The Synod on Synodality is the most consequential event in the Catholic Church since Vatican II-and maybe ever! Yet not necessarily consequential in the ways people expected. If we were expecting big doctrinal or canonical changes by October 2024, that didn’t happen. But maybe what did happen is much more revolutionary. For the three years between 2021 and 2024, Concerned Lay Catholics followed events unfolding in Australia with interest and curiosity about the amazing reform movements that were coalescing in that country. Who were they? What prompted their formation and what enabled them to build a momentum that resulted in some stunning turns of events? And now that the formal Synod has concluded, what’s next for Australia and what might we in Canada learn from our Australian brothers and sisters. Please join us for a lively and spirit-filled conversation with Michael Gill and Patricia Gemmell as they unpack the synod in Australia, and we compare and contrast with Canada’s experience.

Presenters

Patricia Gemmell

Patricia is a wife, mother and grandmother, and semi-retired teacher of French, Latin and Italian. She holds a Master’s degree in theology. She belongs to the Grail, an international movement and community of women, and recently served 8 years on their National Leadership Team. An active member of her parish community in Sydney for nearly 40 years, she is currently the co-ordinator of their Laudato Si’ Action Platform group. Caring deeply about church reform she has been fully engaged in both the Australian Plenary Council and the Synod on Synodality and is also one of the working team responsible for Australian Women Preach, a weekly podcast of a woman preaching on the Sunday gospel. She also belongs to the World Community for Christian Meditation.

Michael Gill

Michael Gill is a brilliant and provocative voice in the Synodal project! As a member of the Jesuit parish Our Lady of the Way (could it be more synodal?) in the Archdiocese of Sydney, Michael is active in Social Justice, Church Reform and Ecology issues. During the COVID lockdown, Michael, demonstrating the power of lay leadership, started writing and circulating, Bits and Pieces, a weekly compilation of church news from Australia and around the world. Initially for his Kirribilli Community, the newsletter made it all the way to Concerned Lay Catholics in Canada where we found kindred souls. His grasp of the breadth and depth of synodality and its implications for our church and our world, is truly remarkable and illustrates once again, why the church needs the laity! Michael’s birth certificate says he is 77 years old; a retired lawyer, widower with three children and seven grandchildren.