24 Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst Year in Review 2023 In October of this year Pope Francis presided over XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome. This was the first of two sessions, the second session to be held in October 2024. The focus of the meeting was on the Synodal Church. Our own Bishop attended as an elected delegate of the Australian Bishops. As well as clergy participants, for the first time the Synod Assembly, had lay delegates who enjoyed voting and speaking rights. The fruits of this Synod in distant Rome will have an important impact on our local Sandhurst Church. The Sandhurst Mission and Pastoral Council is already established and running, with lay members as well as younger clergy from our Diocese. The Synod members in Rome wrote a letter to the People of God outlining the process of the meeting. A synthesis report of the Synod with the title A Synodal Church in Mission reports in substance on the outcomes and the hopes of the participants. It is in the context of the momentous significance of this Synod meeting in Rome that I now present this report on Clergy Life and Ministry. As I indicated in my 2021 and 2022 reports, the Diocese has been engaged over the last several years in developing a suite of policies on the welfare and care of the priests. This care on the part of the Diocese needs to be intentional, focused and comprehensive. The policies and their implementation are some of the principal ways of ensuring this care takes place. The documentation includes policy on the care and formation of priests; program for the welcome, support and acculturation of overseas priests working in the Diocese; policy for the support of recently ordained priests; ministry appraisal and review forms; and, policy on clergy remuneration and support. These documents all received careful scrutiny by the Sandhurst priests at the 2021 in-service at Wangaratta. This documentation is now finalised, has been collated in an attractive folder, and given to each Sandhurst priest. An annual feature of a priest’s spiritual life is the retreat, an opportunity to step back from busy pastoral engagements and devote quality time to an essential aspect of his priesthood, namely his relationship with Christ. Our practice in Sandhurst is to have an organised priests’ retreat every alternate year and priests making their own arrangements the other year. In 2023 our retreat was held at Corpus Christi College in Carlton with Fr Michael Smith SJ as the retreat director. Michael proposed a most intriguing and imaginative theme and symbol for the retreat. The theme of the retreat was “The Priest as Mystagogue and Artist. Kintsugi. God Can Make Us New”. Kintsugi is a Japanese art form to repair broken ceramics. Broken fragments of a bowl or glass container are moulded and shaped into something new with a gold adhesive paste so that what had initially appeared to be broken fragments are recreated into an aesthetic whole. The emphasis is on re-creation and not on repair. At the beginning of the retreat each participant was invited to choose a small glass vessel from the number of vessels Michael made available, as a compelling image of the retreat itself. The retreat was well received by the priest participants. The priest’s relationship with Christ REV. BRIAN BOYLE From Director, Diocesan Clergy Life and Ministry
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