By John Battle, chair of the Commission The Easter Alleluia hymn for morning prayer could not be more prescient in these times: “Then Life and Death together fought, alleluia, Each to a strange extreme were brought, alleluia”. Certainly, the coronavirus pandemic is not allowing us to move too quickly through the Paschal Mysteries this year. […]
Catholic Social Thought
aspects of catholic social thought
15 Apr – SPARK Social Justice goes Virtual
It was only last month that we were reporting on the 300 or so young people who have attended SPARK workshops in the last few months – using drama to explore issues of social justice such as UK poverty and the devastating impact that it can have on people’s lives.With the lockdown, of course, all […]
27 Mar – Pilgrimage, Palestine & Acting Justly
Many people hope that one day they can go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land; to see for themselves the places where Jesus walked and where key events in the bible are thought to have taken place. All of us want to be able to identify better with the Gospel stories that we have heard […]
05 Mar – SPARK Social Justice Project Update
An update from Aoibheann Kelly, Project Director Last time I wrote, we were just about to begin our SPARK social justice journey – since then, we have delivered workshops to almost 300 young people within the Diocese and are coming to the end of our first phase. We have explored a number of pertinent issues […]
14 Feb – Goodbye and Hello!
First the Goodbye! – from Joe Burns What is happening?I’m retiring from providing paid services to the J&P Commission. I had my 65th birthday recently and have been providing the Commission with my services since mid-2014. What have you been doing for the Commission?I put together the newsletters, I developed and update the website and […]
23 Jan – Women in Black now in Bradford
We recently featured the start up of the Women in Black group in Leeds. Now a group has started up in Bradford and they would welcome any women who are able to come along to their regular vigils (dressed in black, of course). They are holding their vigils on 1st Thursday of every month. They […]
15 Jan Living with Hope and Courage in a Hostile Environment
Sr Maria Crowley of the Holy Family Sisters, Bradford reflects on their work with asylum seekersThis is a real challenge to us, in these dark times, where we are confronted daily with the great harm, we are capable of doing to each other. As we listen to the news and read the newspapers we hear […]
06 Dec – The General Election is coming!
As a Commission of the Catholic Church it is not our role to advise you to vote for specific candidates or parties. However, there are two key messages that we would like to get across to everyone in the Diocese of Leeds:-Go out and Vote!Catholic Social teaching is where Faith and Politics meet. Think about […]
06 Dec – SPARK Social Justice Catches Fire!
Our project working with people aged 16-30 is starting to take off. Earlier this week over 100 students at St Mary’s High School in Menston took part in workshops exploring UK poverty through drama.Aoibheann Kelly, the talented theatre professional who is leading this work commented ”Drama can help young people to make sense of the […]
Is it time to ditch ‘The Kingdom of God’?
I’ve never really been in favour of the monarchy and would much rather see a President of the UK. Being a logical sort of person, it means that I’ve had a bit of a problem with ‘The Kingdom of God’ for quite a while, as well. Slightly (but only slightly) tongue in cheek I have […]
24 Sep – SPARK Social Justice
By Aoibheann Kelly, Project Director for SPARK Social Justice – A Leeds J&P Project Stories can conquer fear and make the heart grow larger. Listening to and sharing stories has been part of my life and I have had the privilege of witnessing first-hand how people’s perceptions about the society they live in and attitudes […]
09 Jul – Poems of Hope
By Lucy Irven, Coordinator Leeds Diocesan Refugee Support Group Last year, Refugee Week celebrated its 20th Anniversary and to raise awareness amongst the younger members of our community, the Refugee Support Group asked the schools in the Diocese to write Poems of Hope on the theme of refugees as part of a competition. The children […]
22 May – SPARK Social Justice, our new project
For a while now we have been only too aware of the lack of younger people (with some exceptions) coming along to events organised by the Justice & Peace Commission.With financial support from the Porticus Trust we have just started up a project that will run to the end of 2020. It is specifically designed […]
14 Apr – Family Poverty workshops, could your parish participate?
Our workshops about Family Poverty (Family Poverty: A Diocese Acts) are now ready to be rolled out to more parishes. In his Foreword to the Facilitator Workshop pack, Bishop Marcus comments: “I invite parishes to take up the challenge of examining the background to family poverty by participating in these workshops in their parish community. […]
31 Mar – Reflecting on our ‘Common Home: the Earth
About 30 people gathered from ten parishes at SS John Fisher & Thomas More parish (Burley in Wharfedale) on Saturday 30 March to reflect more deeply about ‘Caring for our ‘common home’: the Earth’. This day of Reflection organised by the Commission was also partly a trial run of some of the resources that CAFOD […]
Faith in Political Action Today
Project Bonhoeffer was set up in 2012 by a small group of friends who, remembering the impact of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and ideas on their own thinking as young Christians fifty years ago, felt it was important to convey something of that experience to young Christians today. Since 2013, Project Bonhoeffer has held a series […]