]By Rick DelVecchio
Catholic San Francisco

Mark F. Fischer, a faculty member at St. John’s Seminary in Los Angeles and the first director of the pastoral council office of the Oakland Diocese, will be a keynote speaker at the second annual Northern California Lay Convocation meeting Sept. 6 at the University of San Francisco.

Organizers describe the convocation, which is expected to draw 400 participants from Monterey to Sacramento, as a lay effort to broaden and intensify lay involvement in the Church in accordance to the vision of Vatican II.

The daylong meeting, called “Bringing Voice to Faith,” will focus on three issues that the 300 participants in last year’s session identified as priorities: pastoral councils, women’s voices in the liturgy, and effective homilies.

Rob Grant, spokesman for the convocation and a member of the group’s steering committee, said that because Catholics are called by baptism to play an intimate part in the administration and ministry of the Church, the convocation will offer discussions on successful pastoral councils and parish council training by successful parish leaders.

Fischer is author of “I Like Being in Parish Ministry: Parish Council” and co-author of “Four Ways to Build More Effective Parish Councils: A Pastoral Approach.”

A second speaker, Mercy Sister Eloise Rosenblatt, who holds degrees in theology and law, will discuss “Offering the Homiletic Voice of the Layman and Laywoman.”

The convocation is not arguing for a right for women to give homilies, Grant said. The intent is to point out opportunities in the liturgy where canon law allows women to speak.

Grant said convocation organizers wish to focus on such Church documents as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World promulgated at Vatican II. The documents stress the bond between the ordained and the baptized, he said. A third Vatican II document to be a backdrop to the convocation is the Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, promulgated in 1965.

“Our perspective is to work within the body,” said Grant. “We would rather unearth and harness the potential within canon law than to say let’s throw that out. Other organizations may choose other paths, but our intent as illustrated in our mission statement is to celebrate and inculcate the possibilities of a post-Vatican II Church.”

The convocation will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at USF’s McLaren Center, 2130 Fulton St. Its website is www.NorCalLayConvocation.org.

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