The war in Ukraine is heavily affecting the entire population of the country, churches included. We gathered an ecumenical cohort of representatives from Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as religious observers to examine how Ukrainian churches are reacting to the Russian military invasion and assisting the population. We will also examine the religious narratives being formulated and how religious organizations abroad can help in this critical moment.
Friday, March 4, 4-5.30pm GMT 18:00-19:30 Kyiv time [17:00-18:30 CET; 11:00am-12.30pm EST]
The Southern Dioceses Environment Network were pleased to welcome Dr David Ko and Richard Busellato to our first online evening event, discussing their recently published book, ‘The Unsustainable Truth’, how investing for the future is destroying the planet.
Arising from over thirty years’ personal experience of the investment industry, Richard and David’s presentation forms a powerful contribution to the debate surrounding the ethics of investment and sustainability.
They demonstrate how, by seeking comfort and security, we end up with an economic system that exhausts our resources. Instead they propose a model of ‘Transformational Ownership’ to safely steward harmful resources to their end of life.
Their book has featured in The Tablet (22 January 2022) with a review by Sr Margaret Atkins and a feature article by Richard and David:
The event was hosted by Westminster Justice and Peace on behalf of the Southern Dioceses Environment Network, which meets monthly on Monday lunchtimes on the second Monday of the month for prayer, input, sharing and discussion, with occasional evening events on specialist topics.
The next meeting is:
Monday, 14th March 2022, 12.45-2.00pm: Nourishment for Lent
By Santana Luis, Westminster Justice & Peace Contact for St Mary’s Parish, Hampstead, London
This Monday marked the start of Fairtrade Fortnight (21st February – 6th March.) This year, the focus of Fairtrade Fortnight is climate change, and the growing problems this poses to farmers and workers within the Fairtrade community.
Sunday 27th February, 11:30am-12.30pm– Hampstead Parish Church will be holding a Big Brew, with a Traidcraft stall, cakes, games and a raffle. http://www.stmaryshampstead.com/
Friday 4th March, 12pm-2pm – Fairtrade Afternoon Tea at Chef’s Restaurant, Croydon College, CR9 1DX. Book here!
Friday 4th March, 6pm – Zaytoun are taking part in an evening of inspiration and insight about Fairtrade and sustainability at P21 Gallery near Kings Cross. Book here.
How is climate change affecting the farmers that grow our food? What does that mean for all of us and how we can all help?
The threat to the future of many supply chains is very real and our planet’s farmers and agricultural workers are on the frontline of this global climate crisis. We must do everything to ensure they are not left behind and that they are indeed a part of the solution.
Dramatic weather patterns spurred by climate change will likely deliver severe blows to agricultural production in key regions around the world, from Latin America to the Asia-Pacific. Banana producers in the Caribbean and in Central America, for instance, are expected to face less rainfall and more extreme temperatures, while those in Southeast Asia and Oceania will see an increased risk of tropical cyclones. For their part, coffee producers in Brazil, Central America and South India could soon encounter temperature spikes combined with drought, directly impacting Fairtrade coffee production. Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic and Peru, as well as in parts of West Africa, cocoa farmers are likely to encounter more hot and dry weather periods, while their counterparts in eastern Ghana and northern Côte d’Ivoire may face heavier rains.
Other Fairtrade products are at risk too. Sugarcane producers in Southeast Asia may face increasing drought and heat stress. Similar conditions could soon afflict tea production in Asia and Africa as well, with producers across Asia and in Malawi and Tanzania predicted to be most severely impacted.
The Fairtrade and Climate ChangeReport, October 2021, produced by researchers from The Vrije University Amsterdam and Bern University of Applied Sciences, ahead of the UN Climate Conference COP26, points to the need for the international community to financially support farmers in adapting to climate change through context-specific approaches, ranging from agroforestry and improved shade tree management to mulching and crop diversification.
There are millions of people around the world who are working hard to grow the world’s food, earn a living, and protect the planet. But too often, unfair trade denies whole communities the chance to earn enough for essentials like medical care and decent food. So they can’t afford to adapt to the extreme weather climate change is already bringing.
That’s why it’s time to choose something better – it’s time to choose the world we want. This Fairtrade Fortnight, let’s celebrate the great work of farmers taking on the climate crisis.
And let’s take this chance stand with them by choosing Fairtrade, and speaking up about the chance we all have to build a fairer future. E.g Supporting Traidcraft
A few months ago, we were demanding a Fair Climate Promise at COP26. Over 33,000 campaigners joined 1.8m Fairtrade farmers and workers in backing the ‘Be Fair With Your Climate Promise’ challenge to world leaders at the UN COP26 summit.
And although the COP26 agreement should have gone much further, it did include vitalpromises to deliver important funding for farmers on the front-line of the climate crisis. Four months on from those promises, and as we prepare for Fairtrade Fortnight, it’s time for action.
