Report: End of MSC General Conference 2021
Superior General, Abzalon, has written his response and exhortation – it will be posted on Saturday for reading and weekend reflection.
Last night Australian time we had the last session of the MSC General Conference 2021 which was held on line because of the pandemic. It was to be in Brazil this year. There were 44 participants in all where the General Leadership Team met with Major Superiors from all the MSC Provinces and Unions from around the world. Other participants were from the General Administration, including Tim Brennan from the Safeguarding Office. The two facilitators were from the General Leadership Team, Chris Chaplin from Australia and Humberto Henriques Silva from the Sao Paulo Province in Brazil.
Preparation for this major event began back in the early part of this year when the General, Abzalon Alvarado Tovar, contacted six of us around the world to set up a Hosting Team to organize and facilitate the whole on-line event. From Australia I was asked to be the Coordinator of the Hosting Team consisting of Brett Adamson, Kenji Koda, and Michael Angelo Acera from the Philippines, Ireneo Lee from Korea, and Tiago Donizete from the Rio Province in Brazil. There were also two secretaries from the General House and an interesting inclusion was Richard Kim from Korea who had the task of ‘visual listening’ and providing a ‘sketch’ at the end of each day capturing visually the processes of the day. They are included in the YouTube video attached.
When all was in order we began with three days in June, three days in August and the last five days in September, just gone. Each day was a two hour session on Zoom beginning at 12.00 noon Rome time, and whatever equivalent time in the various places where the participants lived. Here in Australia that was between 8.00 pm and 10.00 pm fortunately for us. Others had very early morning or late night starts.
The business of the conference was threefold Firstly to identify and decide on issues on which the Conference has the authority to make decisions, secondly to identify issues and make recommendations that the General Leadership Team can decide on in the next two years leading up to the next General Chapter, and thirdly to determine matters that will be passed on to the next General Chapter for discussion and decisions in Rome in 2023. Much of this was contained in materials sent to all the participants and requiring a lot of reading and reflection in the times between the sessions. The sessions themselves consisted of times of prayer, reflection, and discussions in Break Out Rooms based on language before coming back to a Plenary session.
I was surprised at how well this process works. The translators did an amazing job. All that could be done in a face to face conference can be done on-line, except the interpersonal moments over meal and drink breaks that are part of the face to face meetings and the kind of informal sharing of information that takes part there. Many participants, while praising the process in their appraisal, commented on this lack of personal interaction. Even the old butcher paper technique was replaced by a mentimetre – like a jigsaw puzzle of words from participants provided in feedback to the Plenary sessions also seen in the YouTube video- provided by Ireneo Lee. Click HERE.
Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive, with the exception mentioned above.
The journey continues as we now move towards Provincial Chapters and the General Chapter in 2023.
Roy John O’Neill MSC
Coordinator
2021 MSC General Conference
