Undoubtedly helped by the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney's decision to ban this meeting from being held on Catholic Church property, the organisation Catalyst for Renewal held an enormously enthusiastic one day intensive forum at the Salvation Army Congress Hall in Sydney on Saturday, 28th March 2009, to discuss Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's provocative book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church — Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus. This book has generated extraordinary interest around the world and has now clocked up 20,000 sales according to the publisher. The editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne, attended the Catalyst Forum with video camera and today presents some edited highlights of the Forum on the Catholica YouTube channel.

Use the video player controllers below to view the videos.

All up we present four videos to try and give an overall flavour of this valuable, and successful forum. The first video is the first half of the concluding address and wrap of the day's activities by Fr Michael Whelan SM.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s96EE6wCPfE

The second video immediately below is the second half to Fr Whelan's concluding address. I've selected Fr Whelan's concluding address because it gives a good overview of what was discussed throughout the day.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G-EHvO4VBo

The third video immediately below is the conclusion to Fr Frank Brennan's address which was the keynote address given on Saturday afternoon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w7VYRQiVEY

The final video, immediately below, is an appeal that Clare Maguire made from the floor of the conference on behalf of the Redfern Parish Community in Sydney and a response to that by Fr Frank Brennan SJ.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=juCKpg5559E

These videos are also viewable on the Catholica Channel on YouTube

Still photographs:

IMAGE CREDITS:
Images and video production by Brian Coyne

What are your thoughts on this report? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

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