The Conference Pastoral Plan is a group that consists of the secretaries, directors and coordinators of the different commissions of the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG & Solomon Islands.
It is an annual meeting where the group meets twice a year to discuss the Bishops’ pastoral letters on the yearly themes at a national level, which is followed by their implementation in the respective dioceses and parishes.
The Commission for New Evangelisation plays an essential role in its coordination and monitoring.
Bishop Otto Separy and Rolando Santos, together with 14 members were present for the first meeting that took place on February 20 to 21.
The new secretaries that joined the group are Sr Marilyn Akonoh MSC replacing Fr Roger Prucell; Commission for New Evangelisation, Sr Emma Lapun OLSH replacing Sr Mary McCarthy; Religious Education, Fr Adam Samsel replacing Fr Mathew Landu; Director LCI and Sr Mary Garnier AD replacing Fr Rosario; Federation of Religious.
The other Commissions present were: Education, Health, Social Communication, Youth, CISP, Right Relationship and Caritas PNG.
The two-day meeting covered inputs, reports presentation and deliberation of agendas.
The inputs were:
1) Theme of the year ‘Youth’ by Fr Ambrose Pereira assisted by Sr Emma
2) Reflecting on the Synodal theme-Youth & Vocations and
3) Gender equality by Fr Victor Roche, the General Secretary.
There were three proposed Acts on gender inequality resulting from the group discussions to be forwarded to the Central Committee for further deliberations.
The reports from the Commissions were digitally presented. These were followed by questions, comments and discussions.
The reports have indicated work done since the last meeting of 2017 and the first two months of 2018 that showed commendable efforts. They were advised to include brief financial report and statistics in their future reports.
The AOB discussions included a change of name ‘Conference Pastoral Plan’ to a name that will put together the Commissions and New Evangelisation according to the situation and changes in the Church. After a lengthy discussion, the group came up with four suggestions and unanimously agreed to have ‘CBC Commission Secretaries’ as the new name.
The two-day meeting ended on a good note with words of encouragement from the chairperson, Bishop Otto, while the CBC General Secretary revealed that hopefully their next meeting in October will be in the new CBC building.
Best wishes to everyone for the New Year’s work.
