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April Enews

Please make a note of the next ACTA Leeds Zoom network which will be at 2.00pm on Thursday 23 June 2022. We will be continuing discussion about the Synod - more details nearer the time

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to register for the meeting and I will send you the link nearer the time (no need to do this if you have attended before)
to contact ACTA Leeds about anything in this enews

Where is the Diocese of Leeds in its Synodal journey?

At our March ACTA Leeds zoom network we were updated by David Jackson, who is a member of the Parish to Mission Diocesan Steering Committee, on progress within the diocese. A more detailed account of next steps in the diocese is given by David in this newsletter.

ACTA Leeds is encouraging everyone to play their fullest part in this next step in their parishes and through their networks. Responses may again be made individually on-line in this next phase of listening and reflection in the diocese. We considered the action we can each take. We encourage you to:-

Work in your own parish to model the sort of church we want to be. For example, if you have a Parish Pastoral Council or Open Forum, how does it operate? What does it do? How does it pray and discern action using the principles of synodality?
Work towards embedding synodal processes of dialogue and prayer within your own faith communities (eg SVP, Cafod, Prayer Groups, Justice and Peace, Caritas)
Find a place to feel ‘at home’ if your own faith community is not engaging with Pope Francis’ call to action. In a networked world, community is never far away. You are always welcome to join our ACTA Leeds zoom ‘lunch’ network meetings where you will find the support of like-minded Catholics

PHASE 2 – THE LEEDS DIOCESAN SYNODAL PROCESS – SPRING 2022
The results of the meetings of Phase 1 went to each parish at the end of January. The teams of facilitators by now (April) will have been in touch with all parishes to fix the date for the PHASE 2 parish meeting.
All parish, school, on-line and group responses to the questions for Phase 1 have been collated and the summary has now gone to Bishop Marcus. Reports from every diocese will go via the national, then the international conferences of Bishops and then to Rome to inform the synodal to take place in Rome in October 2023.

PHASE 2 IS CRUCIAL FOR OUR PARISHES AND DICOESE
Why? The aim is to make the synodal process a permanent way of being church, in parish and diocese. There will be no other way of doing things! We become a SYNODAL CHURCH – in our DNA! Hence the focus now shifts to the local, its context still being within the global process as that moves on to the Synod in Rome (2023)
The Phase 2 parish meetings (plus school and on-line opportunity) will provide the context for the three questions with a quote from Pope Francis’s letter Evangelii Gaudium (28):
'The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration. In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers.'

1.    What, within our current practice as a parish and diocese, helps to fulfil this vision?
2.    What would our parish and diocese look like if this vision was being fully lived?
3.    What practical steps can we take to move towards that fully lived reality?

The results of responses to these 3 questions will be forwarded by the facilitators to the Diocesan Synod team by the end of May. All parishes will be given guidance to be clear about the resources they have to identify the ‘practical steps they can take to move towards that fully lived reality?’ The exact shape of what will be PHASE 3 - how parishes and the diocese will move via a truly synodal process to that ‘fully lived reality’ cannot be determined in advance. It might take the form of some sort of diocesan assembly or pastoral council.

EMERGING THEMES FROM PHASE 1.

A strong desire for adult formation /education inthe faith (An ACTA priority since 2012!) so that all felt confident and able to be co-responsible partners in worship, life and mission.
A plea for formation in spirituality and the life of prayer

WHAT TO DO? Get fully involved! ACTA is based on a call to dialogue as a means to further the Church’s mission. The SYNODAL PROCESS – FROM PARISH TO MISSION - IN PHASES 2 AND 3 – now gives us all an opportunity to contribute to that dialogue on our own patch. Above all it needs our ideas about HOW TO PROVIDE EFFECTIVE METHODS OF ADULT FORMATION. How to empower and so create a companionship which embraces the marginalised, the disaffected, those who do not worship, or build community or see that their work for justice, peace and care of creation constitutes and defines mission, discipleship or evangelisation.
A priority will be to support our clergy, many of whom may be feeling threatened, tired, unenthusiastic or even antagonistic to the whole notion of synodality. Some are very enthusiastic but many do not seem that way or give it only grudging support. Hence the need to develop and practice:

SYNODAL VALUES / VIRTUES

Willingness to pray, to share the spirit of dialogue, the ability to engage in mutual listening, to show affection for all, yet to speak with ‘parrhesia’ (boldness, honesty) a capacity to share and respect all our DREAMS, and VISIONS. The capacity to drop any dogmatic pose: ‘my opinion rules’ and realise synodality defines COMMUNITY OR COMPANIONSHIP. We seek above all to discern the inspiration and will of the Holy Spirit, without whose presence there is no authentic Synodal Process.

