Pope Francis has chosen this time to call the whole Church into a deeper process of listening to one another – the Synodal Pathway. There are many ways to get involved in the Diocese of Westminster.

Everyone involved in social action, advocacy and peace-building is especially invited to our own Online Listening Event with Bishops Nicholas Hudson and Paul McAleenan on Thursday 4th November, 7-9pm, on Zoom.

Register for the Social Justice and Peace Online Listening Event

There may seem to be many demands on us but it is important that we pause and take time to truly listen to one another, sharing both our joys and our hurts, if we are truly to journey forwards together.

As well as existing activists and named Parish Contacts for Justice and Peace, we are keen to ensure that this is a time of genuine openness and inclusion so those who would like to join the Forum for the first time are most welcome, priests and parishioners alike. 

We hope to see many of you there as we begin – or, as Bishop Nicholas writes in his invitation below, continue – a conversation that will have far-reaching implications for the Church of the third millennium. 

Invitation

‘What is the pandemic teaching us about the call to Social Justice and Peace?‘  That was the question with which we launched into our first online Forum last Advent. ‘What is the Catholic vision of work?‘ launched the second Forum in May. And what rich fruits these questions reaped!

We heard in the first gathering about the extraordinary food outreach achieved in this Diocese.  We heard both the pain and joy experienced by people of colour through belonging to a West London parish.  We heard the call for a ‘radical reset’ of our social and economic systems.  We heard in the second event how much parishes stand to learn from Catholic Social Teaching. In short, we were learning from each other what it means to be Church!  We were beginning to see how much more we need to do to become more truly Church.  But we lacked the vocabulary to tell each other that what we had embarked on was, in fact, a Synodal process. Now we realise we had! 

On Thursday 4^th November, 7-9pm, the Forum reconvenes and invites you to deepen the Synodal conversation.  The Forum is hosting a ‘Listening Event’ online in which we shall continue this process we began 11 months ago – of listening to our experience of what it means to be Church.  It will be a marvellous opportunity to come together with others who share a passion for Social Justice and Peace – to hear from one another what the Spirit seems to be saying to the Church.

Then we will be encouraged to take the process into the different groups we represent and given guidance as to how then to feed this back into the centre towards a Diocesan submission.  Do encourage all those with whom you share a yearning for the Church to realise her vocation to Social Justice and Peace to come and be a part of this Listening Event.  I look forward to joining you there on this next stage of the journey!

+ Bishop Nicholas Hudson

Register for the Social Justice and Peace Online Listening Event