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Keywords: Plenary 2020

  • RELIGION

    Mud-wrestling the Catholic elephant

    • John Warhurst
    • 01 April 2018
    26 Comments

    The size and complexity of the church has bedevilled the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Church reformers face the same dilemma. The church is big and slippery, with numerous opportunities to engage but equally numerous veto points and dead-ends when it comes to getting action.

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  • RELIGION

    Church democracy and the 2020 Plenary Council

    • John Warhurst
    • 11 September 2017
    33 Comments

    There is a lot of big talk by Australian Catholic church leaders about the forthcoming 2020 Plenary Council, but remarkable vagueness about its likely shape. Now that the first of the consultation sessions about the council has occurred in Sydney, resolving the nature of the event becomes a matter of some urgency. Otherwise the council runs the risk of eventually becoming a huge disappointment.

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  • RELIGION

    Catholic citizens needed within the Church

    • John Warhurst
    • 23 May 2017
    54 Comments

    Catholics have a proud record of exercising their democratic rights within Australian democracy as voters, members of political parties and lobby groups, and as elected representatives. But within their own church they have been taught to leave their democratic rights at the door. Now is the time to challenge that norm in parishes, dioceses and the wider church. In responding to the royal commission the church needs an infusion of democratic values, including transparency and accountability.

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  • RELIGION

    Becoming a church for mission 2030

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 May 2017

    As the Church of 2030, we need to be more attentive to the contemplation of believers and our experience of spiritual realities, as well as the preaching of the church. Pope Francis has no time whatever for the notion of the Church as a perfect society. But, there is no way that Francis wants to abandon the ideals and the commitment to truth and justice so well exemplified by his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict.

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  • RELIGION

    Australian bishops gather in the light of the royal commission

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 05 May 2017
    51 Comments

    The government and the Catholic Church both face difficulties when commending values. The difficulties will dog events during the next week in which both institutions are on public display: the bringing down of the budget and the meeting of the Australian Catholics bishops. The question Australians ask is whether the bishops and other public representatives of the Catholic Church have the stomach for the changes in governance needed to address the factors that led to child abuse.

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  • RELIGION

    It's time to put past victims and present and future children first

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 March 2017
    11 Comments

    Make no mistake, our church leaders are not yet out of the blaze of the headlights. They don't have all the answers, not even in relation to matters peculiarly within their jurisdiction. Despite being put on notice, our most senior bishops could not even agree on the limits of the seal of the confessional and on what a priest should do if abuse were reported in the confessional by a child. It's not just our past leaders who needed help. Our present leaders also do.

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  • RELIGION

    Indigenous summiteers put dreams into practice

    • Frank Brennan
    • 30 April 2008
    7 Comments

    The abuse of children in remote communities has been the catalyst for revising romantic notion of land rights and self-determination. 2020 summiteers were allowed to dream and strategise about closing gaps while wondering how best to recognise the enduring rights of indigenous Australians.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Summiteers treated to mix of showbiz and serious performance

    • John Warhurst
    • 21 April 2008
    4 Comments

    Many of those present at the weekend's 2020 Summit struggled with understanding the difference between ideas, policies, visions, aspirations and general directions. The more hard-headed were probably disappointed, just as the others were obviously delighted by the vision statements.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    2020 delegates an unpredictable but dynamic mix

    • John Warhurst
    • 07 April 2008
    2 Comments

    The productivity of the 2020 Summit will come from interplay within groups, not individual performance. It will be a big job to prevent it becoming the pushiest and the loudest rather than the best and the brightest.

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