daily responsibilities – bring both professional excellence and spiritual intentionality to the site of the parish. They are not just doers or organisers but co-builders of the mission, ensuring the vision from the priest, leadership team and Council becomes real, visible and effective.

Their role goes beyond logistics. Parish staff are witnesses to the vision, as are all the baptised who bring God’s promises alive. Many people in and around our parishes are still undecided: “Will I help build this? Am I a co-builder or contributor in this or just a guest passing through?” The manner in which parish staff exercise their roles becomes a living invitation to others. These frontline staff model what it looks like to move from maintenance to mission, from attendance to discipleship. They show what it looks like to be a builder of God’s house, not mere bystanders.

Parishioners: Living Stones and Craftspeople of the Kingdom

Finally, the real and necessary building takes place through the hands of the people – the parishioners – who are the ‘bricklayers’ or craftspeople of the Church. Far from being a minor or functional role, theirs is the essential work of making the vision tangible, one act of faith, service, and love at a time. Without them, no foundation is laid, no walls rise, and no mission takes shape. They are the craftspeople of the kingdom, bringing the Church to life in the world.

Every act of love, every prayer offered, every conversation of faith, every invitation made, and ministry served – these are bricks laid in love and hope. Parishioners are not consumers of a finished church, but co-creators of a living, breathing community of disciples.

They are the Church’s frontline: parents teaching the faith at home, volunteers welcoming at the door, youth leaders planting seeds of hope, welcomers providing hospitality. They are building God’s house with their lives, trusting the Master Builder to shape their efforts into something beautiful and enduring.

Conclusion

Truth be told, our parishes – as expressions and embodiments of the Lord’s house – will never be complete. They are always being built up, always expanding, especially toward those who do not yet know they have a place within. A missionary parish is not a fortress for the few but a spiritual home under construction for the many. There must always be spiritual scaffolding in place – space for more workers, room for growth, and open doors for those still unsure if they belong.

We are not building a parish only for those who already believe. We are creating a place that feeds the hungry, shelters the lost, nurtures the seeker, and sends forth the disciple. This is the kind of house God is building in the world, and we are called to build it with Him.

Our priests and their senior teams are entrusted with shaping the vision and calling others into the dream of the Master Builder. Our Parish Pastoral Councils continue designing structures and strategies that welcome and reach out to make the vision a reality. Our parish staff and ministry teams remain steadfast in coordinating and witnessing to what is possible. Above all, with faith, love, and boldness, our parishioners take up the tools and build alongside them, inviting all people to find their home in Christ.

As Psalm 127:1 reminds us, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain”. Let us build not a Church for ourselves, but for the world. Let us join the Master Builder and never stop building our parishes as God invites us to.

grace in the gears: a theology of timekeeping

Time became something I could hold, quite literally, when I received my first watch at the age of eight, a humble Casio F91W. 

Clad in a simple black resin case, with its crisp digital display and softly glowing “light” button, it offered not just functionality but a kind of wonder. That subtle green backlight, switched on with a press, felt like a secret known only to my wrist. The built-in alarm rang bright and clear, and best of all, it was mine to set. It made me feel as if I had received a piece of grown-up responsibility, one beep at a time.

In the years since, I’ve been fortunate to develop a deeper appreciation for watches – especially the mechanical kind. The intricate choreography of gears, springs, and levers inside a movement continues to fascinate me. There’s something magical about how a mainspring’s stored energy animates a balance wheel into steady oscillation and timekeeping, all within the confines of a 39mm case. Whole worlds of engineering, history, and design are tucked beneath a sapphire crystal. 

While a quartz watch, powered by battery, achieves remarkable efficiency and near-perfect precision, it is, in a sense, outside of the need for human touch and is largely indifferent to the presence of its wearer. In contrast, a mechanical timepiece lives through motion or else requires winding by hand. It must be worn, carried, and kept close – in other words, it is sustained by connection.

Though an amateur collector, I’ve gradually assembled a modest yet meaningful assortment of mechanical watches, from classic Swiss chronometers to vintage, hand-wound pieces that evoke the craftsmanship and character of another era. Each watch is more than a mere object – each holds its own story and unique provenance.

Looking back on that first little Casio, and the pieces that followed over the years, I value these intricate instruments not merely for telling time, but for teaching me how to treasure it.

We can have a complicated, even fraught, relationship with time. We try to save it, make more of it, and race against it. But the fact is, time moves with or without our attention and passes with or without our consent.

Not only are we unable to master time, but we are often absent to it altogether. As the French philosopher Blaise Pascal observed in his Pensées, “We never keep to the present… We anticipate the future as too slow in coming… or we recall the past to stop it from escaping.” His words speak to a perennial human ache that St Augustine named centuries prior: our hearts are restless in the present. We are drawn forward by anxiety, pulled backward by nostalgia – anywhere but here, where life actually unfolds.

How, then, are we as Christians called to inhabit time? When I entered the Church I came to appreciate its understanding of time not as something to be resisted, outrun, or escaped but as something to be received, reverently and attentively. As the Psalmist prays, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90). In the eyes of faith, time is not a burden to be controlled but a gift to be entered into.

Rooted in Scripture and nourished by centuries of tradition, the Church’s meditation on time understands it as sacramental – intimately bound to the mystery of the Incarnation and the unfolding drama of salvation. In Christ, eternity entered time, not to abolish it but to transfigure it, so that each moment might become a meeting place between heaven and earth.

Time, in the Church’s tradition, is not empty or even neutral, but shaped by grace and filled with invitation. As Pope Benedict XVI so beautifully reflects, “Time is not just a succession of days and years, but it is a time of salvation… each moment is penetrated by the presence of God, by His call and His grace”. 

As Pascal also wrote of our human condition, “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.” The vastness of existence at times threatens to overwhelm us, perhaps even more so today, when that vastness floods our phones and feeds from every seeming direction. We can be left drifting and unmoored, unsure of where to rest our attention.

Yet it is precisely through Jesus Christ – the Word made flesh – that time is transfigured and drawn into purpose by the potential for encounter. In Him, who we meet in time, the scattered moments of our lives are gathered and redeemed, for “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). 

No longer merely a chronological sequence, time in Christ becomes the arena where eternity is unveiled and the very medium through which we actively participate in God’s plan. Just as the eternal Word of God took flesh in Christ and entered human history, so we are invited to step into time not with fear or futility, but with hope, trusting that each moment holds the potential for grace, communion, and transformation. This profound truth calls us to embrace time not as a limitation, but as a sacred opportunity to encounter God and offer ourselves to the Lord who holds all time. As Thomas Merton puts it, “The whole idea of eternity is that it means that we have enough time to love God.”

Through the art of horology we can be reminded that time is not a force to flee, but a gift to be sanctified. In Christ, time no longer separates us from God, from one another, or even from those we have lost. It unites us. 

Seen in this light, a humble watch on the wrist becomes more than an accessory, a mere gesture of style or utility. It becomes a quiet act of faith – a daily reminder that the present is not empty, that each passing second is touched by grace, and that even the smallest moment holds within it the weight of the eternal.

Christ deserves more than maintenance

I’m often asked the question: “What does it take to renew a parish?” My response is typically this – it is not merely a matter of filling the calendar with events. It is not achieved through a rebrand, a new logo, or an enhanced social media presence. It does not come from establishing additional committees. Nor is it simply a matter of rearranging the furniture, updating the website, or launching another fundraising initiative. While each of these efforts may have their rightful place, on their own, they are insufficient to bring about true renewal – one that is grounded in mission and evangelisation.

In experience, the renewal of parish life does not come about by addition, but rather by return. By “return,” I do not mean a reactionary traditionalism, but a re-discovery of Christ – a re-encounter with Him and a re-expression of His life in the heart of our community.

Renewal for the Catholic parish, as wisely observed by Fr James Mallon, looks much less like adding ornaments to a dying tree and much more like returning to its roots and nourishing them back to life. Pope Benedict XVI called for this decisive return when he defined our faith not as a philosophy or a moral code, but an encounter with a person, Jesus Christ, who gives our life “a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Deus Caritas Est 1).

