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Ten days after the Catholic Church in Australia concluded the first Assembly of its Plenary Council, each member was sent an Evaluation Form to complete.
As well as reflecting on our experience we were asked to consider how we would complete the phrase 'It would have been good if…'. The authorities told us that our responses would help to plan the second Assembly.
In my own response I noted that the working of the first Assembly itself could not be separated from the preparations for it. These preparations got us to the Assembly starting point and that point shaped where we halted.
The preparation for the second Assembly is very much a case of 'Here we go again'. We are replicating a previous journey and we must learn the lessons in a way which improves the whole experience. The quality of the second Assembly will depend upon it.
The nine-month journey from the Working Document to the first Assembly Agenda Questions looks to me very much like the similar length journey which faces us from now to next July.
The ingredients are very similar. There are inputs, internal mechanisms such as committees to process the inputs, and finally outputs.
Prior to the first Assembly there were the 17,500 submissions from the faithful of Australia.
These were then summarised in national and diocesan reports from the National Centre for Pastoral Research of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC).
The first subsequent dilution came with the work of the six Writing and Discernment groups organised around themes chosen by the Plenary Council authorities.
Following this stage a four-person drafting committee produced the Working Document (Instrumentum Laboris).
The final step was again taken by the PC authorities themselves, producing the 16 Agenda Questions, which shaped the Assembly itself.
These questions were then distributed for discernment across ten small groups of about thirty members each.
The governance of the Plenary Council must be more synodal than it has been so far
The regular calls for greater transparency in this process by reform groups were not a theoretical synodal exercise, but a practical attempt to improve the outcomes of the process by opening it up to wider scrutiny.
Those in responsible positions, such as the Bishops Commission, the Executive Committee and the Facilitation Team, failed to seek the assistance of the wider Catholic community. Good process was ignored, and it showed in the limits in the final outcomes.
The process is now starting again with same people in charge.
The major exception is that the Steering Committee, largely a group of bishops (five out of six ex-officio members, plus 2-3 chairpersons and two facilitators), which governed the First Assembly, has now been joined by a Drafting Committee, whose responsibility is to produce draft motions to be voted on at the second assembly.
This committee, which will perform a crucial role, comprises five people selected by the authorities: Bishops Paul Bird (Ballarat) and Shane Mackinlay (Sandhurst, Deputy President of the PC), Professor Renee Kohler-Ryan, Head of the School of Philosophy and Theology, Notre Dame University, Rev Dr Stephen Mellor, Dean of St Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane, and Dr Sandie Cornish, Leader of the Justice, Peace and Ecology Office for ACBC.
The relationship of this key drafting committee, which is yet to meet, to the steering committee remains unclear.
What is also unclear is what materials are regarded as the inputs. Are the ten final reports of the small groups from the first assembly the starting point?
If so, then these hastily assembled reports constitute little further advance on the pre-Assembly stages of the process. Even when compared to the six reports of the earlier writing groups (2020) the flawed first assembly process meant that they suffered from excessive haste.
There was just not enough time allowed within the assembly, not to mention the handicap of the poorly constructed and allocated questions, for anything more considered to emerge.
The other exception on this occasion is that the 277 Plenary Council members have now effectively taken 'office'. Stronger networks exist between them and some confidence in their own ability has been built.
A sense of empowerment, fuelled by an element of frustration, has emerged. This is potentially a powerful new and positive addition to the dynamics of the Plenary Council.
The Plenary Council authorities have issued a timeline for the key developments expected by 4-9 July 2022. These are said to include: 'Prayerful discernment on the outcomes of the first Assembly. Preparation of papers and proposals for the second Assembly'.
Exactly what that means remains remarkably vague. Let us hope that lessons have been learned. Like all church matters, the governance of the Plenary Council must be more synodal than it has been so far. For this to happen it must be more transparent, inclusive and accountable.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University, chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn, and a Plenary Council member.
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