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 […]
Climate Change
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 […]
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 […]