President Emeritus, Mary McAleese gave the Von Huegel Lecture at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. She is a patron of the Von Huegel Institute and an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund’s College. The lecture focussed on the essential role of collegiality in the governance of our Church.
Click here to download the text of the lecture: Mary McAleese 28th Feb 2014
Click here to watch the video of the lecture: Video
Mary McAleese Addressing St. Edmund’s Cambridge
“The current grass roots response to the questionnaire from the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops could be a template for the kind of noisy, messy, argumentative Church the Vatican Council envisaged and that Francis seems comfortable with: not top-down, control-driven and passive, but a healthy vibrant communio of the diverse engaged in active listening and talking top down, sideways and bottom up, unafraid of bad news, unafraid of healthy debate. Plugging that grass roots debate into the Episcopal conferences and plugging the Episcopal Conferences into the Synod and plugging the Synod into the College of Bishops with the Pope as its head has the potential for a vibrant communio in rich diversity, a real leaven in the maelstrom of life.”
Oh Lord, hear her/my/our prayer. That this may be so.