As part of our SPARK Social Justice project, aimed at 18–30-year-olds in the Leeds Diocese, we are launching a sponsorship scheme for people in this age group to attend the National Justice & Peace Network (NJPN) Conference in July of this year.John Battle, Chair of the Commission commented, “I know that younger generations are just […]
Climate Change
10 Feb – Global Healing
By David Jackson of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Shipley“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or secondary aspect of our Christian experience…Truly, much can be done!”(Laudato Si’, 217, 180)In 2015, Pope Francis published his ground-breaking letter on the environment […]
08 Dec – Living Laudato Si’: Your Planet and Your Parish.
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank Hall. Around fifty people were involved in a recent Zoom weekend from Boarbank Hall on the theme Living Laudato Si’: Your Planet and Your Parish. It aimed to inspire, inform, connect and encourage anyone wanting to engage in practical and prayerful projects in response to the encyclical, especially through parish groups […]
A Reflection on Creation
ONIONHere is an onion – just come back from the Onion Catechism class. I asked if it could remember the questions and answers – It has a fantastic memory: ‘Who made you? God made me. How did God make me? God made me with earth, air, fire and water. Fire? Why did God make you? […]
18 Oct – The Age of Meditation & Praise?
By John Battle (Commission Chair) & Helen Hayden The American social justice activist Fr Daniel Berrigan once surprisingly recommended an instruction of the Buddha: “Don’t just do something, stand there!”. The impact of the Covid lock downs and enforced stoppages has apparently resulted in people watching more TV and films, reading more, clearing out cupboards […]
A walk in the Woods
(This article first appeared in the Tablet Blog in July)I tried to write about the shape of a post Virus Church and patterns of Eucharistic worship and failed. Rather than add to many such attempts, I could reflect how, aged over 80, the possibility of never returning to previous patterns of practice, represents, not a […]
09 Sep – Catholic Schools, the Pandemic and the Climate Emergency
By David Jackson, ShipleySeveral J&P members in the diocese have just finished an on-line programme presented by the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM – based in Rome) to ‘graduate’ as LAUDATO SI ADVOCATES in October. As part of the course, Dr Lorna Gold (Trócaire and GCCM) presented a sobering assessment of the growing existential threat […]
21 Jul – J&P Diocesan Annual Gathering
By John Battle, Commission Chair On the 24th June 2020 we held the annual meeting of our Leeds Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission as an open “gathering” on ” Zoom” to announce the refocussing of our project work; responding as a Diocese to the climate crisis, developing our parish “Poverty in the UK” workshop pack […]
16 May – J&P Issue Action Group – Climate Crisis
On 28th March 2020 the Justice and Peace Leeds Climate Crisis Action Group met for the first time. The result was an ambitious plan to take the challenge of fighting Climate Change to parishes throughout the Diocese of Leeds. Keith Pitcher talked to us about the experience of Parish of St John Fisher & St […]
09 May – Can we still campaign in a time of lockdown?
By Carol Burns Of course, the answer is ‘yes’ and I am sure many of you are linked to Change.org and Avaaz as well as other campaigning organisations such as Church Action on Poverty or Sabeel Kairos, to name a few that come to mind. I wanted to share a small example of campaigning in […]
02 Mar – St Mary & St Michael, Settle, obtain Live Simply Award
Two years ago, it took just a couple of parishioners to introduce LiveSimply at a parish meeting and then speak about it at Mass to get the parish started. From the talks at Mass a group of 12 people volunteered interest and started by reflecting on all the things the parish were already doing. And […]
17 Feb – Northern Dioceses’ Environment Group
This group has been meeting a couple of times a year for the last two years.It is a way of sharing information on the work being done about the Climate Crisis in the northern dioceses (by which I mean Liverpool, Lancaster, Salford, Leeds, Hallam, Middlesbrough and Hexham and Newcastle). Mark Wiggin, Caritas Director for the […]
05 Nov – Creation & Eucharist
Our latest day of reflection, held on 19th October at the Good Shepherd parish centre in Mytholmroyd, was an extended celebration of the mass exploring the connections between the mass and care of God’s creation.The day was structured around the different parts of the mass. After some initial refreshments, we started our day with an […]
24 Oct – Care of our Common Home – in Shipley and Baildon
In June our parish CAFOD contact person suggested at a meeting of the Pastoral Council that we take up the campaign ‘Care for our Common Home’. A Group was set up to plan. It was asked to ensure that the voices of young people be heard. One meeting and a flurry of emails later, together […]
08 Oct – Live Simply Updates across the Diocese
Good Shepherd, MytholmroydJanet Almond writesThis summer, in keeping with the Good Shepherd’s goal to Live Simply by recycling and reusing, two parishioners (John and Bernadette Gibson) have introduced and co-ordinated the Mary’s Meals Backpack project – – Mary’s Meals ( www.marysmeals.org.uk) is all about offering practical help in tackling poverty, hunger and education in many […]
03 Sep – Diocesan Environment Policy in Preparation
For about 12 months now the Commission has had a small project steering group working on the development of an Environment Policy that could be adopted by the Diocese. Since the publication of Laudato Si’ in 2015 there have been 4 dioceses that have adopted such policies and some other dioceses also have them in […]