By John Battle, Commission Chair It’s again peak channel crossing time for small boats carrying desperate asylum seekers from the coast of France. This week violence broke out just offshore between rival groups of Kurdish, Afghani and African smugglers in attempts to take over leaving boats. Reports of “overwhelming numbers” dominate media coverage. Internationally, here nationally and […]
SVP
24 May – From Rerum Novarum to Pope Leo XIV via Leeds
by John Battle May 2025 at Church HouseTwo recent distractions; hearing echo loudly in the Eucharistic prayer at Mass after the Consecration the phrase “together in the FULLNESS of charity” and seeing our new Holy Father Pope Leo XIV hold up a copy of his namesake predecessor’s foundational encyclical” Rerum Novarum”. (1891).I have been trying […]
05 May – Listening in Cottingley
By Joe Burns, Commission MemberJust prior to Christmas the Commission held a ‘Listening’ event at Wheeler Hall, Leeds. People coming along welcomed the opportunity to share their varied social justice concerns and we determined that, as a Commission, we should hold further events like it.At the end of April, we met at St Mary & […]
08 Apr – Preparing for the General Election
CAFOD and the SVP have joined forces to help prepare the UK Catholic community for the upcoming General Election. Their introduction to this campaign is as follows:The common good is reached when we work together to improve the lives of people both in our local community, and in the wider world. The SVP’s and CAFOD’s campaign […]
08 Mar – SVP Response to the Budget
By Elizabeth Palmer, CEO of the St Vincent de Paul Society (England and Wales) We reproduce, and endorse, all that the SVP say in the press statement below. Today’s Budget delivered by Chancellor Rishi Sunak represents one of the most important political statements of recent times and comes at a critical time for the nation. […]
22 Apr – Charitable Action?
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. […]
30 Nov 16-REFUGEE ACTION GROUP INFO EVNG
Much of the mainstream media dismisses responses to the international refugee crisis as “compassion fatigue”. The active responses of the parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Leeds was more than evident at a meeting of the Diocesan Refugee Action Support Group with Bishop Marcus and over 100 parishioners from across the Diocese at Hinsley Hall […]