One of the lessons learnt during the First Assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council has been the importance of beginning with Christ, said Perth Auxiliary Bishop Don Sproxton.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Record, Bishop Sproxton said that by starting with Christ, the Church will be able to establish new ways and new structures.
“Which will enable people with different experiences within the Church, with different roles of leadership in the church, to come together and establish a common starting point towards working towards the work that has to be done in working together and collaborating together,” Bishop Don explained.
“Dioceses, parishes, religious communities, the PJPs, and all the works and communities within the church will need to go back to Christ and work from Christ in establishing collaboration and cooperation,” he said.
Bishop Don also highlighted that he had personally felt the Holy Spirit present over the course of the week of the First Assembly through the deep listening among the members.
“I think really the First session of the Plenary Council was meant to give us all the opportunity to bring [together] the reading that we’ve done in preparation from the Instrumentum Laboris and the interventions that were sent over those first stages.
“Having digested that, bringing to the session, you know, the insights and some of the understandings that we have, and to share that together and to put it in a sense ‘on the table’ so that we’re establishing, I suppose, the foundation for proposals that will come out probably at the end of this session, certainly into the Second Assembly.”
Bishop Don continued by highlighting that there had been a great variety of views expressed during the first few days of the First Assembly.
“I think it’s been evident that the Spirit has enabled us to listen with respect to all of those things that have been said, and to use some of those things or many of those things in that prayerful discernment and reflection that we’ve been involved in in these days.
Bishop Don continued by saying that for him, the moment that he realised the process was working and the voice of the Holy Spirit was really present, was on Day Three.
“That was when things were starting to become clearer to us.
“Day one and day two, I think were days when as I said earlier, were about putting issues and understandings and positions onto the table, which gave way to a discerning process taking hold – and us listening: trying to work out, where we want to go with some of these ideas and these positions? “What are the propositions or the proposals that we need to develop from these? It gave a bit of clarity, and I think we came out of the third day with a much more positive experience of the process,” he said.
Bishop Don noted that his hopes for the process between the First Assembly and the Second Assembly in 2022 is the continuation of the conversation.
“One of the experiences we had before meeting in the Plenary Council was the conversations that we were having online with each other.
“I’m pretty sure that these will continue after this First Assembly. In this period of time, when we have a number of proposals that need to be refined and worked on, this period of eight or so months will enable those managing the Plenary Council to do that work and ensure that the Second Assembly will run very, very effectively and efficiently, because of the work that’s been done in between.
“But it’s a matter of distilling and forming [the conversations], into propositions that can be presented to the Members in the Second Assembly, which is going to be an important part of this next process,” Bishop Don concluded.