- Written by: Alex Walker
This coming year, ACTA celebrates the 10th anniversary of the first National Delegates Conference in May 2013 at Hinsley Hall. It is an appropriate moment to reflect on its future role in a synodal Church.
A Zoom meeting has been set up for 7.30 pm Thursday 1st December 2022. It will be open to all members, coordinators and trustees. Papers from several members are in preparation and will be distributed in the coming weeks.
Registration is essential. In a document dated January 2014, the late Fr Gerry Hughes SJ wrote: “I have been thinking a bit about where we in ACTA should go from here” The Trustees, too, have been thinking along similar lines.
ACTA came into existence to support honest and respectful dialogue between clergy, religious and the laity, just as Pope Francis was being elected Pontiff. The development of the synodal process, culminating in the ongoing Synod on Synodality, begins to create something of the environment that the original members of ACTA were hoping to create.
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- Written by: Alex Walker
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The ACTA Trustees
- Written by: Alex Walker
A newly released Vatican document for the next phase of Pope Francis' ongoing consultation process for the world's Catholics reckons with a number of topics once considered taboo in the Catholic Church, including women's ordination, LGBTQ relationships, children of priests, sexism and clergy sexual abuse.
The 45-page document, released on Oct. 27, distills a number of the major themes from listening sessions held with millions of Catholics across the globe over the last year. While the document is careful to note that it is not magisterial church teaching, it is arguably the most comprehensive and candid expression of the Catholic Church's relationship with the modern world yet released by a Vatican office.
The document will serve as the framework for the continental phase of the church's ongoing synod process, which will involve ecclessial gatherings on every continent over the next six months, ahead of two assemblies that will be held in Rome in Oct. 2023 and Oct. 2024.
- Written by: Joseph O’Hanlon
My first appointment after my ordination in 1966 was to a wealthy Nottingham parish, wealthy that is, except for an enclave that was hurriedly created to house people making bombs and bullets for the war that followed the War To End All Wars. The main parish had just built a beautiful new church to serve the exciting inclusive liturgy given us by Pope John’s Vatican Council. The poor of the parish had to trudge a good mile or more: there were no buses on their route to the splendid new church. I was blessed in that regard: I had a bicycle.
The curate was commissioned to look after the poor end. Due to illness, I lasted only two months in that bit of a parish. But I kept in touch. I was astonished by the determination to have their own church, their own parish, their own priest. Fifty-six years later I still remember the two women who led the campaign: Sadie Goode and Mary Sullivan. They organized raffles, jumble sales, bazaars, knitting circles and dances. They got their church, small in size, beautiful beyond words, and eventually became a parish, with their own priest. I loved those people, their church, and, above all, their faith. The FOR SALE sign is now on the front door. It breaks your heart.
- Written by: Alex Walker