President Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB signs the decrees for the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia while vice president Bishop Shane Mackinlay and secretary Fr David Ranson look on

The nine-month celebration phase of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia ended on Saturday, with Council Members standing and applauding as president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB formally declared the Council closed.

Almost four-and-a-half years after preparations for the Council began, Members met for a final session to bring to a conclusion the second general assembly, held across six days in Sydney.

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Plenary Council president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has encouraged Council Members to continue relying upon the Holy Spirit as they move into the future.

Archbishop Costelloe was the principal celebrant and homilist at the closing Mass of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia celebrated in St Mary’s Cathedral on Saturday morning.

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On the final full day of the Plenary Council, Members have celebrated the passage of almost all motions contained in the Motions and Amendments document that formed the second assembly’s agenda.

Eighteen of the 19 motions considered on Friday passed. All five motions in Part 4 of the document, entitled “Witnessing to the Equal Dignity of Women and Men”, passed decisively.

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Due to additional changes in the program for the Plenary Council’s second assembly, no deliberative vote outcomes were announced within the assembly on Friday morning.

Council Members are working through three parts of the Motions and Amendments document – Parts 4, 5, and 6 – with consultative and deliberative votes expected to be taken during the day.

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Those gathered for the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia are following in the footsteps of the early Christians, Cardinal John Dew said at Mass on Thursday evening.

The Archbishop of Wellington, one of the observers at the Plenary Council, was the homilist for Mass celebrated on the memorial of Blessed Peter To Rot, Papua New Guinea’s first Blessed.

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Plenary Council Members have passed all six motions they considered on Thursday across parts of the agenda in the areas of Church governance and integral ecology.

Among the reforms backed were a call for the establishment of diocesan pastoral councils across the country, the hosting of diocesan synods within five years of the conclusion of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia and the undertaking of broad consultation about the creation of a national synodal body for Church collaboration.

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Due to a change in the program for the Plenary Council’s second assembly, no deliberative votes were cast on Thursday morning.

Council Members are working through four parts of the Motions and Amendments document, participating in reflection and discernment to move towards votes on the relevant motions for those parts of the document.

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As Wednesday’s proceedings came to a close, Members of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia were invited to remember the “saving unity” to which the Church is called.

The Mass for the Church was offered at St Mary’s Cathedral, after a day of further discernment following the results of the second rounds of voting. Details were published earlier in the day.

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The Members of the Plenary Council have spent Wednesday afternoon working together to reconsider a pair of motions that were not passed earlier in the day.

In the first afternoon session, an overwhelming majority of Members backed a motion to reconsider the two motions from Part 4 of the Council’s Motions and Amendments document entitled “Witnessing to the Equal Dignity of Women and Men”.

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Members of the Plenary Council are being invited to spend additional time to discern after two motions did not achieve a qualified majority in voting that has taken place over the past 24 hours.

The outcomes of the consultative and deliberative votes for motions of parts 3 and 4 of the Motions and Amendments document published last week have been announced. They can be found on the Plenary Council’s Motions and Voting page on the Council’s website.

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