But not one of them is a male.

There have been 38 candidates going through the the Archdiocese of Wellington's lay leadership programme since 2002, including this year's six; fewer than originally hoped for.

Established in 2001, Launch Out is the formation programme for lay leaders in the Wellington Archdiocese. It prepares candidates to be lay pastoral leaders or lay ecclesial ministers.

The programme, where participants work around their other activities, can last four to eight years.

Its three-strand formation entails candidates receiving formal spiritual direction, undertaking theological study, currently through Te Kupenga, and preparing and presenting pastoral projects within their own parish.

Launch Out mentors are essential: the NZ Bishops Conference says the pastoral element of formation requires this.

Candidates at various stages of their formation are undertaking various roles in parishes, as chaplains or as Catholic Centre staff.

The Archdiocesan-prepared and led programme fulfils a Catechist's formation requirements. These requirements are specified in Pope Francis's Apostolic Letter instituting the Ministry of the Catechist in "Antiquum Ministerium".

The training doesn't enable a candidate to become a Catechist. The Launch Out website cautions that this requires a special installation from the Bishop that guarantees graduates have gone through the prescribed formation to carry out the responsibilities of a Catechist.

Launch Out's March Newsletter introduces the six new candidates and their mentors.

Pictured in the image above are - first row from left: Bridget Taumoepeau (Pastoral Mentor); Maya Bernardo (Manager); Telesia Alaimoana, Bernadette Patelesio. Second row from right: Cecily McNeil (Pastoral Mentor), Lisa Beech (Graduate), Susan Apathy (Pastoral Mentor), Margaret Bearsley, Vicky Raw, Jude McKee, Cardinal John Dew and Catherine Gibbs (Pastoral Mentor).

Source

• Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington
• Launch Out Letters
• History of the Launch Out Formation Programme

It's just a matter of time before they'll be conducting funerals, marriages and baptisms in the Dublin archdiocese and elsewhere, a diocesan spokesman says.

They'll be doing everything but celebrating the Mass and blessing the Sacraments. Priests will continue to be responsible for those rites.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has for some time been exploring ways to involve further lay Catholics in the Church.

Dublin's Catholic Archdiocese currently has nine full-time lay parish pastoral workers working in ministry, 30-plus permanent deacons, mostly married men.

Last June, Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell invited "women and men who feel that they are called to ministry to come forward to train as instituted lectors, acolytes and catechists.

"These are lay ministers, women and men, who are publicly recognised by the Church and appointed by the diocese to minister alongside priests and deacons in leading liturgies, supporting adult faith formation and accompanying families preparing for the sacraments.

"It is my pastoral responsibility as Bishop to do this - for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the People of God," he said.

Farrell has been expressing this view since his instalment as Archbishop in 2021.

His mission was to "downsize" - in consultation with the Catholics of Dublin, lay and clerical.

It would be about "talking to the people, it's talking to the priests, listening. These are their churches, their faith communities".

Also on his day of installation, Farrell noted the archdiocese included 197 parishes served by 350 active priests with an average age of 70.

"So more and more lay people are going to have to take responsibility in terms of the leadership that's provided at parish level," he said.

"We won't be able to celebrate Sunday Mass in every church in every parish in this diocese.

"I think the Lord is probably saying to us at this time: ‘I don't want you to keep doing the things that you were doing 100 years ago, 200 years ago'."

He then set up the 'Building Hope' taskforce to assess the needs of the people of the archdiocese.

The taskforce found Christian belief in Ireland had "for all intents and purposes vanished".

This "underlying crisis of faith" was "particularly acute among the younger generations," Farrell said.

"The challenges facing me are pretty clear. We have an ageing clergy and very few vocations ... and a major decline in the number of people who actively practice and live their faith."

Dublin especially needs "an effective programme of catechetics ... to eventually replace the current teaching of faith to the young," he said.

In 2018, the Irish archbishops invited Cardinal John Dew to speak about the Wellington Archdiocese's experience with its own Launch Out programme, which was established to form lay pastoral leaders.

Dew's topic was "Lessons from New Zealand, Launch Out: Lay Pastoral Leadership Roles".

Source

• Irish Times
• CathNews

These are the results of the Archdiocese of Wellington's just-released two-year review of its ethnic communities.

"The Review was a response to the recommendation from the 2017 Synod," says Maya Bernardo, the Archdiocese's Launch Out Programme Formator and Manager.

The two-year Review, hampered by Covid and lockdowns, was conducted under the Office of the Vicar General, Monsignor Gerard Burns. It targeted Catholic migrants and ethnicities apart from European and Maori.

The Review sourced demographic data from the Government, from a survey, and included interviews and discussions.

Results show the Archdiocese's parishes are diverse and growing in diversity. About 25-30 percent of parishioners are neither Maori nor Pakeha.

The Review found 76 percent of migrant Catholics are under 60; 85 percent feel actively involved in their parishes; 69 percent were born overseas; 90 percent live with families. Most young Catholics are from migrant families.

The Review heard immigrant Catholics have different theological perspectives and views of church history.

"My understanding of the Church, as I now experience in the Archdiocese of Wellington, is synodal by nature. How then do we bring people together?" Bernado asks.

Immigrant families tend to live differently, too.

Bernardo says the 90 percent of Catholic migrants who live with family is significant. The way they live suggests their faith life is shared and expressed as a collective. It's different from the individualistic western-world view.

Knowing who immigrants live with can guide us in the way we encourage and facilitate participation, Bernardo says.

The Review found many young people are moving to other Christian churches or the secular world within families; they find it hard to connect and be nourished by the liturgies and feel left out in the ministries.

What does it say about the future of our parishes, their effectiveness in reaching out to the young and what it is that keeps the young away? asks Bernardo.

The way parishes prepare migrant communities for parish and diocesan leadership is important, the Review discovered.

The Review also raises a question about how Parish Pastoral Councils reflect the diversity in Church pews.

"Encouraging participation is not a one-strategy; one-size-fits-all.

"It also means challenging behaviours that denigrate someone's race and including migrant voices in shaping the parish.

"How we can encourage participation and grow leadership among the migrant communities? What can we do to understand each other better?"

Migrants straddle different worlds, Bernardo says.

"New Zealand does not understand our suffering," participants told the Review.

They reported feeling misunderstood, lonely and disconnected from the mainstream Catholic community. Language barriers can be a big issue. Translation can be difficult.

Parishes need to consider ways to grow as a community aware of each other's presence and those still in the peripheries.

More is not necessarily 'the merrier' but could be ‘the messier'. This is the way the Church has always been: intrinsically diverse.

Finding a way through Review statistics and commentaries is not easy, Bernardo says.

"The Review only reveals an unfinished business, leaving perhaps more questions than answers ...[but it] hopefully helps us ask better questions.

Source

• Launch Out Letters - Launch Out Formation Programme‘s newsletter and journal for lay leaders and ministers