Advent Group (UK)

 Advent AGM 2009 Minutes (14.62 kB)

Annual General Meeting

24^th October 2009

The AGM was held at the Benedictine Centre of Spirituality, North London on 24^th October 2009 with 9 members present.  Joe Mulrooney, who had convened the meeting, welcomed everyone to the Centre.

1.      The minutes of 2008 led to some brief discussion.  Advent would remain as a contact and support group.  Though some of our traditional activities had ceased and contacts among the Midlands and Northern group were almost purely social, we were perhaps exercising a more effective voice through our web site.  It was reported that there were lots of hits on this site.  Our hard copy bulletin had been given up and that, no doubt, because members had not been active enough in providing copy.  We are encouraged to be more active in providing copy for this and the European Federation web site.  We would continue without formally electing a chair and Joe Mulrooney would convene next year’s AGM.

2.      Treasurer’s Report.  Michael O’Kane reported that our income came mainly from those who had taken out standing orders.  The hard copy bulletin, in the past, had stimulated donations but this source had dried up.  Balanced against that was the fact that producing and mailing a hard copy bulletin was a considerable expense.  The balance at 2009 was £595.  Our subscription to the European Federation for 2010 was already paid and we had enough money to send representatives next July.  It was also suggested that we should contact subscribers by telephone, giving them information on our present activities and thanking them for their support.

3.      In a discussion of activities it was reported that Joe Mulrooney had taken part in a BBC news programme and that Philip and Catherine Smith had participated in a Radio 4 programme – both on celibacy issues.  This generated some discussion on the type of material suitable for our web site.

4.      Report on the July meeting of the European Federation. This was given by Joe Mulrooney and Mike Hyland filled in the material on the European web site.

a.       Representatives from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, two French groups and Advent were present.  Only Italy was not represented and Pierre Collet, the chair would follow this up.

b.      There was a good opportunity for sharing informally after dinner the first evening and the following points were explored:

                                                  i.      The absence of the Italian group.

                                                ii.      Usefulness of promoting exchanges between younger priests who had left ministry – their experience and expectations were very different from the past.

                                              iii.      The latest news items, such as the ‘The Year of the Priest’ and the strike by priests in central Africa when two of their bishops were forced to resign.

c.       The sessions were difficult to summarise as, for the next two days, the framework was a detailed look at and follow up of the report on the 2008 meeting.  A detailed report would appear on the European web site.  The following are the salient points:

                                                  i.      Our most fundamental commitment had been realised – the establishment of a web site, which was now up and running.  Mike reported that there had already been one issue of an electronic bulletin with another to follow.  We had not been able to fulfil all of our promises of contributions as individuals we had approached for articles on the year of the priest and on Anglican married priests who had come over to the Roman Catholic Church were either not available or had not replied.

                                                ii.      There had been some translation work involved.  The home pages were in five languages and, though articles were in the original language, summaries in the five languages were appended.

                                              iii.      The web master in each country would be required to visit the site each week and feed in material e.g. Calendar and latest news.

                                              iv.      There is also an expanding bibliography and a search engine will be added.

d.      There had been an invitation from the former ‘North Atlantic Federation’, now the ‘International Federation for the Renewal of Ministry’ to join their federation.  This was debated at length and a letter would be sent explaining why we were unable to do so:

                                                  i.      We were happy that they had found their way and were always open to cooperate with all reform groups.

                                                ii.      However, decisions had been taken at meetings of the old International Federation of Married Priest when they met at Madrid and Wiesbaden to set up a Confederation of federations.  The North Atlantic group had seceded from this and we failed to understand how they could ask us to join their new International Federation.  The Confederation, though contacts were difficult, functioned through web site contact and any other ways that were possible.

                                              iii.      Basically there are two different ecclesial perspectives here.  It is not the task of former priests to mange the reforming groups in the church.  We take the community base of ministry seriously and avoid anything that smacks of a new clericalism.  We are there to serve and offer our experience and talents, where needed and appropriate.

                                              iv.      A dossier on the juridical and social status of priests is being collected.  Some work has been done but there is still a long way to go and a grid will be constructed to be filled in by the individual groups in each country as the situation in each country can be very different.  The intention is eventually to present this to the Council of Europe.  Perhaps our best way forward might be to present a questionnaire on the web site asking for relevant information.

5.      There was a lively and extended discussion on Pope Benedict’s invitation to Anglican communities to come over corporately and perhaps into an Anglican Ordinariate under Rome’s jurisdiction.  There was a certain puzzlement as to what was intended and a discussion of perhaps unintended consequences.