This encounter is not an optional addition to the Christian life. It is its very essence. It must shape everything – how we worship, how we lead, how we form and disciple our people, and how we live out Christ’s mission in the world.

When Christ is truly at the centre, this encounter does not remain a private devotion but can shape the culture of the entire community. Culture, more than any program or plan, is where faith becomes visible, credible and contagious.

As it is often said today, culture is not a mission statement nor what is printed in the parish volunteer handbook. It is the lived atmosphere of a parish. Culture is found in the conversations in the car park, the tone of the preacher, at the front doors of the parish foyer, the unspoken assumptions behind every “we’ve always done it this way.” It is what people experience, not just what we intend.

The Acts of the Apostles paints an evocative image of Christian culture embodied and alive: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers… and day by day the Lord added to their number” (Acts 2:42–47). This was not a policy or program. It was a living expression of shared values – Christ-centred, generous, prayerful and missionary. Culture was not a by-product but the very soil in which evangelisation took root and the Gospel spread to the very ends of the world.

Then as now, renewal in our parishes does not begin with more ministries or events. We are privileged in Sydney to host many excellent opportunities – conferences, programs, international speakers, and gatherings where people can learn, reflect and be better equipped for mission. But these initiatives are always offered with a clear understanding that the roots of parish renewal lie much closer to home. Unless parish life is receptive, vibrant, and missionary, even the best events will not bear lasting fruit. No event or initiative can replace the power of a parish alive with faith, hope, and love at its core.

True renewal begins with local leadership committed to reshaping the culture of each parish – from passive attendance to personal calling, from spectatorship to discipleship, from the questions “What do I get from here?” or “What time or energy do I have to give?” to the deeper call: “What does Christ ask of me?”. If the culture of our parishes does not change, then over time, nothing else will. That is how vital the parish is to the life and future of the Church.

It is important to recognise that even the most intentional parish culture cannot endure without clarity. Clarity necessitates a well-defined purpose, a consistent message, and unified leadership exercised by both clergy and laity, whose collaborative stewardship is essential for faithfully guiding the parish deeper into Christ’s life and mission.

It can mean the difference between aimlessly running in circles, trapped in the rut of routine parish life with little spiritual fruit, and boldly guiding a parish and its people into a renewed encounter with Christ and a committed mission to share His love.

We can see this in the contrast of the Tower of Babel to the Upper Room at Pentecost. At Babel, confusion reigned and mission stalled. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit bestowed clarity and conviction, coming like a mighty wind that filled and shook the house, and transformed many voices into one unified message and shared mission.

It is significant to recognise that this clarity neither narrowed the Church’s mission nor made the Apostles rigid or close-minded. Rather, clarity of vision propelled their mission boldly into the waiting world, enabling them to adapt and persevere amid countless challenges.   

Clarity in parish life means knowing the purpose for which we exist. It means letting the essential mission given by Christ – making disciples – shape our priorities, budgets, preaching, events and even what we say “no” to.  Clarity emerges not from constant activity and frenetic busyness but from deep conviction and intentional leadership. When parish leaders lack clarity, energy is scattered and vision begins to fade. When clarity is present, people are freed to focus on what matters most: helping others encounter Jesus Christ and walk with Him as missionary disciples.

For this culture and for this clarity, there is a fundamental call to conversion of heart, of habits and in parish leadership. This begins not with mere action but with the surrender of faith. Leadership without conversion becomes performance or image management. In the same way, ministry without prayer loses its foundation and becomes sterile, or reduced to mere maintenance, or worse, quiet neglect.

One story that has always struck me as instructive for parish renewal is that of Nehemiah. Before rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah prayed, fasted and wept. His leadership emerged from the furnace of dependence on God and only then did he build something enduring, even in the face of resistance and the suspicion of others. Like Nehemiah, parish leaders must be “cupbearers of the Lord”, stewarding not just tasks but spiritual vision and communal growth.

If the vision of the parish is to be a community called by God, gathered around Christ in Word and Eucharist, and sent forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, then this vision must be woven into every conversation, every homily, every ministry, and every decision. Parishes do not drift naturally toward missionary vitality. They drift toward comfort, maintenance, and the familiar.

Too often, a parish calls people forward not for mission, but for the survival of its own structures as Pope Francis was only too keen to point out. Such a community might summon people forward to ministries, tasks, and functions for which there is never enough help. People are engaged to “fill the gaps”, and with this deficiency mindset of managed decline, the parish’s best energy is spent maintaining systems that bear little fruit.

However, the Church is not meant to merely survive and Christ deserves more than maintenance. The Church is called to proclaim, to disciple, to bear fruit that will last (Jn 15:16). Christ deserves more than our leftovers. What He calls forth is not self-preservation or resignation, but the transformation of lives in Him.

The question is no longer whether this kind of renewal is possible. We’ve seen it – in communities here in Sydney and in parishes across the world. The real question is whether we are willing to undergo the kind of interior conversion and communal commitment that such renewal demands. It is a question of surrender and of sustained resolve. Are we prepared to lead differently, live differently, and love differently to become the Church Christ calls us to be?

The Church of tomorrow is being shaped by the choices we make today, by leaders who keep the “main thing” the main thing: Jesus Christ as truly good news for every human heart. We must continue to cultivate parishes where the culture reflects Christ, where clarity shapes our vision, and where conversion is not a one-time event but the ongoing heartbeat of parish renewal. This remains our vision in Sydney. Only this kind of Church, anchored in Christ, led by the Spirit, and formed through prayerful conviction, will have the power to truly transform lives.

pope leo XIV: a gift of grace

It’s good to be back in this little corner of the internet. I’ve been meaning to revive this blog, and what better time than now, right after the election of Pope Leo XIV and his inauguration this weekend. Along with that momentous event, I’ve also been working on a podcast with Dr Matthew Tan, called Awkward Asian Theologians (you can find it here). Our talks have been a mix of deep dives and messy tangents, pushing me to think more critically about current events and how they mesh with theology. So, I’m hoping to be more active here, sharing some reflections as they come.

To kick things off, I’ve been mulling over the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV, and what it reveals about the fascinating intersection of biography, theology, and pastoral vision. A few thoughts below.

With the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV this weekend, a new chapter in the life of the Church begins. Every new papacy brings fresh insight and particular emphases, shaped by the unique biography of the man who assumes the Chair of Peter. It is both natural and proper that a pope’s reception of revelation, his pastoral vision and his theological orientation are deeply influenced by his life experiences. In essence, biography shapes theology.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out in recent history. The profound personal loss and political oppression endured by Karol Wojtyła in Nazi- and Communist-occupied Poland left a lasting mark on his papacy as John Paul II. His unwavering focus on the dignity of the human person and the relationship between faith and reason was, in part, a response to totalitarian systems that denied both. Similarly, the horrors of World War II shaped Joseph Ratzinger’s theological outlook. As Benedict XVI, he confronted the spiritual emptiness of post-war modernity, urging the Church to rediscover a personal encounter with Christ, the source of true meaning. Then there was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, formed by Argentina’s “Dirty War” and his leadership as a Jesuit provincial, who brought a pastoral vision to the papacy focused on mercy, humility, and a preferential option for the poor. Each of these popes read the signs of the times through the lens of their own lives, and their theological vision was shaped accordingly.

Pope Leo XIV arrives with a similarly rich and distinctive biography. Born into a working-class family in mid-twentieth-century Chicago, with French, Italian, and Spanish roots, he grew up amidst the challenges and diversity of a rapidly changing America. His early academic formation in mathematics and philosophy suggests a mind trained in both precision and wonder. His missionary work in Peru placed him at the heart of communities marked by hardship and faith – experiences that no doubt deepened his concern for the marginalised and sharpened his sense of the Church’s global responsibility. Later, as Prior General of the Augustinian Order, his leadership was informed by his doctoral studies at the Gregorian University, where he explored the Augustinian vision of authority not as control or domination, but as service offered in love.

This Augustinian inheritance profoundly shapes Leo XIV’s spiritual and theological identity. As a self-acknowledged “son of St Augustine”, Leo XIV’s papacy will undoubtedly reflect the deep theological currents drawn from the life and thought of Augustine of Hippo. As an Augustinian friar and scholar, Pope Leo XIV draws not only from Augustine’s doctrinal insights but from the deeper well of his lived experience – one marked by struggle, restlessness and eventual surrender to grace. Like recent popes, Augustine’s journey reminds us that theology is never abstract; it is always, in some way, a response to the life that we have lived.

