I. PENANCE AND ONGOING CONVERSION
Presenter: Stacey Christine Wendlinder

Using the work of Donald Gelpi, we discussed the role of penance in ongoing conversion. Gelpi defines conversion as, "the passage from childish responsibility to the assumption of adult responsibility for some realm of experience." Ongoing conversion is "the practical acceptance of the consequences of the initial transition from irresponsible to responsible behavior." The five forms of conversion are affective, intellectual, moral, sociopolitical and religious. These mutually condition and inform one another.
Sinful resistance to affective conversion comes when one has an inflated sense of one's mastery of self, self-reliance, and self-control. When this illusion is challenged, one needs to experience forgiveness to bring healing to one's unconscious destructive forces. Accepting conventional understandings at the expense of deeper or more profound knowledge is the manifestation of resistance to intellectual conversion. Immoral, selfish (or even righteous, selfless) behavior motivated by egocentricity is a sign of resistance to moral conversion. Succumbing to "minimum Christianity"--doing the bare minimum or compartmentalizing faith to one area of life--reveals resistance to religious conversion. Finding security in "worldly" things is a sign of resistance to sociopolitical conversion. The question to be pursued is, How is resistance to conversion overcome and what is the relationship between conversion and reconciliation?

II. THE 1983 WORLD SYNOD OF BISHOPS:
RECONCILIATION AND PENANCE
Presenter: Michael Driscoll

We first discussed how an Apostolic Exhortation is formulated. A preparatory document is sent to the bishops of the world who react to it themselves, as well as consulting their diocese, priests, and congregations. This feedback is then assimilated and forms the working document that the synod will use in its deliberation. The discussions and decisions of the synod are recorded and the Pope uses these to write the Apostolic Exhortation.
The first section of this exhortation discusses the work of Christ and the apostles as that of reconciliation. The second section discusses the Church's role as agent of reconciliation. The third and final discussion makes practical applications and specifically discusses the sacrament of reconciliation. We found the exhortation to be scripturally based and ecumenically sensitive. We found that the content of the first two sections is excellent; however, the third section conveys an overriding concern with salvaging penance by limiting the work of reconciliation to this one sacrament rather than understanding reconciliation as inherent in all of them.