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 […]
Yorkshire
10 May – Share the Journey
Pope Francis launched the ‘Share the Journey’ campaign in September 2017. The campaign is about getting world leaders to endorse new UN agreements on refugees and migration – and they are meeting at the UN in September where there is an opportunity to do this. There are petitions to sign and, in particular, the campaign […]
17 Mar Faith in Action Awards – New Programme in the Leeds Diocese
Contributed by Jessica Wilkinson, Youth Coordinator for the Leeds Diocese It will be probably not surprise you to hear that many young people are passionate about justice and fantastic at social action! Social Action is just part of what they have to do to gain their Faith in Action Award from Bishop Marcus. Established by […]
13-Feb Family Poverty: From Awareness to Action Workshop Report
This was the title of the workshop we held last Saturday in the Kala Sangam centre in the central Bradford. About 50 people turned up on a very wet morning to examine in some depth different aspects of family poverty and what is already being done and what more could be done. Liz Firth led […]
01 Feb – Refugee Support Meeting highlights further actions for parishes
The Diocesan Refugee Support Group meeting at Hinsley Hall was packed out last night with over 100 people squeezing into the room from all parts of the Diocese, including Huddersfield, Mytholmroyd, Settle and Knaresbrough – as well as parishes more local to Hinsley Hall. It was an opportunity to take stock and consider what more […]
24 Jan – Good Shepherd Mytholmroyd & Live Simply
We asked people who attended our Live Simply Workshop in June 2017 if they had done anything following it. At the start of January Michael Emly gave an update from Our Lady of Kirkstall parish in NW Leeds. Here, Janet Almond provides an update from Good Shepherd Parish in Mytholmroyd. As with everything, it is […]
02 Jan – Creating a Buzz in Leeds
This update on one parish’s work towards the Live Simply Award has been provided by Michael Emly What will help the “average parishioner” engage with the Church’s social teaching? What will build unity in a parish formed by the merger of 3 formerly independent church communities? How can we make Pope Francis’ teaching in ‘Laudato […]
05 Dec – Bradford Peace Museum Faith and Peace Project
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 […]
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 […]
Tackling UK Poverty
Arguments between the major political parties over student tuition fees have eclipsed any discussions of tackling real rising poverty here in the UK. The Government believes that the reforms introduced by the new ‘Universal Credit” (which attempts to simplify and roll all social security benefits together) has resolved the problem by pushing benefit claimants quickly […]
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. […]
16 Jan 17 – A new face around the Leeds CAFOD Volunteer Centre
This is Nikki Evans who is the CAFOD Programme Officer for Bolivia, supporting the ten partner organisations that CAFOD works with in that country. Nikki is part of the CAFOD Head Office team in London. However, she currently lives in Saltaire. So, CAFOD have agreed that she can work 3 days a week in London […]