St Augustine’s own life is one of the Church’s earliest and most powerful accounts of conversion. Born in what is now Algeria in 354, Augustine’s youth was marked by ambition, intellectual pride and moral wandering. He lived with a concubine and fathered a child out of wedlock; he joined the Manichaeans, drawn to their dualistic philosophy, before growing disillusioned. “I had become a great riddle to myself” he would later write in his Confessions, identifying the inner conflict that drove his restless search for truth.

This search ultimately led him to Milan, where the preaching of St. Ambrose and the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy helped him reimagine both God and self. It was in a garden – so often a site of new beginnings and blessing – that Augustine underwent his decisive transformation. Hearing a childlike voice urging him to “take up and read”, he opened the Sacred Scriptures and encountered the call of Christ in Romans 13: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh”. Augustine later described this moment as though “a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart”. It was the end of one life and the beginning of another.

What followed was a life of deep pastoral care and doctrinal brilliance. Augustine became a bishop, a theologian, and a relentless defender of truth and grace. His Confessions, The City of God and treatises on the Trinity continue to shape Christian theology to this day. His combat against Donatism and Pelagianism reflect not merely intellectual disagreements but his conviction, rooted in his own life, that grace is the beginning and end of all conversion.

I would suggest that to anticipate the shape of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy, it will be helpful to reflect time and again on the arc of St Augustine’s own journey, which has profoundly influenced Christian tradition and, by extension, the new pope. Augustine’s path from selfish ambition to spiritual surrender, from pride to divine dependence, and from moral confusion to the clarity of God’s mercy and truth, offers us a lens through which to understand Leo XIV’s theological and pastoral vision.

We can anticipate that Leo XIV’s vision will emphasise that true pastoral care arises from the recognition of human restlessness and the unceasing pursuit of God. We can anticipate a papacy that prizes preaching not merely as instruction but as a proclamation intended to delight and persuade. We can anticipate a vision of the Church as a spiritual community, bound together by charity, whose mission transcends all earthly political structures and orders (civitas terrena) while remaining actively engaged with them. We can anticipate an emphasis on personal conversion as the foundation of evangelisation, echoing St Augustine’s insistence that “what we are must be taught and what we have must be given”.

If we wish to anticipate the direction of this new papacy, we would do well to look not only to Pope Leo’s policies and public addresses, but to the story of his life – shaped by deep intellectual and spiritual currents – and to the saint who formed him, whose own journey still teaches the Church how to receive and respond to grace.

making and forming disciples

The address below was given at the invitation of Divine Renovation Australasia, a ministry focused on the renewal of Catholic parishes by recovering the primacy of evangelisation.

It is exciting to see here in Australia and in New Zealand so many parish and diocesan leaders embracing not only the need for the renewal of our parishes but recognising the urgency of that task.

We are at a critical moment as a Church in the West. We know this from the realities on the ground in our parishes, and the trends of decline we have seen across our dioceses, trends that have been only accelerated by the pandemic.

We also know as leaders who care about our communities that we shape the life and mission of the Church by our participation in it. We play our role in the project of parish renewal by 1) our dependence on the Holy Spirit who guides us into the truth, allows us to proclaim Jesus is Lord, who bestows the Church with a great variety of gifts and charisms, and 2) our personal and active commitment to labour in hope toward that vision and task that Jesus gives us – to “go make disciples”.

We were privileged to host Dr Mary Healy in Sydney online just recently, and she reminded us that this “go” proclaimed by Jesus was not an instruction to set up a church, get some programs on the shelf, and put out some fliers. It is a commission to go out to the lost, to disciple people and bring them to the feet of Jesus in the power of the Spirit, the Spirit who enables us to be faithful to Jesus in the present.

In fact, one of my favourite images of the Church is that given by the poet John O’Donohue. It is of ‘hands clasping hands going back in time to hold the hand of Jesus who holds the hand of God’. So we are all a part of this continuing story of the Church, a story which has always been of an existing community of faith into which others are incorporated. It turns out that evangelisation is our Great Tradition.

We can say that the future of our Church depends on the Holy Spirit and, importantly, those who currently don’t believe. Without the Spirit we are left to our own meagre resources. Without a genuine commitment to evangelisation in our parishes, we risk becoming a Church content to grow old and smaller, rather than a Church that moves forwards.

In fact, one of the characteristics of our Christian hope – our ‘birth right’ as the baptised – is that hope never leaves us where we are. We give evidence to our hope by the courageous commitment to reform and renew our own lives and our communities; we “live” hope by affirming that decline and death are not the last word and that the Holy Spirit can open doors and bring about more possibilities than we can imagine.  

Already today, hundreds of Catholics in our parishes, chaplaincies and movements in Australia recognise this need for renewal, earnestly desire that their own discipleship and that of their parishes becomes ever more missionary, are committed not just to talking about evangelisation while keeping everything the same, but to make those changes in our practice so we can be more faithful and fruitful.

I think more and more Catholics in Australia want to see the personal and spiritual change in our parishes that we have experienced ourselves. Our parishes are where the mystery of Jesus is already present and at work – it is a gift that is calling for our response.

Fundamental Questions

So our vision and purpose as parishes is clear. We have a task that embraces all of us – whether as a priest, religious, or lay leader: to bring people into an encounter with Jesus, to the surrender and the decision of faith.

However, before launching out into this project of renewal, we have to make a fundamental decision ourselves. I’d propose this as a first step in the journey of renewal.

I think there are at least two questions we need to ask ourselves before we attempt anything as demanding and challenging as parish renewal, to be able to face the challenges and even the resistance that change can bring.

The questions are these: ‘Do I believe Jesus is who He says He is?’, and ‘Do I believe His message is true?’

Those two questions are usually enough to get us going and keep us going in mission when our energy is low or at the times when parish renewal can seem hard or even overwhelming. They are questions that ressource or reground our energies in a vision bigger than our own – in what God desires for our parishes, the liberating truth of the Gospel, a truth to which we need to first give ourselves if we are to be convincing witnesses.

So that’s one of the first things I wanted to share with you – that this project of parish renewal is radically self-implicating, demanding faith and commitment not simply from others but from our own deep wells. Are we also willing to changed and to live as the Church we are looking for? So often we want God to do something new while we stay the same.

So it’s important to bear in mind that whenever we talk about the conversion of parishes we are talking about the conversion and renewal of people.

In seeking to transform the culture of our parishes for evangelisation, we have to realise that culture isn’t the starting point but is the end-product of individuals living out holiness, community and mission. And that begins with discipleship or people making a personal, conscious decision to follow Jesus with their whole lives, in and through His Church.

So if you want to build a new Catholic culture in your parish, you have to start with forming disciples, and that project has much to do with helping individuals to discover a living and personal faith in the midst of the Church.

Casting Vision

It can seem obvious but the second step we need to take is to cast a vision of discipleship which people can embrace, aspire to and grow within. As Sherry Weddell remarks if nobody in our parish talks about what discipleship looks like, it becomes difficult for people to begin to walk on that road:

Unfortunately, most of us are not spiritual geniuses. If nobody around us ever talks about a given idea, we are no more likely to think of it spontaneously than we are to suddenly invent a new primary colour. To the extent we don’t talk explicitly with one another about discipleship, we make it very, very difficult for most Catholics to think about discipleship” (Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples, 56).

It is difficult to believe in and live something that you have never heard anyone talk about or unpack as the goal of following Jesus and our involvement in the life of the Church. Sometimes we suspect that ‘showing up to Church’ can be for some an exercise in ‘ticking boxes’ rather than expressing a living relationship, a more extrinsic routine rather than an interior desire.

Do our people know that a disciple is one who has encountered Jesus personally in the midst of the Church, who has surrendered his or her life to His way, and made the decision to live by His teaching in all aspect of life?  It is one of the curiosities of our Catholic culture that we don’t tend to talk about our relationship with God except in the confessional or perhaps in spiritual direction.

