Guest speakers at the 2021 Provincial Assembly challenged members of the SVD community to be invitational, to get to know people’s story and to discern and act with vision – the vision of Jesus Christ.

Emeritus Bishop of Darwin, Bishop Eugene Hurley spoke on the Leadership of Pope Francis, and Dr Janine Luttick, a lecturer in biblical studies at Australian Catholic University (ACU), in the faculty of theology and philosophy, presented on Leadership, Mission, Women and the Church in Australia.

Bishop Eugene challenged those present to reach out to others by listening to their story, and  said Christians have to ask themselves if they have “lost the art of the invitation”.

“We have to invite people to be part of things,” he said. “And we have to be kind. No-one will leave the Church because you were too kind to them.”

Bishop Eugene said Pope Francis has shown us, through his actions and words, that the Church must be merciful.

“Mercy is what Pope Francis talks about over and over and over again,” he said, referencing the Pope’s image of the Church as a field hospital for the wounded.

“We have to get out and heal the wounded,” Bishop Eugene said. “Pope Francis keeps talking about how we must approach people where they are and walk with them gently and mercifully to some other place. We have to accompany people.”

He said that despite the devastation of the sexual abuse crisis on victims and the whole Church, there had never been a better time to be a missionary.

“The world’s in a mess, people are hurting – what a lovely and wonderful opportunity to bring the healing and the love of God,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we must go out to where the people are. Ships are always safe in the harbour but that is not where we belong. We must go out into the deeper water.

“People need us as they’ve never needed us before - not to tell them what to do, but to accompany them.”

Janine delivered an impactful presentation on ‘Leadership, Mission, Women and the Church in Australia’, saying that leadership in the Church was like a popular restaurant with a queue outside – some have a seat inside at the table and others do not.

She acknowledged that women do lead in many areas of Church life, including in parish ministry, as educators, in health, welfare, media, youth and social justice.

“But we have to ask what are the kinds of roles that are available to women and who chooses those roles,” she said.

Janine said it was crucial for those who have a seat at the table to invite others to participate and to challenge some of the barriers that act to prevent women’s participation.

“For women to take their place at the table, education is critical,” she said.

However, theological education in Australia and other countries is expensive and is tailored in content towards those studying for the ordained priesthood, skewing it away from theological questions which are present in the lives of women.

Referencing US theologian and missiologist Fr Stephen Bevans SVD, Janine said: “The aim of leadership in the Church is Mission – a call to imagine the world differently, to see it’s possibilities with God’s eyes.”

She urged the Divine Word Missionaries to actively engage in dialogue with women in their ministries and to invite women to take a seat at the table, noting that in indigenous communities women are already leaders in their community and much can be gained from listening to them and learning from them.

“Dialogue is taking our shoes off and walking in another’s shoes,” she said.

Also presenting at the Assembly were Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD and Fr John Quang SVD on creative pastoral responses to the COVID pandemic.

PHOTOS

TOP RIGHT: Emeritus Bishop of Darwin, Bishop Eugene Hurley.

BOTTOM LEFT: ACU lecturer in Biblical Studies, Dr Janine Luttick.