General News
24 April, 2025
A holy gathering
CAIRNS Bishop Joe Caddy is inviting all beliefs to a citywide plenary in June, the first step towards launching a synod to strengthen ties between the church and community.
Almost a year after his appointment to Cairns, Bishop Joe Caddy – who came from Melbourne – has been focused on getting to know the region and the community better.
Now with a deeper knowledge, he wants the community to have their say on how the church can help make their lives better.
For this purpose, he’s organising a synod – an assembly of church leaders and laity to make decisions on the church’s mission in Cairns – starting off with a plenary session on June 14 at the Brothers Leagues Club from 10am to 4.30pm, where members of the community, regardless of faith or belief gather to voice their concerns, perspectives and plans for the city.
“When I first came to Cairns people asked me, ‘What’s your agenda? What do you want to implement in Cairns?’, and my first response was that I didn’t know what the needs were, I didn’t know the region or the community,” Father Caddy said.
“These last eight months I have been going on a journey, visiting the different communities and going to various parts of the diocese to listen and observe,” he said.
“It’s out of that that the idea of a synod came.”
Fr Caddy said he knew that synod was “a very churchy word”, but a synod was a place for listening.
“I know that synod is a very churchy word, but a synod is a place for meeting with an emphasis on really listening to what people are saying,” Fr Caddy said.
“The synod would start on Pentecost Sunday (June 8) this year until Pentecost Sunday in 2026 and we just want to have a series of gatherings, structured conversations to put in good consultative listening mechanisms as part of our way of doing business in the Diocese of Cairns.”
Father Caddy said these meetings were aimed at people from all creeds, all social groups, minorities and people who had stepped away from the church.
“The meeting that will kick everything off is the plenary meeting, anybody can come to this meeting,” he said.
“We’ll have tables set up with questions on those tables, so we have a quite structured way of letting each person have their say without any intervention.
“We’re looking for a broader range of people who represent all areas of the community. I want those voices that are marginal as well as those in the middle and we’re hoping to get up to 300 people in this plenary session.”
After the plenary session the Bishop is looking for expressions of interest to gather 50 leaders of the community for the first synod meeting including different creeds and parishes, age groups and cultural backgrounds.
“People don’t want this to be a talk fest that ends in no action. I think they’ll value being heard and, if they can walk away with some confidence that actions will come out of it, that’s what we want,” Fr Caddy said.
To register for the plenary meeting and to apply to be one of the 50 synod members, visit https://bit.ly/4lBQMrE