However, if we fail to cast a vision of discipleship in our parishes it is not without consequence. The fact is we are all going somewhere, whether we know it or not, and will arrive at a destination in life. The road that we are currently on will lead to a destination, and we generally don’t drift in good directions.

There are physical paths that lead to physical locations, and roads and highways that lead to certain destinations. There is a dietary path that leads to predictable health outcomes. There are financial paths that lead to financial destinations. There are relationship paths that lead to relational destinations. In fact, parents have an interest in who their young adults are dating for this reason. They enquire about their relationships not so much because they are interested in whether their child is happy in the relationship now (though they certainly hope they are). They are more interested where that relationship will take their child, whether that relationship will take them in the right direction.

So all of us are on the way to somewhere and that applies to our spiritual life as well. Unfortunately we have seen the impact of too many Catholics staying on a path of ignorance of the faith or merely routine behaviour and too many parishes comfortable on the path to decline. We have seen too many Catholics disengage from the Church altogether and even from any living relationship to Jesus himself, not necessarily because they are bad people but far too often because they never actually knew a personal relationship with Jesus was even possible. They were never given a destination that made the journey worthwhile.

We need to implant a clear vision of discipleship in our parishes because, biblically speaking, we reap what we sow. It is this life of discipleship which remains still today too obscure for too many of our people.

Naming the Challenges

In the light of that challenge, a third step as parish communities is to name the ‘gap’ between this vision of life changing discipleship that Jesus gives and our current realities and strategies.

I was reminded of this need to honestly name our current pastoral realities by Fr James Mallon on Twitter, when he shared an observation by G.K. Chesterton: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem”.

One of the tasks that parish renewal demands is a clear recognition of the discipleship dilemma we face – a familiar story of declining engagement, decreasing giving and participation, a lack of manifest charisms and fruit, and the implications of this trend for our future as a Church and as local parishes.

Another way of saying this is, if you don’t define the problem, then people aren’t going to want the solution.

In effect, as leaders we have to elicit the desire for change. No change is likely when there is no desire for change, and there is no desire for change if we are perfectly comfortable with gentle decline and an ever ageing community.  

In a world and Church already heavy with demands, busyness and division, we can be tempted to prefer ‘the peace of a graveyard’ rather than welcome the disruption and the change that evangelisation demands.

However, as someone once said, the difference between where we are and where God wants us to be is often the pain we are unwilling to bear (that is, the pain of change). Recognising where we are, as individuals and parishes, can be a painful confrontation and truth but the Paschal Mystery reminds us that this truth, even painful as it may be, is the place of grace and the beginning of transformation.

The plain fact is that comfort and complacency has never moved anyone closer to being a saint, and comfort and complacency have never helped a parish grow. On the desire that should animate and sustain our efforts at renewal, I’m reminded of the words of St John Henry Newman who recalls for us our deepest purpose: “holiness rather than peace”.

Now being honest and truthful about the situation of our parishes or perhaps a ministry does not mean pointing the finger, blaming people, priests or parishioners, for the circumstances in which our parishes find themselves. In truth, the decline of our parishes is often decades old with a myriad of complex causes, some that fall at our own feet as a Church and others that are well beyond our control.

However, we do have a calling and responsibility to respond to God where we are placed. We do not have the first word in evangelisation or the last word, but we do have a word. Our task, in this generation, is to start clearly identifying the obstacles that are preventing growth and missionary discipleship and to take the steps that might enable it.

An Example

As an example, one of the challenges that we face, a part of our present reality, is the cultural circumstances of the West, a context in which some may know of Jesus but in which the majority of Australians and Kiwis, including some of our own flock, do not know Him personally.

Now as Catholics we believe that the full life of every person and community can be unlocked only by this encounter with Christ. However, the stark reality is that Christian faith remains for most a vague background influence, well short of having any actual explicit or personal claim on their lives.

How can we begin to understand this and so respond to our times?

If we consider the long arc of Western history at least, our story begins in a pre-Christian world, a world soaked through with divinity, with many gods, a whole pantheon of divine influences and spiritual forces. Think the Roman Empire before the coming of Jesus.

People understood themselves as living in an enchanted world where both the divine and demonic were at play. The world and the self was considered porous, open to the transcendent, and life was vulnerable to the incursion of the sacred, and life involved successfully navigating these forces by various means (e.g. potions, chants, charms).

Then comes Christ and with His believers, the development of a Christian culture which is creedal and monotheistic with its sacred texts and virtues. Christ proclaims and embodies within himself a Kingdom of justice and mercy, and this faith shapes the entire character of Western culture (e.g. in contrast to a cyclic understanding of life as in the East and in oriental religion and philosophies, with provide no incentive to such a thing as social justice, the Christian schema proclaims a trajectory of life that reaches a fulfilment, an end which is shaped by our response rather than being inevitable or fatalistic).

However, today we experience the challenge of following and proclaiming Jesus in a post-Christian culture (influenced by the Enlightenment), a culture which is not a religious ‘year zero’ or pre-Christian, that has not entirely thrown off the vision of the Kingdom, that still carries the Christian Kingdom dream of equality and justice and mercy, but wants this Kingdom without the King.

Post-Christian culture might want to even deconstruct the gifts and traditions of Christian faith but yet it cannot quite shrug off the ache and discontent that remains. To echo the English writer Julian Barnes: “We don’t believe in God, but we miss him”.

In a sense, like the crying onlookers in France amidst the ashes of Notre Dame Cathedral, we remain resistant to religion but are still haunted by our Christian origins.

So when the current culture speaks about equality or justice today, it is not necessarily that we are talking about the same thing. There is a secular schema of salvation that has not lost the Kingdom dream that was planted by the Christian faith, but it wants this dream without the authority or the influence of Christ. We want progress without presence, to continue the Christian project without Christ, feasting on the fruit of the Christian proposal while forgetting its source.

Many today look for and feel some sort of transcendent power in technology or even politics, but it is all disenchanted power, while the deeper desires remain. In fact, the current COVID-19 crisis has confronted many with this yearning without Someone to encounter, and when it becomes all too much it can end in disastrous consequences.

So, within the Christian inheritance that underpins our cultural moorings, evangelisation will be about connecting many of the innate desires that people carry with them today and revealing to them their fulfilment in Christ who literally makes sense of the world in which they live. It cannot be taken for granted that people know the kerygma, the essential story of Jesus himself, but we can proclaim it with confidence that Christ still speaks to and meets the deepest desires and questions of humanity today as he asks us “Who do you say I am?” and beseeches “Come, follow me”.

A new evangelisation must be centred in the proclamation of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as it touches on our culture and lives today, on Christ who is ‘always news’, who is always contemporaneous in the Spirit rather than being an artefact of our cultural history.

Implications

Moving to practicing evangelisation in this culture milieu, one of the gifts that Divine Renovation has offered Catholic parishes in recent years is the reminder that we can no longer rely on a pastoral approach that assumes the sacraments will simply ‘take care of it’.

As the new General Directory of Catechesis exhorts the Church, “A process of missionary conversion must be begun that is not limited to maintaining the status quo or guaranteeing the administration of sacraments, but presses forward in the direction of evangelisation” (General Directory of Catechesis 300).

If we do not take up the task of evangelising those ‘far’ from the Church and those who are near but may be only ‘sacramentalised’ and not yet evangelised, we risk neglecting our duty to awaken in each person that active and personal faith, that fertile soil, in which the grace of the sacraments can takes root and bears fruit.

This point was explicitly made by the Congregation of Clergy when it spoke a word to our bishops and priests:

Not infrequently, pastoral agents receive the request for the reception of the sacraments with great doubts about the faith intention of those who demand them… With different but widespread accents, there is a certain danger: either ritualism devoid of faith for lack of interiority or by social custom and tradition; or danger of a privatization of the faith, reduced to the inner space of one’s own conscience and feelings. In both cases the reciprocity between faith and sacraments is harmed (Congregation for Clergy, The Reciprocity Between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy 9; my emphasis).

So mere administration of the sacraments without attention to supportive processes of evangelisation is not enough. As Canadian Catholic evangelist Marcel le Jeune keenly observes, most fallen-away Catholics in our Church have left the active reception of the sacraments because something non-sacramental was missing. So, we need to aim to replace that missing item – in most cases, it is relationship.

