“Revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity” is a difficult but not insurmountable task. This conclusion echoes statements expressed and recorded by Catholic luminaries and the lay faithful alike. Of the three priorities of Synod 2009, this priority is deemed the most profound and challenging.

To speak of revitalising Catholic Culture and Identity is to seek, once again, to make Jesus Christ the centre of our lives, and to see the Church as our mother and teacher. Everything we do should flow from that.

In fact, it is a journey to the heart of the faith and Jesus meets us where we are, as a people. It is a celebration, in words, imagery and action of the God who takes infinite delight in bringing human beings to fullness of life through their very culture.

Our Catholic identity leads us to accept or adopt what is pure and life giving; challenge what is inconsistent or at variance with our values and reject what is against the dignity of humanity or the truth of God.

Like faith itself, our Catholic culture and identity is an invitation to encounter and live life united to the Incarnation. It is a recall to the disciplining of the desires that goes far beyond the requirements of justice so as to serve the demands of life.

We have moved to a culture that strives only to avoid suffering and provide self-gratification, therefore, we have to provide an alternative vision to the world in which we live.

It is not about re-introducing the artefacts of Catholicism as though they were dusty objets d’art in a museum. It is rather to conduct us ever deeper into the mystery of the Incarnation with the hope that we might be transformed by its power.

St Paul consistently proclaimed the Church of Jesus Christ is not so much an organisation as an organism, a mystical body. The Church accordingly, is a living thing, whose purpose is to gather the whole world into the praise of God.

The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (APC) functions under the direct authority of the Archbishop. Its purpose is “to study and weigh those matters which concern the pastoral

work of the Archdiocese and to propose practical conclusions concerning them” (Canon 511). – Archdiocesan Pastoral Council