By ENews editor
Wednesday 09 July saw a mass lobby of Parliament to keep up the pressure on politicians about Climate Change.
CAFOD is a key part of the coalition of organisations involved and CAFOD supporters from across the country descended on Westminster to try and talk to their own MP’s. A group of 3 people attending from the Leeds parish of Our Lady of Kirkstall were Marian & Michael Emly and Bronagh Daly (who also represented Leeds Church Institute).
Leading up to the lobby day itself, CAFOD has been running a campaign to get parishioners to sign a petition asking the Government, in this Jubilee Year of Hope, to address the debt crisis affecting the global South. The number of low and middle-income countries in debt crisis has more than doubled since 2015: 54 countries are now in debt crisis compared with 22 countries in 2015. In Africa, 34 countries spend more on external debt payments than on health or education, when hospitals and schools are already desperately underfunded. Debts are being paid at the expense of hiring doctors and teachers, building schools, hospitals and sewage systems, preparing for floods, or coping with droughts.
Michael Emly commented,
“The petition last Sunday was a tremendous success and we collected 220 signatures which we will now send the sheets off to CAFOD to be collated with others from around the country… I have to say that I am really proud to be part of a parish that can show this level of commitment to solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the world’s poorest countries.”
The lobby actually involved a lot of different organisations under the umbrella of the Climate Coalition, and around 5,000 people took part from all around the country. They took over 2 floors of a large building opposite Westminster Abbey for the day, and CAFOD had an area within it. Michael comments,
“This was great as we were able to meet up with lots of other CAFOD supporters, but also with Bishop John Arnold of Salford and with Fr. Charlie from Kenya – the priest whose letter was read out last Sunday. There was a series of talks throughout the day, but unfortunately Fr. Charlie was timetabled to speak in the morning, before we arrived. Even so, a great privilege.”
Fr Charlie’s picture features in the CAFOD resources about the debt relief campaign.
Our Lady of Kirkstall parish covers quite a large area of NW Leeds and their local MP is Alex Sobel. Michael, Marian and Bronagh were able to meet with him and Michael takes up the story:
“It wasn’t until quite late in the afternoon that we were able to meet with Alex Sobel, but it was really worthwhile because it was just the 3 of us – none of his other constituents who had registered to attend actually turned up. So we were able to discuss the issues around Debt Justice at length and tie it in to the broader theme of climate change by explaining how debt repayments are a millstone around the necks of people in poorer countries as the size of the debt repayments prevents proper investment in mitigating the effects of climate change as well as reducing the money that is available to spend in areas like healthcare and education. In fact, I was very impressed by the awareness that Alex had of all these issues and his willingness to consider ways of addressing them – he told us that he had taken part in similar demonstrations 25 years ago when there was a similar focus on cancelling debt and achieving the “Millennium Development Goals”. And he did share various ideas about how the issues might be addressed. And, of course, we stressed to Alex that we weren’t lone voices in his constituency, because 220 people had signed the petition just a few days earlier.”
The Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill had its scheduled second reading in the House of Commons on Friday 11 July 2025, but it was not debated due to “lack of unanimous consent” – which means that it did not progress. It also means that there is still time to take action!
Showing solidarity with the poorest in the world is a fundamental part of being a Catholic. A very simple action that everyone could take is to sign the online version of the CAFOD petition. Just follow this link: https://action.cafod.org.uk/page/161357/petition/1