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. […]
UK Poverty
2020 Budget – A budget for the poor?
Encouragingly, at Catholic meetings in the last couple of months – whether with the SVP, parish meetings or gatherings of Catholic teachers – invariably I have found the need to keep our focus on the marginalised and poor has been raised. Tackling poverty in the UK is one of our Justice and Peace Commission’s top […]
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 […]
01 Nov – Family Poverty Workshops in Shipley & Baildon
By Roman Hazulczuk, St Teresa Benedicta parishIn July 2019, a group met at St. Walburga’s Parish Hall in Shipley. They had decided to take part in a 5-week workshop programme on the causes and possible solutions to poverty in our respective parish communities and beyond. There were 16 participants and three more who could only […]
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 […]
01 Oct – Family Poverty Workshop Updates
Our Lady of Kirkstall Sara Forrest writes:Parishioners undertook the workshops in Spring and are following it up with action in the Hawksworth estate area of Leeds. The parish includes the Hawksworth and Ireland Wood estates which both fall within the top 10% most deprived areas within England. During the course they worked in three small […]
04 Sep – World Day of the Poor 2019
By John Battle, Chair of the Commission Pope Francis who has established the Church’s World Day of Prayer for the Poor three years ago has announced the theme for this year’s day to be held on 17th November. In his message announcing the theme he stressed the vital importance of the both “embracing and assisting […]
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. […]
19 Dec – Live Simply Updates from across the Diocese
CAFOD’s Live Simply Award scheme is starting to take off across the country and, slowly but surely, across the Leeds Diocese as well. Here are some brief updates on parishes in the Leeds Diocese who are working towards the award. What is stopping your parish from taking up the challenge to Live Simply? Good Shepherd […]
Family Poverty is getting worse
Teachers are now saying that they are having to pick up the impacts of increased family poverty and that the Government is out of touch with the distressing reality of the lives of many school students.
18 Dec – Pilots of J&P Family Poverty Workshops Underway
The Commission has been trialling some materials funded by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and developed for us by Church Action on Poverty – a series of five workshops to examine aspects of family poverty in the UK and what more we can do about it. One pilot – covering the Skipton and […]
05 Sep – Family Poverty Parish Programme update
We are working with Church Action on Poverty to produce a series of 5 meetings to be undertaken in parish groups to explore issues of family poverty. We now have drafts of the materials and they are being reviewed by the Project Steering Group. We are hoping to try out the programme on a pilot […]
25 July – Family Poverty: Food bank Shortages and Holiday Hunger
As the long Summer holidays start and people go on holiday, contributions to foodbanks tend to dip. However, this is going on whilst, at the same time there is a year on year increase in the demands being made on foodbanks. Towards the end of June, the Leeds evening Post ran a story with information […]
12 Jun – Family Poverty Project update
As previously reported, the Commission has obtained a grant from the Society of the Holy Child Jesus to follow up our workshop about Family Poverty with a programme of small group meetings suitable for use in parishes and other small groups. We are delighted to announce that we are partnering with Church Action on Poverty […]
21 Mar – Family Poverty: A Diocese Acts – but only if you help!
The Commission are pleased to announce that we have received some funding from the Society of the Holy Child Jesus order for a follow up project to the Workshop about family poverty that we held in Bradford in February 2018. The idea behind the project is to examine the same issues we tackled in the […]
Is Austerity Over?
“When the Church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises” Bl. Oscar Romero In “Reimagining Britain” Archbishop Justin Welby writes austerity is “a word that almost invariably conceals the crushing of the weak”. Since 2010 when the […]