The 1.7 million Fairtrade farmers only make up a fraction of the planet’s 500 million smallholder farmers, so we need to make sure that adequate funding for climate adaptation and best practices in fair trade are available to all.
The expertise of small-scale farmers is such a valuable tool in the fight against the climate crisis.
So let’s ask our MPs to do the right thing. Tell your representative to make sure that promised funding ends up in the hands of the real world leaders in taking on the climate crisis – the farmers and workers living with climate change every day.
Huge concern over the loss of Biodiversity in the natural world and a call for Churches to engage with the issue was explored at an online talk on 17 February. It was organised by the Livesimply group of St John Vianney parish in West Green, Westminster Diocese, a Livesimply award-winning parish.
Watch the talk
The speaker was eco-theologian Fr Sean McDonagh, who is now based in Ireland, but worked in the Philippines for two decades, particularly with the T’boli tribal people. His 2004 book, ‘The Death of Life,’ gave a prophetic warning about diminishing Biodiversity. Around 70 participants included parish priest Fr Joe Ryan and parishioners, representatives of the National Justice and Peace Network from other dioceses – including Clifton, Hexham and Newcastle, and Leeds – and some international friends from as far afield as Taiwan, Australia and the United States.
Fr Sean spoke of the international meeting in Kunming, China, in a few months’ time. This Conference of Parties (COP15) offers opportunities to make links between Biodiversity and issues raised in the Climate Change talks in Glasgow in November 2021 and with Pope Francis’ Encyclical entitled ‘Laudato Si – On Care for our Common Home’. It is hoped that strategies to stem the crisis of extinction will be devised.
Some countries which are poor economically and very susceptible to severe climate impacts are rich in species, such as the Philippines. Sean reported that Kew Gardens has information on 1.8 million species – but there could be 10 or 100 times that number, particularly in the world’s hotspots for diversity. Species are becoming extinct, largely because of habitat destruction, before they can be discovered. “We are living through the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago,” he warned, “and the cause is human activity.” Sean presented chilling statistics: 24% of large animals currently face extinction and 30% of birds. Water ecosystems are threatened and oceans increasingly polluted. He highlighted how important biodiversity is to human food security and health, quite apart from the right of other species to survive, which is a concern highlighted in the latest statement of the Filipino bishops on Ecology two weeks ago.
Sean hoped COP15 would get the same publicity and support as the COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow last November. He himself has engaged with the Irish government over its COP15 delegation and urged participants to dialogue with their own country representatives. Columban JPIC internationally is in talks with the UN coordinators and seeking accreditation to the meeting.
Sean called for Christian Churches to be sensitive to the challenge of mass extinction of species and to justice for future generations. Good stewardship is central to Christian tradition. “We need a pro-life theology” said Sean. He quoted the patron of the Columban missionaries, St Columban, who said, “if you wish to know the Creator, learn about Creation.” Laudato Si’ underlined this issue and its inclusion in Catholic Social Teaching in 2015. “The Church should be part of the debate,” he said.
Sean invited participants to look at issue of Biodiversity in the vicinity of their parishes and support environment and justice groups such as the RSPB and Birdwatch Ireland, which are protecting birds. On advocacy, he suggested challenging chemical agriculture. He also asked, “how can we live more simply?” and “how can we build a better understanding of the Seasons and Earth systems?” All this should link in with prayer and liturgy. He called on parishes and Catholic organisations to work though the Laudato Si’ encyclical and consider responses.
In the discussion, Colette Joyce of Westminster J&P reported that “for those who live in the South of England we have a Southern Dioceses Environment Network which meets monthly for prayer, input from speakers on a range of topics related to the care of creation, discussion and mutual support, with an accompanying monthly newsletter.” It is open to anyone and includes Diocesan and CAFOD staff as well as parishioners and clergy.
There was a general feeling that system change is needed in the area of economics and it would be great to see Church leaders speak out about this, as Pope Francis has done. Such structural change is needed to address both Biodiversity and the Climate Crisis. “We need to challenge an economic model based on relentless growth, consumption and profit” was one comment in the chat.
Daniel St Guillaume, Chair of the Livesimply group at West Green, chaired the meeting and reflected afterwards that the presentation, “reached an audience which may not have heard about Biodiversity and how it affects our daily lives.” He added that, “Fr Sean has encouraged us to go out and spread the word in our parishes.”
The #ShowTheLove campaign has been the perfect partner for February’s Westminster Earth Vigils.
In my experience Earth Vigils are beautiful and powerful places of prayer and have a positive impact on many people who walk by them
People of different faiths or of none are invited to simply ‘be’ in silence and solidarity with each other and with all God’s creation. Many of us who gather at the Westminster Vigil are Catholics motivated by our faith to contemplative action and prayer-witness’.
Details of Earth Vigils:
Every Wednesday 11am to 3pm outside Parliament – initiated originally by XR Faith Communities but open to anyone. https://www.earthvigil.co.uk/faqs/
Bishop John Wilson, delivering Racial Justice Sunday homily, 13th February 2022 – Photo: Marcin Mazur
The Archbishop of Southwark, Most Rev John Wilson gave the following homily in St George’s Cathedral, Southwark during the Racial Justice Sunday Mass on 13 February 2022.
