Back to the start for the Catholic Plenary Council

Terry Fewtrell is a Canberra writer and is active in Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]

For all the hope invested in the first Assembly of the Australian Catholic Church’s Plenary Council, the reality is that the process is virtually back where it started. The challenge now will be to ensure that it moves to the next stage without the scheming and manipulation witnessed previously. Based on past performance, however, the prospects are not encouraging. 

Almost three years ago, the Catholic community in 17,500 submissions made it abundantly clear that significant change was needed for the church to be relevant in Australian society. From that point on, the process between the submissions and the recent Assembly was characterised by seemingly deliberate attempts to wash away much of the input that raised difficult issues or called for major change. 

This has been detailed and documented along the way by Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn and other lay groups, in thorough analyses of public documents and outcomes. The record included the stacking of Discernment Groups, a failure to develop coherent threads of theological or ecclesiological thinking from stage to stage, the seemingly circular treatment of issues that seemed intended to confuse rather than illuminate, and blatant attempts to minimise key issues (such as the treatment of women and clericalism) and to brush other matters off the table altogether.

The Instrumentum Laboris confusing

Even the precursor of the agenda, Instrumentum Laboris (the statement of work), that ought to have been a key facilitative document, served only to confuse. It detailed arguments for change and reasons to resist change but revealed little insight to identify the really significant issues. The resulting agenda looked as if it was designed to confound rather than facilitate consideration of the real issues. It seemed to be the best that could be done to point to issues of significance, while appeasing an influential rump determined to minimise change. 

These analyses leading into the Assembly, despite being on the public record were never challenged or rebutted. The experience of the First Assembly serves only to reinforce their accuracy. Neither the formal six agenda items, nor the accompanying 16 sets of questions, facilitated the best use of the limited time available for discussion. It was as if the struggle among the bishops, between those open to reforms and defenders of the status quo, was an unresolvable puzzle that was passed to the Assembly, in the form of an anodyne agenda. 

President of the Bishops Conference, Mark Coleridge, responded to the agenda concerns in the week prior to the Assembly, stating that ‘everything was on the table’. Reform minded members of the Assembly did their best to raise areas of major concern to the Catholic community. But this was a case of flagging issues by whatever tenuous links were available. Hardly a fair or productive approach to serious decision making. 

Problems with process

A common observation to emerge from the Assembly was the rush to finalise items resulting from an inadequate meeting plan that did not allow sufficient time for proper consideration of important themes or obtaining clarity on outcomes. 

So now this melange of views goes to a drafting committee working with a group of experts (Periti) under the guidance of a steering committee, to prepare a set of draft resolutions for the next Assembly in July 2022. Various descriptions are being used for this part of the process. The official communique refers to it as ‘a time of prayer, reflection, maturation and development’. Others refer to ‘fermentation’ and the ‘opportunity to consult with the wider church’. Some among the Periti speak of their role being to ‘help mould the outcomes of Assembly One into meaningful proposals’.

There is much subjectivity in these words, and it is not clear who will be doing all of these things: the full Plenary Council membership, the drafting or steering committees, or the bishops – singularly or severally? Procedurally there seems no process for representative delegates from the members to be involved in these steps. Clearly this is a major flaw that good faith would suggest should be corrected. The alternative is understandable suspicion and doubt.

The imprecision as to how many outcomes there were (somehow a figure of 40 has emerged without any obvious provenance) and what the nature of those outcomes are, bodes ill for real transparency. It is not just members of the Assembly who have a keen interest in these matters. All interested ‘active and assertive’ Catholics who have invested in this process are entitled to have visibility into these processes. 

Transparency and accountability 

It is clearly not acceptable that the drafting and steering committees, which will be critical in this next stage, contain no representatives empowered by the First Assembly and no apparent mechanism for iterative feedback. Transparency and accountability are therefore at grave risk. Sadly, this is particularly worrying, given the record of manipulation obvious in the journey from submissions to the First Assembly.

Part of the challenge, or the legacy, of the First Assembly was the impression gained that ‘discernment’ in many cases effectively involved renegotiation of what was proclaimed at Vatican II. A good example is Diocesan Pastoral Councils (DPC), which the Vatican Council specifically identified as a basic building block of local churches, but which are still resisted by most Australian bishops, given that the vast bulk of dioceses do not have one. 

Interestingly there is growing evidence that the bishops are starting to realise that digging-in on this matter has little future. Prior to the Assembly they quietly commissioned a scanning report on the status and experience of DPCs in Australia, and there are reports of tentative steps in some of the ‘hold-out’ dioceses. There is also the suggestion that they are seeking a model that would stress the ‘advisory’ role of such entities rather than, as envisaged in the Vatican II documents, a genuine forum of the local bishop and the People of God. This only serves to highlight that the Plenary risks being more a plaything or device than authentically synodal. It will be interesting to see if a resolution on DPCs emerges that is ‘moulded’ to conform with the bishops’ preferred approach. 

Some Assembly members, not limited to bishops, seem to reject outright or are very uncomfortable with a church that endeavours to give expression to the Vatican II vision of a pilgrim community of the People of God. This reflects the attitudes of many bishops who have spent the last 20+ years downplaying the importance of Vatican II. 

It would not be too far short of the mark to say that, in words and deeds a fair number of them brought to the Plenary Council a theology and ecclesiology that
is more pre-Vatican II. This would seem to correlate with Archbishop Coleridge’s admission pre-Assembly One, that a number of his brother bishops were ‘nervous’ about the PC. ‘Fearful’ comes to mind as a more accurate descriptor.

So, if we are back to the start, there is one aspect that ought to be different. Unlike the post-submission stage, when the bishops and the planning team had complete discretion and no public scrutiny, on this occasion they are accountable to the 280 members of the formal Plenary assemblies. Certainly, that is a reasonable expectation of members and the wider Catholic community. 

Transparent and accountable governance is not just a legitimate issue for consideration by the Plenary, it should characterise the operations of the Council itself. If synodality is to be the modus operandi going forward, it now become the self-imposed test of good faith and must be evident in the processes leading to Assembly Two and beyond.

This is not about democratic control, rather it is about honesty and fair dealing, something on which the church does not have a trustworthy record. It would be a curious and perverse outcome if the Holy Spirit was invoked to defend outcomes from the Plenary that lacked essential honesty and openness.[/s2If]