How often do we hear religion being blamed for the wars of the world? The argument goes that, as there is a religious dimension to the mess in the Middle East, Islamic State, Northern Ireland… so religion must be a force for bad. Yet within each of the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and […]
Yorkshire
30 Nov – Who says Young People don’t get involved in social action?
About 200 young people came together for the first Leeds Peacejam Conference (there has been a previous one in Bradford) on the weekend of the 25-26 November. Peacejam is an international organisation founded in 1996 by a group of Nobel Peace laureates. It is specifically aimed at young people and is about encouraging them to […]
31 Oct – Update on Carbon reduction in the Leeds Diocese
In July we reported how the Commission had engaged with the University of Leeds for an MSc student on the Sustainability and Consulting course (Mohamed Juma) to evaluate whether the Diocese could do more to reduce its carbon footprint. Climate change remains one of the biggest challenges to the world today. The challenge is huge […]
27 Oct – Inter-generational Conversations on Faith and Justice
At the end of September some people from the Leeds Diocese attended a workshop in Salford Cathedral centre about this. The idea behind it is that there is value in having a conversation across generations about Faith and Justice to see what different generations can learn from one another. We were presented with a method […]
25 Oct – Diocesan Refugee Support Group: Grave Concerns about NHS Charging
Changes to the provision of NHS treatment have very recently come into effect.The Diocesan Refugee Support Group have been very concerned about this and asked the facilitator, Lucy Irven, to write to all MP’s across the Leeds Diocese to spell out their concerns.Below we reproduce the text of the letter sent to Government MP’s and […]
30 Sep -Commission supports Bishop Malcolm McMahon on nuclear weapons
On September 19th there was a letter published in the Guardian urging the Government to sign up (having boycotted the talks about it) to the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. One of the signatories was Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool. The Commission was encouraged by this leadership and wrote him a letter of thanks:
20 Sep – A Carmelite Approach to Justice
On Saturday 16 September the Commission held a Day of Reflection with the Carmelite nuns at their Wood Hall monastery, near Wetherby. We made the practical arrangements and they did the hard work of putting together talks and time for prayer – as well as devising a programme that left some space for silent reflection. […]