Archbishop of Liverpool on pastoral plan: “Christ must be our starting point”

As the Australian Catholic Church prepares for the upcoming Second Assembly of the Plenary Council, you are invited to read and reflect on the Archdiocese of Liverpool’s Pastoral Plan – ‘Becoming the Church we are called to be’.

The document was published following a four-year journey of prayer, listening, discerning and planning, similar to the journey experienced in Australia.

The plan is devised of three sections:

1. Christ at the centre – our theological underpinnings
2. Four signposts to the future
3. Six areas of development:
   1. Becoming a Church that accompanies people through life
   2. Becoming a Church that honours the vocation of all the baptised
   3. Becoming a Church where synodality is embedded
   4. Becoming a Church that renews its organisational structures and administers its property to serve its mission
   5. Becoming a Church where young people and young adults flourish
   6. Becoming a Church that cares for its priests

The Archbishop of Liverpool, Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP, wrote in the introduction to the pastoral plan that it gave the archdiocese an experience of being what Pope Francis calls ‘the Synodal church’.

Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP hold the Archdiocese of Liverpool’s Pastoral Plan during the Synod 2020 Mass of Thanksgiving at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool, 20 June 2021. Image: Nick Fairclough/Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool/Supplied.

“Many people, from all over the archdiocese, lay and clergy, old and young have taken part in a variety of ways. We invited them to take a long, clear look at the world around us – a world that is changing faster than ever before (and not just because of Covid),” the Archbishop writes.

“We invited them, too, to look very seriously at where we are as a Church – at our present realities, and our challenges for the future.

“And we asked ourselves: what kind of Church is God calling us to become here in the archdiocese? What is the Holy Spirit saying to us at this critical point in history?

“If we are to truly embrace these [Synod recommendations] and all that we have learned from our journey over these years, then Christ must be our starting point.

“I fervently hope that we will build on this experience of synodality and make it an essential part of our archdiocesan life in the years ahead.”

To read or listen to the Archdiocese of Liverpool’s Pastoral Plan, click here.