Soon, attendees at this year’s Mission: One Heart Many Voices conference will be encouraged to embrace ‘hope’ as they share their rich and diverse experiences and challenges of living and leading mission today, and the pathways before them they choose to follow. To be held in Sydney from May 19–21, the seventh MOHMV event will bring together expert and inspirational local and international leaders, theologians, and mission-driven professionals across Catholic organisations, parishes, schools, and aligned groups.
Reflecting the Jubilee Year’s theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, the conference workshops and keynote speakers will focus on ‘Choosing hope: trust yourself to its leading’. The learnings from the Synod on Synodality completed in 2024 and the findings for the Australian Church following the Plenary Council will help to form many of the discussions and workshops. “We are again taking the opportunity to do things a little differently, in response to the signs of the times and with a heart of hope,” said Peter Gates, Catholic Mission’s Deputy National Director.
“The co-designed program and process by a wonderful group of mission collaborators offers unique opportunities to see and choose emerging pathways, possibilities and seeds of hope for now and the future … we aim to create a crossing place, an opportunity to develop skills and capabilities to manage the challenges, including the risks, of choosing and deciding the path to take. This place of vulnerability and uncertainty (not knowing) is a place of learning for new possibilities.” Keynote presenters include Dr Anna Cody, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, and theologian Dr Estela Padilla, a member of the Synod on Synodality and consultant to the Federation of Asian Bishops Conference. Other keynote speakers include Fr Richard Lennan, on the subject ‘Your heart’s yearnings of mission and the Synod’s choices’, and Madeline Forde, who along with special guests, will probe the questions, ‘What am I seeking? What is my quest?’. Providing a mixture of specialised workshops, Q & A sessions, quiet reflections, journaling and abundant opportunities for conversations and discussions, the conference is a must for anyone who believes their work will benefit from sharing and learning from others in the Catholic sector.
Co-ordinated by Catholic Mission in partnership with Catholic Religious Australia, the conference is endorsed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
It will be held in Sydney, 19–21 May this year. For more information and to register, go to: www.mohmv.com.au
