Update on opening Doors February 2025

Opening Doors is part of our response to the challenges facing Mercy today. After wide-ranging consultation, five themes emerged as significant to our Mercy companions: Action for Justice, Communications, Formation, Structures and Youth Engagement.

Formation Advisory Group

To date we have held a number of meetings of the Formation Advisory Group. A full suite of Formation resources have now gone live on our website as a result of these meetings. The Formation Group is now in the process of developing a formation pack for those involved in ministry leadership.

Communications

Our Communications Committee met in February to focus on strategy and planning for the year ahead.

We launched our Mercy Echoes podcast during February with Sr. Elizabeth Davis rsm speaking about the Synod. Episode Two of the podcast will be available in March.

We also hosted our first Mercy Communications Café in February which saw 70 people from across the Mercy World join us on Zoom to reflect on communicating hope. Brother Richard Hendrick Ofm Cap was our guest speaker. Our next Communications Café will take place in April (date tbc).

Youth Engagement

The first meeting of our Youth Engagement Advisory Group took place last month. Our discussions centered on our shared experiences of working with young people. The meeting also agreed areas of priority in terms of passing the Mercy Charism onto young people and making connections. We will be adding more resources to the Youth section of Opening Doors in March.

Action for Justice

When it comes to our Action for Justice, this year, Mercy Global Action will continue to focus on our priority justice issues: Water, Migration, and Women’s Leadership. We look forward to advancing the Mercy Water Justice Coalition and launching two new Task Forces in preparation for the greatly anticipated Second World Summit for Social Development and COP30 in November.

We look forward to announcing MELF Cohort 5 on 8th March - International Women's Day and to following MELF Cohort 4's immersion experience in New York.

Structures

The final thematic area of Opening Doors is Structures. One of the areas of focus here is to create a global database of Mercy Ministries so that there can be one central master database. This is something that will be looked at this year.

For more on Opening Doors please check out the dedicated section of our website.