Melbourne’s first Cor Sanctum men’s intensive program offered a Catholic pathway to healing, formation and personal renewal for men struggling with problematic sexual behaviour. Source: Melbourne Catholic.
Held at St Michael’s Parish, North Melbourne, earlier this month, the innovative three-day program is a pastoral response to struggles many men face today, and offered participants a renewed confidence that the Church can offer compassion and pathways towards freedom, restoration and hope.
Led by Melbourne-based counsellors and psychologists, the program attracted men from across the country for a time of prayer, healing and fraternity.
Inspired by the well-established Our House intensives in Kansas City, Cor Sanctum integrates the best of trauma-informed and addiction-aware therapeutic models with the Church’s rich understanding of the human person: that every person is created in the image and likeness of God, possesses inherent dignity and is called not merely to manage brokenness but to experience genuine healing through grace.
Over the course of the three-day intensive, participants engaged in a carefully structured rhythm of formation, prayer, personal reflection and facilitated small-group work.
Reflecting on the intensive, facilitation team member Dr Nick Lawless said, “The Holy Spirit moved powerfully. He opened up the eyes of the men to see the truth of their struggles, and opened up their hearts to receive his love in a new way.”
Topics explored throughout the weekend included St John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, the nature of addiction and compulsive patterns, and the impact of trauma on the human person. Participants were invited to reflect on how their personal stories have shaped them and, more importantly, how grace can reach into those places of woundedness.
Fr Nicholas Pearce, who worked alongside the other counsellors throughout the program, found the experience deeply moving.
“The openness of the participants, and their willingness to be vulnerable with one another, was a powerful witness to how Christ can work when men open their hearts to him and to each other,” Fr Pearce said
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Melbourne hosts first Cor Sanctum men’s intensive (Melbourne Catholic)
