Diocesan Pastoral Council Meeting 2 Feb 2008

Notes by Lindsay Read. You will see that my note-taking is sparse.

1. Announcements/Reminders

Lent & Easter Liturgy Day  Thu 7 Feb Bristol
For priests and liturgy coordinators

There is a day about engaging youth in the charities Life and Pax Christi

A Fresh Expressions DVD is available

I thought this stuff would be on the web and did not take down all the details which were just spoken. See events page on website
 

2. Main Meeting

The main item was a chance to review the Draft Guidelines document from the Seeking the Face of Christ programme. There was an introductory talk from the Bishop, shorter than the one he gives at the open meetings. We were divided into 3 groups and given 45 minutes to review one of the three sections, discussing prioritites and anything missing.

The three sections are Liturgy and Prayer, The Church as Communion, The Church of Mission.

Each section has several headings which each have three sub-sections
What we have heard
an introduction with some quotes from the Seeking program feedback,
What needs to be done
a paragraph of general statements
Specific proposals
a table of specific proposals with deadlines, most of which were ongoing.

The three groups worked in different ways and produced several items of feedback each, either gereral or particular.

I spoke in the wrap up of my view that this was not the document I expected. I was expecting guidelines to be statements of what the Catholic church is for, what catholics do. Instead it is an action plan for how to do it.

The response was that the final document will not look like this and the bishop wants to put more theology in it, though has not persuaded the team. Also the bishop mentioned his pastoral letter, which begins with a similar question, "why would anyone become a catholic today?"

The draft guidelines document should be on the web by clicking on the Face of Christ picture, but isn't as I write.

3. In reviewing our sections of the document we were asked to comment on what the Diocesan Pastoral Council could do to help. The final agenda item was then What should the DPC be and do. The responses were generally that the DPC needed to be a two way communication with parishes or deaneries.