Content area
Full Text
Much has been made of the fact that the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia is an historic moment for the church in Australia. Not only will it set the pastoral program for the years ahead by listening to what the Spirit is saying to the church, but it is also an opportunity to consider where we have come from and see the hand of God leading us to this moment. The process, which began in 2018, has deliberately been long, but was made even longer by the impact of COVID-19. During these years, there have been many voices speaking into the council. The first assembly (3-10 October 2021) revealed the diversity of the church in Australia. The decisions that will be made at the second assembly (49 9 2022) will necessarily rely on good theological insights and understandings. This four-part article gives voice to four theologians who have been among the advisers (periti) to the council.
Theology and the Plenary Council
Richard Lennan
The church is complex. This complexity derives from the church's two constitutive elements: God's free self-communication through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit-grace-and humanity's graced response to God-faith. More accurately perhaps, the complexity is an effect of the church's obligation to hold the two elements together, as unlikely a pairing as they are. God's initiative and the abiding gift of grace are the church's foundation and the wellspring of its mission. The community of faith is thus not free to choose for itself an alternative source and purpose. Were the church merely a passive recipient of divine ordinances, it would be a one-dimensional body, conforming automatically and effortlessly to God's plan. The church, however, does not follow an invariable, God-given script. As a community of faith that is a participant in the fluidity of history and culture, the church must constantly discern how best to express 'right faith' and 'right action'. In doing both, the church relies on the summons of grace, which both stimulates and sustains the church's discernment.
This discernment is to guide the ecclesial community's efforts to embody faithfulness to God and due care for God's creation, especially 'the least of these who are members of my family' (Matt 25:40). The God-given mission is permanent and unchanging; the enactment...