There is an important perspective here that we need to keep in mind, especially for those of us who have been committed to parish life for decades, who have worked hard at the frontline with various programs, strategies, courses and events.

We are called to remember that while good and helpful, all these programs, courses and events are only proxies or the means for the evangelising relationships by which people come to faith in the midst of the Church. This is because it is not programs that make disciples, but disciples that make disciples.

To make the point, we have so many great resources in hand and available to us today, more than any other generation of Christian believers. Consider St Paul who did not even have the four Gospels in hand as he embarked on his apostolic mission across the Mediterranean.

However, St Paul had people – disciples making disciples. He had Barnabas, John Mark, Silas, Timothy, Erastus, Aristarchus, Gaius, Trophimus, Tychicus and Luke. We may need programs and materials as a kind of crutch or support but we need to be mindful about allowing these supports to replace the relationships. A good program with unevangelised leaders is not going to convert anything.

Another way of saying this is that if you build the Church, you rarely get disciples. If you make disciples, you always get the Church. Now focusing on disciple-making relationships within the parish takes the longest time and investment, but it is also the shortest route to creating missionary parishes. Any other path, focusing on program after program for example, will not see the fruit we hope to see.

A Pathway of Discipleship

Finally, a positive step we can take, which the experience of growing Catholic parishes has affirmed, is the importance of clearly communicating or making it or making it very explicit what people can do to grow in relationship to Jesus and the journey in the parish that will help them to grow in this relationship.

For example, what is on the on-ramp, or shallow end of the people, through which people in your church might start the discipleship journey? How do people actually get connected to the group and what is a strategy for this connection, rather than merely hoping they will hang around long enough to connect?

As it’s been observed: “Imagine a ladder with all the lower rungs removed. It wouldn’t be very useful for climbing. Sometimes churchworld can seem like that. The churchpeople are on the top of the ladder. With the lower rungs removed, the unchurched are left with no chance of climbing up. We churchpeople can make it difficult for the unchurched to come to church, even when they want to” (Fr Michael White and Tom Corcoran, ChurchMoney, 105). 

A pathway helps identify the ‘rungs on the ladder’, to support people take a next step in faith, rather than expecting them to work it out for themselves.

Your pathway might begin with the need to have an invitational strategy for newcomers to be drawn into an encounter with the Gospel and community via an initiative such as Alpha which explores life and the Christian faith. Following this initial encounter, participants can then be encouraged to join the organising team for such a course or otherwise join a small group in the parish to connect more deeply with others in community. They might join a bible study in order to deepen the faith they have discovered. As a next step, the parish might then encourage participants to commit to active mission in the form of service to others; for example, to become involved in a parish ministry or share their God-given talents in social outreach to the wider community.

Such a discipleship pathway enables your ministry to determine where people are on the journey of faith and how to move them to the next step in faith in the context of parish ministries. This avoids treating or assuming everyone is at the same stage of faith.

We know that churches and ministries that have an explicit pathway for discipleship have a much higher rate of conversion than those that do not, than those who are more haphazard in their outreach and overloaded with group upon group, programs upon programs.

If we had all the money, people and resources we needed, we would not need a strategy. But in our parishes we need to discern and articulate clear pathways by which people come to faith, just as we ourselves have taken steps to arrive where we find ourselves today. 

Conclusion

So in this time together, I hope you have been encouraged and challenged in this mission of evangelisation which has become as important and urgent as ever.

In the midst of the conversation that the Church in Australia and indeed the Church worldwide is having about its future, it is people like yourselves at the frontline of our parishes that will shape the future of our Church by your leadership and witness.

When we cast a vision of discipleship, of the full Christian life to our people; proclaim the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as it touches upon the world today; develop the discipleship of our own people so that programs and resources become effective and attractive; and when we explicitly articulate a path of spiritual growth open to all, we begin to see the promise of parish renewal come to real life.

discerning the Church with the Church at the fifth Plenary Council of Australia

This Sunday the fifth Plenary Council of Australian will commence, a historic opportunity for the Catholic Church in Australia to renew its commitment to the mission of Jesus Christ in this ‘Great South Land of the Holy Spirit’.

Throughout the past three years, an exhaustive consultation process has been conducted toward this ecclesial gathering which will convene for two assemblies, the first of which will be held online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and a second assembly to be held in Sydney, the setting in which the Catholic Church was first established in this country.

As a member of the preparatory Executive Committee for the Plenary Council and co-author of its Instrumentum Laboris or working document, it has been a privilege to reflect on the process and principles of synodality over this time and upon the many thousands of submissions offered toward this nation-wide process of discernment taking place within our Church.

Given the serious opportunity that the Plenary Council represents – to renew the Church in Australia its spiritual life as well as its social mission – and its nature as a concrete expression of the synodality to which Pope Francis invites the whole Church, it is helpful to identify hermeneutical principles that can assist us enter into that genuine discernment of which the Pope has spoken with frequency and conviction.[1]

This brief reflection and the principles articulated within it are offered as a lens through which to consider the matters of the Plenary Council for the renewal of the Church in Australia from the perspective of ecclesial faith. It seeks to support the task of ‘discerning the Church withthe Church’ as it were, as a positive contribution to the Plenary Council, its delegates and those with an interest in this ecclesial gathering.

Foundations

As shared earlier this month by Pope Francis in his address to the faithful of Rome, the process of synodality involves ‘interrogating Revelation according to a pilgrim hermeneutic that knows how to safeguard the journey begun in the Acts of the Apostles”.[2] This process of synodality or ‘journeying together’ is led by the Holy Spirit who is received by the whole Church, all the faithful as the People of God and the ministry of bishops in collegiality with one another and the Bishop of Rome.

It demands an authentic discernment that “cultivate[s] an attitude of listening, growing in the freedom of relinquishing one’s own point of view (when it is shown to be partial and insufficient), to assume that of God.”[3] This instinct of faith is developed by our growing openness as the baptised to the Word received in the Scriptures, the tradition of the Church as received from the Apostles, and in ‘the sense of all the faithful’ today as we seek to ‘tradition’ God’s loving outreach to humanity in Christ in the present.

Hence, the hermeneutical principles that follow treat the Plenary Council not as a mere ‘gathering of opinions’ as Pope Francis has cautioned against[4], even less as the subject of ecclesiastical political science, but as an event of faith that responds to God’s revelation. It approaches the Plenary Council as a concrete expression of synodality that arises from the nature of the Church itself: as a communion that depends upon its life and vitality on listening and responding to the mission of Christ given to us; in the words of the International Theological Commission, “as the People of God journeying together and gathering in assembly, summoned by the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel”.[5]

The principles, while not exhaustive, recognise the specific mandate of the Plenary Council to consider the ways in which the Church in Australia can most faithfully and fruitfully practice its mission amid the challenges and prospects of our time.  As well, they draw from the Instrumentum Laboris or preparatory document for the Council that was itself the result of the listening and dialogue process and submissions received since Pentecost 2018 and working papers developed by discernment and writing groups that followed.[6] While not exhaustive, the principles also seek to take into account those provided in the recent Vademecum or guide for local churches in listening and discernment, produced by the Secretary General for the Synod of Bishops ahead of the universal Synod to take place in 2023.[7]

Some Hermeneutical Principles

  1. Deliberations at the Plenary Council should bear in mind the expressed purpose of the Council which is “to decide what seems opportune for the increase of faith, the organisation of common pastoral action, and the regulation of morals and of the common ecclesiastical discipline which is to be observed, promoted and protected”.[8] This means that the function of the Plenary Council is not todefine or determine articles of faith (what Catholics are to believe) nor can it legislate on matters of discipline which the Holy See has reserved to itself. Some matters that may be raised will belong to the universal tradition and teaching of the Catholic Church. They are, in that sense, beyond the capacity of the Church in Australia to change. This does not mean that they cannot be discussed; only that they cannot be decided upon by the Church in Australia. However, a Plenary Council can pass legislation regulating how doctrine is to be taught, how worship is to be regulated and how governance is to be better exercised in practice. It is these concrete matters that the Council can consider in benefit to the Church’s missionary mandate.

