' In a landmark weekend for Northern Ireland's largest Catholic diocese, Down and Connor held its inaugural Congress. William Scholes joined the 1,700 people who attended the event
ATTENDING a day-long church event probably doesn't top many people's weekend to-do lists.
It might not rate fourth or even 10th, especially if it means swapping the warm late September sun and a cerulean blue sky for a dark, air conditioned conference hall.
Yet around 1,700 people did just that on Saturday.
And despite Belfast basking in a summer afterglow, they won't feel like they made the wrong choice because the event - the inaugural Down and Connor Congress - was very good indeed.
If the fact that so many people gave up their free time was a strong statement, so too was the choice of venue.
The Waterfront Hall is known for many things but church events are not necessarily one of them.
I don't know whether it was in the mind of the organisers but holding the congress in this setting cast 'the church' into the public square - a space where it can feel uncomfortable, marginalised or even excluded from but where its mission means it must be.
It is also a non-clerical space, something of subtle yet significant importance when the task of developing co-responsibility between lay people and clergy has been identified as a very obvious and much-needed priority for the Catholic Church, in Down and Connor and beyond.
The congress was the latest outworking of the Living Church process launched in 2011 by Bishop Noel Treanor, pictured.
It set out to listen to the views of lay people, priests and religious - their hopes and joys of belonging to the Church, but also their frustrations and disappointments and the present and future challenges.
Five main areas were identified - lay participation, open welcoming community, clergy, faith and worship, passing on the faith. These have been formalised in a Diocesan Pastoral Plan which was launched at the congress.
While it has been widely welcomed it would be true to say that the Living Church exercise has also been attended by some cynicism and even the suspicion that it is little more than window dressing or paying lip service to problems.
Those perceptions may lie more in people's experience of how the Church has previously handled matters than in the current initiative, but they are nonetheless real and will require further effort to defuse. Watching a video of the congress would go a long way to help.
It was better to be there though.
In the morning, a powerful drama performed by young people, highlighting the damage but also the good that hands can do, led to prayer. Then there was singing led by the highly accomplished Down and Connor Folk Group, now 30 years young; as if to underline the co-responsibility message, Bishop Donal McKeown stressed it had not been set up by the diocese.
Bishop Treanor said the congress was "a milestone in the history of the diocese" and he hoped it would help the "continuing whispering ripple" untapped by the Second Vatican Council find fuller voice.
Reinforcing the idea that the congress was a staging post rather than an end point, Living Church co-ordinator Fr Alan McGuckian outlined some of the ways the process will be moved forward.
He recalled how Bishop Treanor had said "the plan must be bold but it must also be modest". "With your help, prayers and support it will be put into effect in the coming years," he said.