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 […]
Catholic Social Thought
aspects of catholic social thought
31 Mar – A Future For The Global Common Good
By Dr Ann Marie Mealey, Director of Catholic Mission, LTUBeing a Catholic University in today’s complex global society is no easy task. With many feeling that values are akin to subjective preference and not at all the result of carefully discerning the truth which involves the sources of morality, it can be tricky to convince […]
25 Mar – Living Laudato Si in the Leeds Diocese
As an encouragement to parishes across the Diocese of Leeds we have produced a compilation of our newsletter articles about Climate Change since the publication of Pope Francis’ encyclical ‘Laudato Si’. It turns out there are quite a lot! It includes a Foreword by Bishop Marcus and runs to 52 pages. We hope that as […]
18 Mar – Resilience in Working for Justice & Peace
On 14 March SPARK Social Justice and the J&P Commission, in partnership with Leeds Trinity University, had organised a presentation of the 2024 Romero Lecture. The Archbishop Romero Trust organises this event every year, taking a guest lecturer on a short UK-wide tour. This year the speaker was Dr Raymond Perrier, Director of the Denis Hurley […]
12 Feb – Daily Compassion for Leeds through Lent
By Emma Temple, Communications and Marketing Manager, LCI“Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12)On Tuesday 6th February, LCI and Leeds Christian Community Trust launched the 2024 edition of the Leeds Lent Prayer Diary.The launch event at Roscoe Methodist Church brought together the […]
10 Feb – 2024 Romero Lecture
The Archbishop Romero Trust engages someone every year to do a short speaking tour.This year the speaker is Raymond Perrier. The Commission is organising a presentation of Raymond’s talk in the Leeds Diocese. As with last year, we are partnering with Leeds Trinity University. The meeting will take place on Thursday 14 March at 7pm […]
03 Feb – Listening event addendum
At the recent Commission meeting in early February, we discussed how to take forward the listening event that we held just prior to Christmas. We received very good feedback from the event and at first thought we might do a follow up in March.However, we agreed that the next similar event should take place somewhere […]
25 Jan – LiveSimply Parishes across Leeds Meet up
By Trish Sandbach, Commission memberOn Jan 20th about 25 Parishioners from 4 Parishes (Our Lady of Kirkstall, St John Fisher & St Thomas More, St John Vianney, and St Benedict’s) gathered at St Benedict’s, Garforth. All the parishes either have the Live Simply Award, some for many years, or have started on the journey towards […]
05 Jan – Listening to the Signs of the Times-what did we hear?
By Matty Maslen, Newsletter Editor; Sara Forrest, Commission member; and Bronagh Daly, Faith and Creativity Lead at LCI.At the end of last year, we held an event at Wheeler Hall in Leeds. The title was ‘Listening to the Signs of the Times’.To begin the event, John Battle read a prayer which called for the Lord […]
5 Dec – Filipino Workers in the UK, a call for Solidarity and Dignity
By Rafael Antonio, Filipino University Student in Leeds Coming to the United Kingdom was not a simple decision. Like many other Filipinos, who have sought a higher education in countries not of our own, we are considered “fortunate” unlike our counterparts (the OFW – overseas Filipino workers) who instead go abroad for work. Indeed, regardless […]
01 Dec – Listening to the ‘Signs of the Times’
By John Battle, Commission Chair Saturday 16th Dec (11am to 1pm at Wheeler Hall) there is an open invitation to a “special event ” of our Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission to reflect on who we are now and our purpose and mission in the Diocese in the light of the Church’s ” Synodal Process” […]
12 Oct – SPARK: Empower, Lead, Change
This was an inter-generational conversation about where faith might fit into how we view leadership. It was set up as an informal event where students could have conversations with a number of invited guests with different leadership experiences who acted as discussion facilitators. We almost cancelled the event as not only was there a train […]
Advocacy, Faith & Justice
A “ Discussion Paper for the Decade of Evangelisation: From Charity to Empowerment “ published by the Catholic Bishops Conference in 1992 set out a relationship between “ Welfare Charity”-” Advocacy”- and “ Empowerment “. “Welfare charity” is social provision for the immediate relief of poverty – notably practiced by our parish SVP conferences over […]
01 Aug – Reflections from the 2023 NJPN Conference
By Chuks Nwachukwu, sponsored to attend by SPARK Social Justice The 45th Annual conference of the National Justice and Peace Network was held on 21 – 23 July 2023 at the Hayes conference centre in Swanwick, Alfreton Derby. With the Theme ‘Sustainability? Survival or Shutdown’. It was a very great weekend filled with interesting and […]
01 Jul – LiveSimply comes to John Mary Vianney parish
By Tony O’Brian, St John Mary Vianney Parish, LeedsAbout 25 members of the parish of St John Vianney in north Leeds met on 20 June 2023 to take forward our action planning for our LiveSimply parish award application. Information leaflets on LiveSimply and Laudato si’ had been distributed at Sunday masses each week during Lent […]
23 Apr – Creativity Carousel Retreat Day
By Bronagh Daly, LCI Faith and Creativity LeadA free one day creative retreat, ‘Creativity Carousel’, started on Saturday 11th March hosted by Leeds Church Institute at their new office space, 43 The Calls, in the centre of Leeds.Faith and Creativity Lead, Bronagh Daly, welcomed five attendees at the first event:“We are situated just behind the […]