  2. The Plenary Council in Australia takes place within the life of the communion of the Catholic Church, which is universal. The Plenary Council preparations and celebration invites discernment and a response to the fundamental question as to ‘what God is asking of us in Australia at this time’. This discernment is undertaken by Catholics in Australia conscious of our communion with all the local Churches scattered throughout the world and in communion, together with them, with the Church of Rome. It is this ‘communion of churches’ which constitutes the Catholic Church of which the Church in Australia is a concrete manifestation.

  3. As identified by the Second Vatican Council, critical to the exercise of ecclesial discernment is the duty of “scrutinising the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel”(Gaudium et Spes 4). The opportunities and challenges for the Catholic Church in Australia are discernible through a variety of sources, including those submissions made as part of preparations for the Council, the significant insights of pastoral research in Australia offered by our National Centre for Pastoral Research, the experiences and testimony of local communities of faith, the insights of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the subsequent governance review, and the social, political and cultural realities of wider Australian society to which the Church cannot be indifferent.[9] This demands a Christian realism, as the Instrumentum Laboris for the Council affirms, for “we are a people of hope, not dismissive of the failures, not blind to the challenges, not complacent about the future, but confident that because it is the Lord’s Church of which we are a part we can move forward with trusting faith”.[10] By faith we hold that the ‘light of the Gospel’ that guides our response to these complex realities is found in and communicated by the Church, through the Word of God and the Church’s living tradition which includes its body of teaching, worship and practices.

  4. The deliberations of the Plenary Council should bear in mind that synodality is lived out in service of the Church’s mission of evangelisation. The Plenary Council and its proposals provide an opportunity to witness to, and orient the Church in Australia toward, an ecclesial way of being that is a prophetic example for Australian society, addressing the prospects for the deepening of discipleship and strengthening of our evangelising mission in this context. It is this mission of evangelisation that is to be the guiding criteria for the Church’s renewal and the fruit of the Church’s synodality par excellence.[11]

  5. The Plenary Council in its preparations and forthcoming celebration invites us to be attentive to the sensus fidei which is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all the faithful and an instinct for the truth of the Gospel. This instinct, informed by the Holy Spirit in Scripture and tradition, enables the Church to recognise and endorse authentic Christian doctrine and practice, to receive more deeply and to transmit more effectively and faithfully the Catholic faith. All the Catholic faithful play an active and critical role in this articulation and development so that ‘the Tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress in the Church, with the help of the Holy Spirit’ (Dei Verbum 8). It is the Holy Spirit who allows us to be anchored in our faith and move at the same time. In this ‘journeying together’ of the whole Church in fidelity to Christ it is the particular charism and ministry of the bishops to discern whether opinions which are present among the people of God, and which may seem to be the sensus fidelium, actually correspond to the truth of the Tradition received from the Apostles.[12]

  6. In its dialogue, the Plenary Council and its participants can recognise two inseparable elements in Pope Francis’ vision of the Church in discernment, “episcopal collegiality within an entirely synodal Church”.[13]The synodality of the whole Church is that in which “the faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome [are] all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’ Jn 14:17], in order to know what he ‘says to the Churches’”[14]; while episcopal collegiality refers to the role that bishops, as a college and as successors of the Apostles, in communion with each other and with the Bishop of Rome, act as “authentic guardians, interpreters and witnesses of the faith of the whole Church, which they need to discern carefully from the changing currents of public opinion”.[15] In short, the magisterium must sense with the Church as a whole where the Spirit’s inspiration is leading, with the bishops serving as a listening and learning body of teachers, attentive to the sense of faith throughout the Church, as well as discharging an apostolic commission to authentically interpret what is true to and advantageous for the faith.

  7. A consensus of the submissions made to the Plenary Council is that, in its deepest sense, the renewal of the Church demands and depends upon the ongoing conversion of all of its members. Our hope and future as a Church in Australia cannot be found outside our need for God and our repentance for the ways in which members of our Church have failed to be faithful to its call. By the correction of those flaws introduced by its members and by the increase in the Church’s faithfulness to the mission given to her by Christ, the Church becomes more of itself as a sacrament or effective sign of God’s presence in the world. As such, every renewal of the Church essentially consists in “an increase of fidelity to her own calling… Christ summons the Church as she goes her pilgrim way… to that continual reformation of which she always has need, in so far as she is a human institution here on earth”.[16]

  8. A consequence of this dynamic of ecclesial renewal is that consideration of the Church‘s structures cannot be separated from the personal conversion of those who form the Church and who shape the way in which those structures build up the Church and its mission or otherwise. As recognised by Pope Francis, “There are ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization, yet even good structures are only helpful when there is a life constantly driving, sustaining and assessing them.”[17] The Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality affirms this very point, “The conversion and renewal of structures will come about only through the on-going conversion and renewal of all the members of the Body of Christ”.[18]
  9. In discernment of proposals of renewal, the Plenary Council in Australia should avoid the temptation of a “new pelagianism” which attempts to correct problems and reduce difficulties and tensions within the Church by relying on bureaucratic and administrative reforms.[19] As underscored by Pope Francis to the Church in Germany, it is the encounter with Christ and the irruption of the Holy Spirit within hearts and structures that renews the entire body of the Church, not the mere reorganisation of existing realities.[20]

  10. Ecclesiological assumptions underpinning proposals for renewal should be taken into consideration by the Plenary Council and its delegates in the discernment of change, as there are a variety of ways in which the concept of ‘renewal’ can be engaged. For some, ‘renewal’ will refer to a process whereby something is corrected which was in error; for others, it represents a return to past forms; while for still others it has the character of growth or development, an account which assumes continuity, that our present conditions as a reflection of where the past naturally tended. Different understandings of the identity and mission of the Church will produce varying proposals of the way in which ‘renewal’ might be realised, including by excision, addition, revival, accommodation, development or a combination of these approaches.[21] Identifying these fundamental ecclesiologies can support the dialogue and discernment of change.

  11. In the study of proposals, critical distinctions also need to be made at the Plenary Council regarding the nature of the matter under discussion. As the Instrumentum Laboris emphasised in acknowledging the range of issues which are troubling Catholics in Australia at this time, it is prudent to ask whether the matter of discussion is “man-made” law or custom which can be modified or even abandoned, or if the matter is a moral absolute, fidelity to which is essential to the Church’s response to Christ and His teaching.[22]

  12. A key concern for the Plenary Council in discussions will be to ensure that nothing in the Church’s preaching or witness is lacking in mercy, while at the same time remaining faithful to all that the Lord has given to us in the Church’s doctrinal and moral teachings. The Instrumentum Laboris and working papers that informed it describe this concern as constituting “one of the great contemporary pastoral and catechetical challenges for the Church in Australia”.[23] Pope Francis’s teaching in Evangelii Gaudium on what he calls the “art of accompaniment” offers essential guidance toward this end.[24]

Conclusion

These principles seek to offer a lens through which matters of the Plenary Council in Australia can be considered from the perspective of Catholic faith and as informed by the process of listening and dialogue as synthesised through its Instrumentum Laboris or working document.

Informed by the purpose of the Plenary Council and the nature of the Church as a communion, inspired and led by the Holy Spirit, they are also presented with the Christian realism that, as St John Henry Newman affirmed, “truth is the daughter of time”.[25] That is, there will be tensions or issues that arise from the fifth Plenary Council that will be left open for future synthesis and require discernment well past its two forthcoming assemblies. 

However, it is with great hope and anticipation that we as Catholics in Australia enter into this fifth Plenary Council in our short history, with a common desire that the Church in Australia experiences a greater conversion under the influence of the Spirit of Christ and is renewed and ultimately better equipped to proclaim the unchanging Gospel with new ardour and vitality.

The Catholic tradition is none other than the Church’s reception of Jesus through time under the guidance of this Holy Spirit and in this time of challenge and opportunity for the Church in Australia it is incumbent upon us to seek out, receive and now voice in the days ahead what this Spirit is saying to the churches (Rev 2:7).

[1] See, for instance, Chapter 9 of Pope Francis’ Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to Young People, Christus Vivit, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20190325_christus-vivit.html

[2] Pope Francis, Address to the Faithful of the Diocese of Rome, 18 September, 2021.

