Dear friends,
We did it! and thank you for being on this journey with us.
Mary McAleese wrote this following the HRECC ‘you did the Church some service this week! Congratulations – the decision to come to Rome was prophetic and the positioning of Spirit Unbounded in terms of courageous Church leadership is firmly established.’
Sr Joan Chittister told us at the Press Conference she’d been warned not to come and it had turned out to be one of the best things she’s attended.
We’ve had excellent press…
…and our plan to simply ‘make a noise’ during the Synod meeting at the Vatican was transformed into the raising of a common voice so loud that cracks have been reported in the very walls of the Vatican… a common voice speaking out fearlessly for a beatitudinal Church – a Discipleship of Equals – where human rights are no longer abused.
We all came together for the first time and 118 speakers told it how they see it – they spoke bravely and boldly, but also with freedom and love.
No-body was told what to say.
No-body was censored.
No-body was asked to sign up to any specific agenda.
We’re having the grown-up discussion that is generally absent in Catholic parishes, bishoprics and the Vatican. This discussion must continue.
If you haven’t looked at our 60+ hours of Christian testimony please do.
Dip in and out, they’re not going away, but let these amazing speakers share their personal stories with you.
So much work went into finding the speakers, encouraging them to pre-record on time (!), editing their videos into beautiful programmes on themes, with attractive opening titles, voice over introductions, and evocative aerial shots of the Spirit flying over our imperilled planet. You don’t have to watch an entire programme – our wonderful YouTube lead, Peter, together with Olivia have kindly put time codes in the YouTube channel for each speaker. Penelope’s husband (ex BBC) Jon Rosebank gave up 2 full months and a professional film editor devoted a further 2 full weeks to make this look so good.
We are hugely grateful to Joan Chittister, Mary McAleese and Steven Newcomb, our keynote speakers, for agreeing to join us so many months back when Spirit Unbounded was a fledgling chick and nobody really understood what this new online platform in the support of the marginalised really was. Now we know!
And now… Penelope Middelboe and I, who have given a year ‘more than full-time’ to bring this about and personally under-written our unavoidable costs, need to get our lives back. Our supportive families are at breaking point. And so we’re handing on the baton.
As Brian Devlin said in his closing speech,the website will still be managed (via Claus Geissendoerfer and his team of Joe and Grace paid from the little bit of money we hope will be left after paying our invoices). Brian has valiantly offered to continue being the valuable touchstone he’s been to us this past year and his email is copied here.
Our email addresses hello@spiritunbounded.org and spiritunbounded@gmail.com will be monitored on an ad hoc basis only until we find a willing volunteer.
Here’s a link to photos taken in Rome by Susie Triffitt
And photos Friday and photos Saturday taken in Bristol by Lisa Loveridge
And to transcripts of many of the speeches
Thank yous must go to:
The Press Group headed by Michael Centore and Mary Ellen Chown; Mary Ring for Newsletters and Marketing; Peter Agius for additional website and YouTube; Pam Perry as treasurer; the Stakeholder Advisory Group of Luca Badini, Colm Holmes and Christian Weisner; the Coordinating Leads: Miriam Duignan, Eleanor Flynn, Jamie Manson, Rhiannon Parry Thompson, Christine Reymer, Mary Varley, Marie Venner; and finally to people who helped spread the vision in the early days such as Kochurani Abraham, Raynah Braganza Passanha, Charlie Gibson, Alloys and Emma Nyakundi, Diarmuid O’Murchu, Tom O’Loughlin, Sherry Purcell, Rene Reid, Virginia Saldanha and Katharine Salmon to name a few!
Thank yous also for the significant donations from Catholics for Choice, We are Church International, Immaculate Heart Community, Catholic Women’s Ordination, ACCCR and Root & Branch.
With love
Maggie Conway, Penelope Middelboe, Brian Devlin, Claus Geissendoerfer