People across Australia and beyond will be able to follow the progress of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia through Masses and livestream sessions when the first general assembly opens this weekend.

The Plenary Council, the first such event in Australia since 1937, will open with Mass livestreamed from St Mary’s Cathedral in Perth on Sunday, October 3. Plenary Council president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB will celebrate that Mass at 2pm AEDT and officially open the nine-month journey of the two Council assemblies.

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A key component of the Plenary Council’s assemblies will help members to consider the 16 questions that make up the Council agenda.

Each day, some of those questions will be the focus of small group discernment, with about 10 members engaging in what is known as “spiritual conversations”. What are spiritual conversations? And how do they work?

Br Ian Cribb SJ, who led a retreat for the Australian Bishops in 2019, answers some questions about how the spiritual conversations process will benefit the Plenary Council members as they discern the questions before them. Continue reading →

Plenary Council president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB is inviting Catholics across Australia to pray with and pray for Council members during the upcoming first general assembly.

The Fifth Plenary Council of Australia will open on Sunday, October 3, with Archbishop Costelloe celebrating the opening Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in Perth at 2pm AEDT. The Mass will be livestreamed on the Plenary Council website.

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A national committee has been established to support the Church in Australia as it prepares to join an international consultation process in the lead-up to the 2023 Synod of Bishops.

In March 2020, Pope Francis announced that the theme for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops would be “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission”.

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Some of the country’s leading Catholic thinkers have been engaged to support the members of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia when they gather for the first general assembly early next month.

As happens with international gatherings, including at the Second Vatican Council, participants are able to seek guidance from a group of advisers. Their expertise covers a broad range of disciplines, including theology, philosophy, ethics, ecclesiology, education, liturgy, governance and social justice.

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The Catholic Church has welcomed Australian Government support for international efforts to amend intellectual property rights to ensure more people can access life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.

Representatives of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and other members of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) met with Trade Minister Dan Tehan this week. They urged Minister Tehan to build support for those efforts at upcoming international meetings.

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by Michael Kenny, Archdiocese of Sydney

A quietly-spoken 20-year-old university student and youth minister from the regional New South Wales city of Orange is set to make history in October as the youngest member of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia.

Matthew Brown is currently in the first year of a double law and international studies degree at the University of Wollongong, but has returned to his home town to prepare for what he believes will be perhaps the greatest challenge he has faced so far in his young life.

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Fr Frank Gordon will serve as a member of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia (photo supplied)

by Neil Helmore and Anne Chellingworth

As the Church in Australia journeys towards the first assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia, the first since 1937, the question asked by many is how the Church has changed since that last gathering.

While he doesn’t remember any specifics about that event 84 years ago, Fr Frank Gordon – one of the oldest members of the upcoming Council – is testament to the changes that have taken place.

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On August 28, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Christopher Saunders as the Bishop of Broome. Bishop Saunders was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Broome in 1976 and was appointed bishop of the diocese in 1995, and ordained Bishop of Broome early the next year.

When announcing the resignation, Pope Francis also appointed Geraldton Bishop Michael Morrissey apostolic administrator of the diocese.

The Diocese of Broome issued a statement to coincide with the resignation, which can be read here.

Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge signs the decree of convocation (Archdiocese of Brisbane photo)

by Archbishop Mark Coleridge

There have been times when I wondered if we would ever make it. But after all the delays and changes of plan, we have come at last to the first assembly of the Plenary Council, which has quite a pre-history.

The bishops took the decision to move to a Plenary Council in 2016, but the roots of that decision reach way back to the early 2000s. It was then that the late Archbishop Philip Wilson proposed that the time was right for the Church in Australia to prepare for some kind of national ecclesial event.

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