[3] Pope Francis, Address to Bishops Ordained Over the Past Year, 14 September, 2017: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/september/documents/papa-francesco_20170914_nuovi-vescovi.html

[4] Pope Francis, Address to the Faithful of the Diocese of Rome, 18 September, 2021: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/speeches/2021/september/documents/20210918-fedeli-diocesiroma.html

[5] International Theological Commission, “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church” n.70:  https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20180302_sinodalita_en.html.

[6] A summary of the nation-wide consultation process, the six papers that resulted from discussion of these submissions and the Instrumentum Laboris can be found on the website for the Plenary Council: https://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au 

[7] Secretary General for the Synod of Bishops, Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality: Official Handbook for Listening and Discernment in Local Churches: First Phase [October 2021 – April 2022] in Dioceses and Bishops’ Conferences Leading up to the Assembly of Bishops in Synod in October 2023: https://www.synod.va/en/news/vademecum-for-the-synod-on-synodality.html

[8] Code of Canon Law 445.

[9] The report on governance within the Church, commissioned by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia, entitled The Light of the Southern Cross: Promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia is available online at: https://www.catholicreligious.org.au/light-from-the-southern-cross. The initial response of the Australian Bishops to the report can be found at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okB3jSsJ4dYAt_0GzrIJyVZS2l1cZBtC/view

[10] Instrumentum Laboris for the Plenary Council in Australia 51: available at https://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PC-IL-210902-online.pdf

[11] Pope Francis, Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany, 29 June, 2020: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/letters/2019/documents/papa-francesco_20190629_lettera-fedeligermania.html

[12] International Theological Commission, “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church”, n77. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html#_ftn84

[13] Pope Francis, Address Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html

[14] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 171, repeated in his Address Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops.

[15] Pope Francis, Address Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops; Instrumentum Laboris 31.

[16] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 26. Instrumentum Laboris 55; 61.

[17] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 26; Instrumentum Laboris 64.

[18] Secretary General for the Synod of Bishops, Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality.

[19] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 11.

[20] Pope Francis, Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany; see also Evangelii Gaudium, 94; Instrumentum Laboris 62.

[21] See John O’Malley, “Reform, Historical Consciousness and Vatican II’s Aggiornamento”, Theological Studies 32 (1971): 573-601; and also Ormond Rush, Still Interpreting Vatican II: Some Hermeneutical Principles, 72-75 for a summary of O’Malley’s taxonomy of renewal.

[22] Instrumentum Laboris 39.

[23] Instrumentum Laboris 40.

[24] See Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 169-173.

[25] John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1878).

the Spirit of the Risen Christ

Paschal CandleWe celebrate the Ascension of Christ and approach the Feast of Pentecost in the light of the Resurrection. Christ is risen. Truly, He is risen!

The readings in these past weeks of Eastertide have focused our attention on the appearance of the risen Jesus before the disciples, the first followers left distraught by the death of Jesus and struggling to come to terms with his rising.

The post-Resurrection narratives describe the disciples as “astounded” (Lk 24:22), “slow of heart” (Lk 24:25), “startled”, “terrified” (Lk 24:37), “disbelieving” (Lk 24:41) and “afraid” (Mk 16:8) as they grapple with this revelation – that Jesus is alive and walks among them in glory. In contrast to the authors of the Gospel who were writing decades after the Resurrection and knew how the story would end, the first disciples as contemporaries of Jesus did not yet have that same privilege nor did they possess that same confidence. Their experience of God’s revelation, of the new world signalled by an empty tomb, was far more hesitant if not uncertain. Salvation history was still unfolding before their very eyes.

PentecostAs we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, it is the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, promised to them by Jesus at his Ascension, that marks a new chapter in the disciples’ faith.

It is this Spirit that empowers the once frightened disciples to ‘go out’ into an unpredictable and even unknown world with courage and the conviction that life has conquered death in Jesus Christ. It is in the Risen Jesus that the promises of God had been fulfilled and it was his Spirit that made of the first disciples, and the apostolic generations to come, bold witnesses and bearers of this good news “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

In short, it is the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that inserts the disciples more deeply into this mystery of Jesus, that leads his followers to receive, live by and share in word and witness the truth of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

Being Christian Today

As Christians of the twenty-first century we can find ourselves feeling at times a bit like the first disciples of the Gospel narratives. We can encounter Jesus and yet harbour doubts or feel our vulnerabilities in a world no more certain or secure than that of other ages.

We know from personal experience that our discipleship is a pilgrimage, that it is the work of a lifetime to grow in holiness and understanding. In the course of this time, we learn to hand over our lives ever more fully to what God has accomplished on the Cross and on the third day. The new covenant comes to us as a grace but also sets before us the life-long project of accepting this new beginning by our conversion to Christ, “in living his mysteries, in making our own his example, his thoughts, and behaviour” (Pope Benedict XVI). Today we can find ourselves “slow of heart”, “disbelieving” and “afraid” standing before this call to conversion, reluctant to make that surrender to the Holy Spirit and to take that decision for Christ that faith entails.

COVID-19It happens that in these past months the experience of surrender has come to us. A global pandemic has left us dependent upon and yet strangely cautious of others, all at once. Individuals and entire communities are now vulnerable to a terrible scourge, originating on a distant horizon, that has brought life as we know it – in our homes, schools, workplaces and churches – to a collective and sudden halt. This global disruption is a striking reminder for us as Christians, and others besides, that we are not masters of our own world.

Our fundamental vulnerability to life’s contingencies can be a particularly startling experience for a culture that feeds on and even profits from the illusion of control. In this day there are no lack of techniques, products or technologies that offer, for a price, a sense of self-sufficiency or that cast self-willed autonomy as the way to personal fulfilment.

As Christians we live by a very different story. This story is one in which our origin, life and destiny cannot be imagined apart from the mystery of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen – nor can our culture, the economy or the future of the world itself for that matter. Our identity and the very meaning of our life arise from and depend upon the presence of another. It is by the Spirit that we encounter this Christ, the light of the world, with us “always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

It is our surrender to this Holy Spirit, who has been “poured out” so we can “both see and hear” (Acts 2:33), that enables us to receive God’s presence and power in our joys and our sufferings, to proclaim Christ in the face of opposition, to serve the poor with the love of Christ, and that offers us the virtue of hope for our future. In the language of Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, it is new life in the Spirit that enables “the young to see visions” and “the old to dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).

As Christians we undertake a pilgrimage of discipleship that is not simply arduous but that is good and through which we are led to be ambassadors for Christ and of service to others. What the Gospels make clear is that we cannot walk or serve as witnesses in this world or aspire to the next without the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God who has been a part of the world’s story, and our story, from its very beginnings.

A Spirit-Filled Tradition

GenesisAs we pray and reflect on the role of the Holy Spirit in the world, we find this life-giving presence in the opening verses of the Hebrew Scriptures. Here we see the Spirit of God at the beginnings of creation as it “sweep[s] over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2).

Through this Spirit, God brings the world into being – night and day, sea and land, every living creature, humankind in his image and according to his likeness.

Reflecting on God’s creation in the thirteenth century, Saint Bonaventure would posit that it is the love in God that is so great and fruitful that God makes a gift of this divine love beyond Himself. In other words, the love that God is spills over into creation. It is this breath of Yahweh that communicates life in the world.

However, the spirit of God does not stop at a single act of creation. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures it is the Judaic sense of rûaḥ or ‘breath of wind’ which signifies God’s power, a spirit that continuously and constantly acts in and upon human history.

This spirit of God causes humanity to act so that God’s plan in history can be fulfilled. It is God’s Spirit that empowers God’s people – persons such as Joseph, the example of faith; David, shepherd and king; Moses and Joshua, leaders of the people; the prophets and elders – to accomplish His mighty works.

ChristThis spirit-filled history of salvation continues into the New Testament where the revelation of God comes to fulfilment in Jesus Christ. Jesus’ entire life unfolds under the sign of the Spirit.

It is by the Spirit that the young Mary conceives Jesus (Lk 1:35). It is the Holy Spirit that descends upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, anointing him as the Beloved Son of the Father (Lk 3:22).

