Year in Review 2019 Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst 33 LEADERSHIP & STRUCTURE Priests of the Diocese gathered from Monday 19 to Thursday 22 August at Cadell on the Murray for their annual in-service. Sessions were presented on such key topics as the impact of the sexual abuse crisis on clergy morale and well-being, the importance of supervision in ministry, the sacrament of reconciliation and mandatory reporting, and the identification and management of depression and burn-out in ministry. Each day included Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours prayers. Mgr Peter Jeffrey, Parish Priest of Mooroopna, said that he enjoyed the in-service and benefitted from participation. “It’s a beautiful in-service, I mean the priests coming together and they’ve all been here, enjoying the company of one another and we share of course, about our life and our ministry. “The content, that Dr Brian Boyle helped to shape for us, is very much about our ministry, very practical,” he said. The experiences of overseas priests was a point of discussion for Mgr Peter, “we need to keep doing a lot for inculturation and we need to inculturate people in our parishes. They need to be open to receiving people from different cultures.” Fr Peter Ferwerda, Parish Priest of Heathcote, found the in-service profound on the spiritual and human levels. “My summary of it is the emphasis on that we are imperfect, that we do have cracks in ourselves, but if we acknowledge that, then we can let light in through those cracks and that can help us in our ministry.” Clergy in-service at Moama Dan Murphy, clinical pastoral education supervisor, was one of the presenters at the clergy in-service.
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