Melbourne Faithful is a group of faithful Catholics who love our Church and love our Archbishop, but who think that the Take the Way of the Gospel initiative needs more time to allow for the consultation to better inform Catholics about the proposals and to elicit their responses.

We also think that we should explore other models for restructure, many of which will be presented at the Plenary Council as challenges facing other Australian dioceses.

On 11 October 2021, Melbourne Faithful delivered a Petition of over 1500 signatories to Archbishop Comensoli asking him to pause the “Take the Way of the Gospel” process to allow for a deeper consultation with laypersons and priests. Melbourne Faithful’s hope was that this Petition will contribute to an ongoing engagement with the Archbishop to bring a renewed missionary vigour to our Church in Melbourne. To learn more about our Petition click on this link.

Soon after we delivered our petition, Archbishop Comensoli announces that he would extend the time for gathering, praying, and discerning until the end of 2022. He also announced that he was forming a Key Advisory Group (comprising clergy and lay leaders from parishes across the Archdiocese) to provide advice, suggestions, and feedback for Take the Way of the Gospel.

Melbourne Faithful invited the petition signatories to make a further contribution to this discernment by joining a Melbourne Faithful Online Gathering held on 18 November 2021. This forum allowed signatories to information and ideas. This gathering was also able to provide support and inspiration to the participants.

'The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community’ (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium §28).