It is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the desert for fasting and prayer prior to his public ministry (Lk 4:1) and it is Jesus who will act through the Spirit, healing the sick (Lk 6:19), preaching and praying for his disciples and for the salvation of the world.

It is Jesus who sanctifies the ordinary things of this world – water, oil, bread and wine – by the power of the Holy Spirit. He renders all things holy, directs God’s gifts toward God’s glory, to the praise of his Father.

Finally it is the Risen Jesus, the glorified Lord, who gives the Spirit, the Advocate (Jn 16:7), to the disciples, to the Church, to continue and make present his truth, his Word, his teaching, his way, his life in the midst of the world.

The Holy Spirit and the Believer

If this is the ‘biography’ of the Holy Spirit, of God’s creative and redemptive power, what are the signs of the Holy Spirit in our time and in our world? What is more, what difference does the Spirit make to the world of our experience?

First and foremost the difference that the Spirit makes in our world is mediated in and through the lives of the Christian faithful and through the community of Christians, the Church.

The Holy Spirit is truly present in the world in each Christian baptised in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are confirmed in faith by the Spirit’s action and anointing, and receive the Eucharist, Christ’s body, by the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

By this sacramental initiation into the Church, we are made anew in Christ by the Holy Spirit. As St Paul declares of our Christian life, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

St PaulThis Spirit comes to each one of us as a gift but also as a challenge to the ongoing conversion of our heart and mind. As the source and giver of all holiness, we implore the Spirit to keep us in grace and remove those artificial obstacles, habits and ways of thinking that prevent us from living fully in and for Christ. As St Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans, our baptism in Christ calls us to live no longer by the flesh, by the material things or selfish desires of this world, but to live according to the Spirit (Rom 8:5). It is for this new life that the Spirit of God dwells in us, the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 8:11).

In our Christian living, we are no longer beholden to a spirit of slavery or have need to fall back into fear (Rom 8:15). We have received a spirit of adoption, become sons and daughters of God. It is the Holy Spirit that bestows upon us the eyes of faith, the capacity to see others not as we would see them but as Christ sees them, to see the world as God looks upon the world. We appreciate what is positive in others and in the whole of creation, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God. The Spirit teaches us to ‘make room’ for the other and to bear one another’s burdens with gentleness (Gal 6:2).

The Spirit also enables us as Christians to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16). We are endowed with the ability to respond to Christ’s words and open our minds to the understanding of his death and resurrection. In this way the Spirit keeps us faithful to Jesus in the present, activating and guiding our discernment to speak and act as Christians in the world so that this world reflects more and more of God’s Kingdom, the “fullness of life” that God intends for us and all creation (Jn 10:10).

The Spirit is particularly manifest in the world in the gifts that have been endowed upon each of the baptised. In addition to the gifts and fruits of the Spirit outlined in the writings of St Paul, which are gifts given for us to keep, the Holy Spirit also bestows charisms, special abilities for others, that enable us to be powerful channels of God’s love and redeeming presence in the world. Whether extraordinary charisms, like healing, or ordinary charisms, like administration, these are to be used in charity or service to build up the Church for the sake of our world (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 798-801).

We see the Spirit at work in the lives of the faithful, in such charisms as hospitality, of intercessory prayer, leadership and knowledge, the discernment of spirits, charisms of teaching and wisdom, and service and poverty among others. Received through Baptism and Confirmation, these charisms empower the People of God to have an impact on the world that surpasses their natural, human abilities. These are graces freely given by God, that call to be discerned among the whole People of God to actively help spread the faith, the Good News as missionary, Spirit-filled disciples.

SaintsOf course, the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit are especially manifest in the saints. These ‘bright patterns of holiness’ remind us that Christian sanctity is not just an ideal or possibility but a reality in concrete persons and the concrete conditions of the world. This cloud of witnesses, these Christian exemplars, are models of holiness who have responded to the needs, challenges and opportunities of their time. These saints allowed themselves to be filled with the Spirit. In the pattern of Mary, “full of grace” the saints give birth or expression to Christ in the world.

The diversity of their holy lives attests to the creativity of the Holy Spirit, each saint demonstrating that Christian holiness can be lived even in ‘this’ way. No doubt the Holy Spirit, agent of evangelisation and soul of the Church, is making news saints in our time who will open up new and fruitful ways for responding to the Gospel in the future, who will be new manifestations of the Spirit of Christ alive, illuminating the world.

The Holy Spirit and the Church

As evident in the communion of saints and those first disciples gathered in the Upper Room, a primary way the Holy Spirit acts in the world is to bring the Church into being.

22.4.2010: south wall, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, RavennaThe Church, as the third-century theologian St Hippolytus affirmed, is “the place where the Spirit flourishes”. The Church is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit animating and bringing to life and holiness its members through the Word and sacraments, the ministry of the ordained (our bishops, priests and deacons), the various gifts and charisms of the faithful of every rank, the varieties of religious orders and ecclesial movements that express the Spirit’s power and anointing.

So integral is the connection between the Holy Spirit and the Church that St Irenaeus would proclaim as early as the second century, “for where the Church is, there also is God’s Spirit, and where the Spirit of God is, there are also the Church and all grace” (Book III, Against Heresies).

A particular aspect of the Spirit in the Church is its role as principle of unity, enabling all people to be one and the unity to be a multitude. The Spirit gathers what has been scattered, overcomes division and unites difference. It brings into communion the People of God, a people of every culture, nation, tongue and tribe, in the one body of Christ.

Like a soul is to the body, the Holy Spirit binds all the members of the body of Christ to its Head and to one another. This unity is one of the ways in which the Church gives witness to Jesus Christ, through whom “God was pleased to reconcile… all things” (Col 1:20). As we have learned from our history, a lack of unity within the Church or poor witness seriously impairs the ability of the world to see the Church as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, as a source and expression of God’s love.

Therefore, to be fruitful in its evangelising mission, the Church privileges unity which will be not the product of our efforts or structures alone but the fruit of our common docility to the Holy Spirit. Just as St Paul entreated the community at Ephesus centuries ago, so too are we to make “every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:4).

Not only does the Spirit make the Church one, it also leads the Church to be faithful, in ever deeper adherence to Christ. As identified by John’s Gospel, the Spirit guides the ecclesial community “into all the truth” of God’s revelation (Jn 16:12).

The Church Fathers of the third and fourth century were themselves conscious of a tradition or communication of the Holy Spirit that ensured the unity of the faith in the churches spread far and wide across the ancient Mediterranean. It was the Holy Spirit promised and given to the Church by Jesus that ensured the faithful transmission of the faith.

The Church remains today as it was then, ‘apostolic’ in its Spirit-inspired efforts to be faithful to the Gospel and to interpret it as Good News for the world. In this task, the bishops as successors of the apostles have a particular charism, to serve as the visible principle and foundation of unity in the particular churches and to exercise a special competence within the Church to ‘test all things and hold fast to that which is good’ (Lumen Gentium 12).

It is important to note here that the Spirit also enables the fidelity and adherence of the Church to Christ through the personal conversion of all the faithful, the reading of Scripture and immersion in the tradition, the initiative of local communities, parishes, families and groups, the teaching, sanctifying and pastoral government of our priests, the apostolate of our religious, whether obscure or well-known, and the birth of new movements and forms of evangelisation that are fresh signs of the Spirit active in the world. In the end, the Church is no less than the world as those who believe in Christ and who live by and engage this world by the influence and promptings of the Spirit.

‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ 

FraAngelicoAs the Feast of the Ascension brings us to reflect on our Christian pilgrimage in this world and to the next, we do not have a choice between God and the world. As Christians, we choose God by choosing the world as it really is in Him. We choose God by working toward the transformation of the world as disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit who inspires true freedom and furthers God’s plan of salvation.

In human lives transformed, in the works of justice and mercy that express Christ’s love, the prayer and worship that reveal his glory, in outreach to and inclusion of the poor and vulnerable that reveal his heart, the Spirit moves the world toward its fulfilment.

By the Spirit each of us are sharers in Christ’s mission and we are inspired by a constant and healthy unease in the world to make all things new in Him. As Christ himself beseeches each one of us “receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), the spirit of truth, love and holiness that leads us home to God.