The movement of the Holy Spirit in the Second Assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia left the SVD participants “shaken but not stirred” and hopeful for the future of the synodal Church.

Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass SVD, said he entered the Assembly “with the sure hope that it would not deceive nor disappoint” him (Rom 5:5).

“In the words of James Bond when he ordered his martinis, I hoped to emerge ‘shaken but not stirred’,” he said.

“Guess what, my hope was shaken, stirred, but never despairing!

“In retrospect, a shaken hope was required even when stirred deep within. Hope does not compromise on authentic tradition but adds to her missionary flavour towards the goal of the Plenary – ‘a Christ-centred Church, open to conversion, renewal and reform’.”

Fr Rass said that while he was disturbed by the well-documented experience on Day Three, when the motions on the dignity and role of women in the Church failed to pass the deliberative vote of bishops, it did not discourage his trust in the work of the Holy Spirit.

“I discovered that the vulnerability of hope needs to be tested with others who hope too. If we are stirred, we move slightly, we readjust and rearrange – an alteration of affairs because we are uncomfortable with the subject at hand.

“Similarly, stirred hope helped to create breathing spaces for my untested bubbles of prejudice to surface from the deep and be exposed to the light of day.

“God the Holy Spirit sometimes requires a time of shaking. I know it’s all for a good cause; discomforts and disappointments are all part and parcel of what we call a Pilgrim Church on the move.

“Whatever assessment you give to the second Assembly, I came back exhausted as we struggled for a shared purpose and blueprint for the Catholic Church in Australia.”

Fr Rass said the presence of the laity with their “instinct for the truth of the Gospel” is a vital resource for the “new missionary movement to which the SVDs are strongly committed in our time”.

Bishop Tim Norton SVD who took up his role as Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane in May and had therefore not attended the First Assembly, found some particular challenges in the Second Assembly.

“The fact that I was ‘parachuted’ into a role with a deliberative vote in the Council, having only recently returned to Australia after an eight-year absence, seemed incongruous to me,” he said.

“Being ordained a bishop six months ago was certainly not sufficient for me to feel comfortable voting on themes around life and mission in the Australian Church that I was only just beginning to grasp during my transition back into this wonderful country.

“Nevertheless, I found the spiritual conversations, along with the table and meal sharing, enormously helpful in orienting me to the topics. In the deliberative vote I had been given, I was guided strongly by the preceding general vote of the members of the plenary council.

“A further and much more dramatic incongruity for me was my solidarity with a significant group of women who were ‘disrupting’ the proceedings after we, the bishops, failed to vote through a document that spoke, among other things, about increasing the roles for participation of women in the Church. The great majority of members of the Plenary Council were relieved and joyful when the bishops later voted almost unanimously for an amended document on the same themes, following heartfelt debate on the floor and at table, and an inspired effort on the part of members of the drafting committee.

“I returned to Brisbane considerably wiser in matters of the Church, and more grateful to the Holy Spirit, than when I went to Sydney to attend the Plenary Council.”

Fr Prakash Menezes SVD, Parish Priest in Alice Springs, also attended the Assembly.

PHOTOS

TOP RIGHT: The three members of the Divine Word Missionaries who were members of the Second Assembly of the 5th Plenary Council of Australia, from left to right, Fr Prakash Menezes SVD, Provincial Fr Asaeli Rass SVD, and Bishop Tim Norton SVD.

BOTTOM LEFT: Members of the Plenary Council Assembly voting on a motion. PHOTO: Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.