Way ahead of its time, the Catholic Church in England and Wales embarked upon a bold experiment in Liverpool more than 40 years ago that deserves to be better known. It gathered together representatives from all the Catholic dioceses, and allowed them freely to express all the opinions they wanted. The National Pastoral Congress of 1980 was, by another name, a synod; just what Pope Francis has instructed the Church to undertake over the next two years.
Nobody really knew what simmering tensions lay just below the surface in a Catholic community of some four million. And yet it was an extraordinary success, way beyond the hopes of its key participants. Why, then, has it been so forgotten? Why didn’t it fulfil its promise of launching the Catholic Church in England and Wales into an exciting era of mission, reform and expansion?

The initiative for it emerged from a controversy which threatened to tear the Church apart: the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. Contrary to many expectations, it had confirmed traditional teaching that artificial contraception was banned. Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, called the resulting row “the greatest shock since the Reformation”. Starting from 1970, a group of concerned clergy had gathered together each year to form what became the National Conference of Priests, to try to figure out what had gone wrong and to find a way forward. From their many debates, two conclusions emerged.