BackAustralasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (ACCCR) and Garratt Publishing presented
PRIESTS AND SYNODALITY IN AUSTRALASIA
WEBINAR
Thursday 6 November 2025
With the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality a year ago, the focus has turned to implementation. However, the commitment to making synodality a prominent feature of Church activity and Catholic life generally in Australia and New Zealand seems to be sporadic at best. Few parishes have made it a priority and the concept is still neither understood nor accepted at parish level to any significant extent.
Indeed, it is regularly claimed that parish clergy are largely passively avoidant in relation to promoting or implementing the Final Document of the Synod. Why is this? If true, how can it be turned around?
In The Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change, author Tomas Halik asserts the conviction that personal spiritual accompaniment will be the crucial pastoral role in the Church of the future.
How would this play out for priests in a synodal Church?
Moderated by Patricia Gemmell, Fr Joe Grayland and Fr Brendan Reed discussed this and related issues. Sr Carmel Pilcher responded to the discussion.
The presentation was recorded and is available to view below.
SPEAKERS
Fr Joe Grayland
Joe is a priest of the Palmerston North diocese, New Zealand, where he has worked in several parishes. He currently lectures at the University of Wurzburg, Germany, specialising in Liturgy and Sacramental Theology. Joe has written and spoken publicly about how the Catholic Church responds in secular contexts, about changes in liturgy due to COVID-19 (the ‘liturgical lockdown’), about globalisation, and cultural shifts in Catholicism. Joe’s roles as parish priest and liturgical theologian give him perspectives both from practise and from academic theology. In the New Zealand context, his reflection on the changing face of Catholic identity is significant for understanding the future of the Church in that country.
Rev Dr Brendan Reed
Brendan has been a priest in the Archdiocese of Melbourne for over thirty years. He has held leadership roles in Catholic Education, and continues to lecture at Catholic Theological College, Melbourne. He was the Parish Priest of Camberwell, Deepdene, Balwyn, Surrey Hills, and Wattle Park Parishes which he successfully amalgamated into one parish. He is currently the parish priest of the Brunswick and Moreland Catholic Mission – an amalgamation of four parishes. Brendan is the author of Engaging with the Hopes of Parishes: A Systematic, Empirical and Practical Search for a Parish Engagement Scale (SPES). He is currently the Chair of the Archbishop’s Council of Priests.
MODERATOR
Patricia Gemmell
Patricia is a wife, mother, grandmother, and a semi-retired teacher of French, Latin, Italian, and holds a Master’s degree in Theology. She is a member of the The Grail and of Women and the Australian Church (WATAC), and has been an active member of her parish community in Sydney for over 40 years. Patricia 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. As a founding member of Australian Women Preach, she was part of a working group responsible for producing a weekly podcast of a woman preaching on the Sunday gospel. Patricia also belongs to the World Community for Christian Meditation.
RESPONDER
Sr Carmel Pilcher
Carmel is a Sister of St Joseph and a Liturgy and Culture Consultant and Educator. Although based in Sydney, Carmel has worked extensively in many dioceses across Australia. In recent years, she taught Liturgy and Sacraments at the Pacific Regional Seminary in Suva, Fiji.
