Voices from the floor: “the national pastoral conference as we experienced it”

09 Feb 2013

Voices from the floor: “the national pastoral conference as we experienced it”

The National Pastoral Conference had, for many, real potential to impact positively on life, mission and ministry in our Church.  We must acknowledge the valuable contributions made by our four brave volunteers who spoke at the very outset on the opening day.  They offered what we call ‘voices from the context’.  By stepping out and introducing themselves and how the conference theme relates to them in the own life and ministry, they (1) helped the conference as a whole to find its voice (2) modelled the method to be used throughout the event and (3) added to all other efforts to introduce our guest speaker to our context and culture.

After the Conference we interviewed four other participants: Ms. Bairbre Cahill, Sr. Mary Kenny, Bishop Colm O’Reilly and Rev. Liam Power.  Our questions to each were the same: what is your overall memory of the conference; what was it like for you to be there?  What for you were the most significant aspects of the event?  And what are you hoping for now?  We have chosen to simply express our appreciation to our respondents for their generosity and commitment to the task, and to allow the conversations to speak for themselves.

Read more: 2013 – 02 Voices from the floor – the national pastoral conference as we experienced it