David Jackson (Member of the Diocesan Synodal Steering Group - but speaking personally not on behalf of the Group)

Root & Branch Inclusive Synod on Twitter @RootBranchSynod 23 March

We must stop saying we are on the margins of the church. To be at the centre is to be close to the values of the Gospel. Ask yourself if the institutional church has strayed from these values and then re-define who is on the margins and who is at the centre!

International Survey of Catholic Women for Synod 2021-2023
[This item is a bit urgent!]

An online survey to gather feedback from Catholic women from across the world to provide data for a submission to the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which is themed For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.
The survey is open until 26 April 2022 and is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Polish.
The research is being conducted by Dr Kathleen McPhillips and Dr Tracy McEwan (University of Newcastle, Australia), Dr Clare Watkins (University of Roehampton, UK), and Emeritus Prof. Tina Beattie (member of Catholic Women Speak and representative of the UK and Ireland on the executive of the Catholic Women's Council.

Apology

Apologies to Teresa Kennedy and Teresa Rogers for naming the wrong Teresa in the last enews. It was Teresa Kennedy who sent the piece about the Tablet webinar

The article appears again below with the correct accreditation

From Teresa Kennedy

I tuned into a Tablet webinar on 26th where there was a panel of speakers....Gemma Simmonds, Nick Austin,SJ, Laurence Freeman, OSB, Christopher Lamb, and a few others who dealt with many of the issues you yourselves have encountered...I will try to give a flavour in a few points :

How will final decisions be made? If everybody's contribution is not honoured how can it be synodal? The problem might be in how we listen. We need to remember the 'church' is the church of the Holy Spirit..
Many seem to think that they have not the right to speak out or feel that the PP wont encourage. Also many groups feel excluded eg. LGBTQ, divorced, those who do not attend church any more. We have to encourage all to share their lived experiences.
It was stressed many times that the work has only just begun. In no sense will all the church's problems be solved in this first phase. We have to continue with creative energy. The PP is not the community or 'lord' of the community!!
We have to accept responsibility as the synod may lead to lay ministries leading parishes. All the baptised should be leading together as the church has a mission in the world . Pope Francis"I am a mission in the world". The theology of mission is for all the baptised.
If we ask how can the synod bring in abuse survivors are we asking the wrong question? Are we presuming that we are at the centre and they are on the edge? Can we allow ourselves to be accompanied by the abused? The synod is about relationships.
The abuse scandals have broken down walls and opened doors. The Holy Spirit has used the crisis to enable this.How can we encounter and enable each other to be heard? Who are the voiceless? Surely the process is about creating spaces, helping people to see that we care is REAL encounter.
Can the synod process respond to the need for a deeper spirituality? As in the wedding feast of the gospel , everybody is called. We have the duty of inviting especially the young people, whose energy and thirst for spirituality is not always responded to.
Personal transformation is essential to institutional transformation.
Pope Francis did not want to call a third Vat. council he wants people to listen and the panel offered some tips for listening:

Be silent
Listen to one's own heart- the kingdom within
Prayer is the highest form of attention
Begin and end meetings with a time of silence

How can we keep the synodal process going
Change is important - my heart has to be changed first.
Creating a multiplicity of small groups in parishes should be the focus.....4 a good number for a group.
Continue inviting....even over a cup of tea!!

You can watch the recordings of the webinar here

The Future Shape of the Catholic Priesthood

David Jackson wrote on the feast of St Vincent Ferrer who modelled the priesthood of his day, as we are called to re-model the priesthood of all the baptised in ours.

Read it here

We in ACTA Leeds are saddened to hear of the death of Fr John Gott of Mytholmroyd. He was a keen supporter and will be much missed
Please send personal reflections for next edition (simply reply to this email)

Obituary here

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ACTA Leeds prayer - Seeking is Seeing

Seeking God is as good as seeing God.
Who, but a saint,
Would know so clearly
That the journey is the reality,
The steps are sight,
The effort is reward,
The seeing is the searching,
The dream is the reality?
Seeking God is seeing God.