The Fifth Plenary Council of the Australian Catholic Church has come to an end

The Fifth Plenary Council of the Australian Catholic Church has come to an end.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth closed the council on Saturday after months of discussion and debate about Church administration and pastoral priorities.

In his homily at the final Mass in Sydney on July 9, he stated, “There will be no renewal of the Church if we put ourselves above Christ or in some perverse way push him to the margins.”

According to him, the purpose of the plenary council was to “reimagine the Church in Australia through a missionary lens.”

The archbishop urged those present at the plenary council to keep seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Sydney hosted the final session over a six-day period.

The highest formal assembly of all specific churches in a nation is a plenary council. It has the power to govern and pass laws.

During council meetings, laypeople were invited to take part.

They voted alongside the bishops on binding resolutions that would be submitted to the Vatican for approval.

An agreement was signed by all participants. Members of the council described it as a manifestation of synodality.

In their deliberations, “the Holy Spirit has been both comforter and disrupter,” according to the statements.

“Synodality is the way of being a pilgrim Church, a Church that journeys together and listens, so that we might more faithfully act together in responding to our God-given vocation and mission.”

The decisions of the plenary council were then signed by all the existing Catholic bishops after being approved by the plenary council’s members.

The decrees will be delivered to the Holy See during the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference conference in November.

The decrees will become a part of Australian Catholic Church law six months after the Holy See receives this notification, officially known as a “recognitio.”

A obligation to protect the Earth as a shared home and to advance and preserve human life from conception to natural death was publicly acknowledged by the plenary council.

It prompted the Church to sign up for Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si” Action Platform and create new action plans in accordance with the pope’s 2015 encyclical on protecting the environment.

The plenary council supported expanding the use of general absolution, a substitute for private confession that is often reserved for dire circumstances.

It also supported an initiative to look for a new translation of the Roman Missal from 2011.

One idea to let lay persons to preach at Masses was defeated.

A motion to support the ordination of women as deacons if Rome accepts was defeated on July 6, and more than 60 of the 277 members protested the defeat of the motion.

The proposals received support from the lay members, but not enough bishops voted in favor of them to make them law.

A motion to rethink suggested language on women in the Church was approved by the council following substantial debate; it was eventually approved in a slightly different form.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told The Catholic Weekly that “much has been made of the disagreement and drama of the week and that can alarm some and please others.”

“However, what strikes me as surprising is that it did not destroy the Church.

we have witnessed at many points in history, it did not result in a walkout, schism, or the later establishment of a new assembly.

Eventually, he added, “with more prayer and thought, we came up with a far better chapter on the dignity and roles of women”.

The decrees of the council mandate the development of diocesan pastoral councils throughout Australia, the holding of diocesan synods within the next five years, and extensive dialogue towards the formation of a national synodal organization for Church cooperation.

Members “sought to be loyal to their commission to listen to and hear ‘what the Spirit is saying to the churches,’” according to the plenary council’s concluding statement.

It noted how the Covid-19 pandemic, natural calamities, and war had disrupted ordinary living.

The concluding statement noted that while there were “quiet and peaceful” and “tight and difficult” moments throughout the council’s last week, “every moment has been blessed; the entire week has been grace-filled, yet never a cheap grace.”

“Practices of listening and discernment,” according to the statement, are “important elements of the implementation of this plenary council.”

The statement continued, “The work has hardly begun,” and stated that “they will re-shape our interaction with the world, our evangelizing purpose, and our deeds of service in a quickly changing context.”

The Bishops Commission will assess the implementation for the Plenary Council.

A final review report is scheduled for 2027, with interim reports appearing in 2023 and 2025, respectively.

In comments to The Catholic Weekly, Archbishop Fisher discussed the accomplishments and potential problems of the plenary council.

In his words, “some of the most ‘hard’ subjects, like Indigenous difficulties, child sexual abuse, and the status of women in the Church, have been directly engaged with.”

“Those talks could have been quite polarizing and occasionally very emotional.

However, there was ultimately a lot of consensus on the majority of them.

The archbishop continued, “It’s far preferable if such concerns were tackled frankly than creating a kind of faux unity by skirting the difficult subjects.

The assembly’s efforts to provide “some good suggestions on liturgy, marriage catechumenate, youth ministry, development programs for lay leaders including those in rural and isolated locations, and stewardship of the land” were lauded by the speaker.

He appreciated that it recognized the significance of the Eastern Catholic Churches in Australia.

Fisher was concerned that not enough material was devoted to the “missionary drive” and to “a desire for bringing people to Christ, to conversion, and to new life in Him,” as well as to these concepts.

In his opinion, there should be more focus on marginalized groups and “realistic proposals” to advance religious freedom at a time when it is “obviously challenged.”

He was concerned that the assembly’s underrepresentation of “ordinary” priests and laity Catholics, including those who were foreign-born, may have tainted the proceedings.

Nevertheless, he said that most recommendations were “accepted with a very high rate among the lay members and the pastors.”

When the final decrees are released, “everyone will find some wonderful things there,” Fisher said.

“People should look for those, look for inspiration and encouragement in their own missionary discipleship.”

People may also discover omissions and topics that, in Fisher’s opinion, should have been included.

He questioned why secular men, mothers, professed religious, or “Catholics whose major mission is in the world” received such little attention.

There isn’t much information available that addresses the crisis of vocations to marriage, parenthood, the priesthood, and religious life, the author continued.

Fisher stated that although while there is an entire chapter devoted to the significance of the liturgy, particularly the Eucharist and the sacrament of Penance, he had hoped to see “concrete ideas” on how the Church may find priests qualified to perform those sacraments.

Late in 2021, Fisher expressed his expectation that the council will concentrate on issues including how to address a secular culture and a decline in religious practice.

He stated to the Catholic Weekly last year that barely 1 in 10 Australian Catholics currently attend Mass on a regular basis.

A vocations crisis is affecting the Church in Australia, affecting not only vocations to the priesthood but also to marriage and convent life.

The Church still reacts to sexual abuse crises in addition to a secular culture.

According to a 2017 royal commission report, the Catholic Church and other national institutions have long had major shortcomings in preventing child abuse.