Events

Since 1982, Christians have assembled on Ash Wednesday at the Ministry of Defence to pray for peace and a conversion of hearts and minds away from nuclear war preparations, the destruction caused by nuclear testing and the wasted resources that are invested in nuclear weapons and in all weapons.
Over those years services have been held in Liverpool and Glasgow and people from peace groups from different parts of the country have travelled to London.

This year 2025 the Leeds Diocese Pax Christi group are organising a prayer service in Leeds. It will take place outside Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane – just two minutes walk from the train station.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a time of repentance in the Church calendar and we will be praying for all those involved in nuclear war preparations to repent and have a change of heart. We also recognise that we can all do more to speak out about nuclear war preparations and to prayer to have the courage to carry on with our opposition.

ALL are welcome to join Pax Christi members outside Holy Trinity Church.

SPARK Social Justice are sponsoring a presentation of the 2025 Romero Lecture in Leeds.

Luis Orlando Pérez Jiménez is a Jesuit priest from Mexico and will be presenting this lecture.

After receiving professional legal training, before joining the Society of Jesus, Fr Luis worked as a lawyer at the “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” Human Rights Centre in Mexico City from 2019 to 2020. His work exposed him to the plight of thousands of mothers who had lost their children to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions committed by the Mexican military and organised crime.

Now a PhD student at the Institute of the Americas, University College London, Fr Luis investigates these grave human rights violations, which have claimed more than 100,000 victims in Mexico, and the culture of impunity surrounding them. Fr. Luis has extensive experience working in the field of human rights in Latin America.

In his lecture he will use the life of St Oscar Romero to draw out parallels with his own research.

Sign up for this free event through Eventbrite. ALL are welcome.

More Info and Registration
 

Come to the Houses of Parliament with CAFOD on 18 March to speak to your MP about Pope Francis’s Jubilee message. It ends quite late so you would probably need to stay over in London – but, hey, make a mini-break out of it!

CAFOD say about this event:

LiveSimply is an award scheme managed by CAFOD. Parishes and schools submit a plan and work towards achieving 3 goals:

to Live more simply

to Live more sustainably

to Live more in solidarity with the poor.

Bishop Marcus commended the scheme in his pastoral letter during the Season of Creation in September 2024.

The scheme provides a motivating way to involve people of many differing interests and can help renew parish life as people collaborate on achieving the things set out in their plan.

This day event is for people from across the Diocese of Leeds to come together to explore what the scheme is about, hear from people who are in a LiverSimply parish, and to think more about what it could bring to their community.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-simply-care-deeply-tickets-1278395327839?aff=oddtdtcreator

This is the Annual conference of the National Justice & Peace Network.

Full details are still to be made available. However, Dr Rowan Williams has already been booked and several workshops are known to be going ahead with several others still under discussion.

Never a cheap weekend! – but usually interesting and a unique annual opportunity to meet J&P supporters from across the country.

Updates will be made when they become available.

Aged 18-30? SPARK Social Justice will be offering sponsorship for a limited number of people. email info@sparksocialjustice.org.uk if this is of interest.