Dear brothers and sisters, I don’t know who is more excited about today – me or Father Victor. I hope we’re all a little bit excited about this great celebration of the Holy Mass, but also with a focus today on our unity in Christ, our oneness in Christ.
It is an absolute joy to be able to welcome you to our cathedral today. our cathedral. It belongs to all of us.
We are people of different nationalities, people of different heritage together and only together we form parts of that wonderful mosaic that God has created, which we call humanity, which in the church we call the body of Christ.
We are one in Christ and one with each other.
You are my brother and my sister. We are brothers and sisters of each other.
And so on this Sunday when we focus especially on racial justice, we give thanks first to Almighty God for the rich and beautiful diversity of peoples and cultures which make up our world which make up our communities which make up this Archdiocese. I am proud to be the Bishop of a diocese that is so diverse and so rich.
Today, we affirm and celebrate the gift of every human life. Every human life, from its first moment in conception to its natural end at death. When the Lord Jesus commanded us to love one another he made no exceptions.
And neither can we. Neither should we.
When the Lord Jesus speaks about God’s kingdom in the Gospel we heard today, he announces a radical inversion of values.
Those who are poor, hungry, sorrowful, those oppressed. Those who so often in our world, have no value and no voice. These are the ones who are great in the kingdom of God.
What an important lesson this is for us to learn and to keep learning for how we live, the weakest, the poorest, those the world thinks as nothing. These are the ones who are great in the kingdom.
Our archdiocese is marvellously diverse. People in our parishes and schools represent a rich variety of culture of ethnic and racial backgrounds, from every country across the world.
There is a place for everyone in our church. And if you don’t like that, there’s the door.
You might think I’m joking. I’m not – there is a place for everyone in our church.
The diversity that we are is a gift.
The Catechism teaches us every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental rights on the grounds of sex, race, colour, social conditions, language or religion must be eradicated as incompatible with God’s design, to put it straightforwardly racism is incompatible with our faith.
There is and they can not be any place for racism, no place. But our faith does more than this. Our faith calls it calls us to be prophetic in our world.
To speak out with the values of God’s Kingdom to challenge racism, to eliminate its causes to heal the wounds it brings. And we each of us my brothers and sisters have a place to play in this, by making sure we think of every other person as someone worthy of respect by holding the rights and the equality and the sanctity of every human life and it is with great joy that in our diocese, we established our commission for promoting racial and cultural inclusion with Father Victor as its Episcopal vicar and it’s already working. It’s already making a difference to our parishes and our schools to challenge racism in all its forms.
Dear friends, if we think that racism is a thing of the past, then suddenly we need to think again.
It’s a present reality in our communities.
I was shocked the year before last I met with a group of young women young students from a school in our diocese, and I was shocked to listen to their experience of racism.
Through comments through insults through slurs through discrimination, alive and present today.
Racism is not a thing of the past, and therefore we cannot be silent about it. We cannot be silent about its existence, and we cannot be silent about its causes.
We must unite in Christ with other people of goodwill. We must unite in Christ, to work for justice. To speak out for equality for every person no matter what the colour of their skin is, no matter what language they speak. No matter where they come from, no matter what they look like.
My friends, it is our mission to continue to make our parishes and schools places where the gifts and the skills and the experience and the heritage of all people of every background honoured and valued and cherished and celebrated.
We will work to make our parishes and communities places where everyone is welcome where everyone is affirmed where everyone is encouraged. Where everyone is respected for the person God has created them to be and the person God is calling them to be.
We have in our church some inspiring examples of people who have spoken out, spoken out against slavery and work to overcome the sufferings of those enslaved. I want to name just two today. There are many others we need to learn of them because they’re truly inspirational.
The first is perhaps more familiar to us.
Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese woman sold into slavery and eventually brought to Rome where she was cared for by a community of religious sisters.
And she developed her own Christian faith and joined a religious community. She was such an outstanding example of what it means to live the values of the kingdom that in the year 2000 She was made a saint – Saint Josephine Bakhita.
I think of someone perhaps very few of us maybe only one other in this church today will know the name of Sister Dorothy Stang.
An American Sister of Notre Dame, who was martyred 17 years ago yesterday, the 12th of February 2005.
Why was she martyred? Because she upheld the rights and the dignity of indigenous peoples in Brazil.
The voices of all those in our church who have defended and protected people of different racial and cultural backgrounds, those voices must be alive in us. They must be.
Dear friends,
Are we one in Christ? nGive me some nodding heads please.
Are we one in Christ? We are one in Christ who is risen. Christ who is risen, who has overcome death, who has conquered sin and therefore we are people of hope. Are we not – people of hope? And as people as hope, one in Christ, we are committed to working side by side to consign racism to history.
And so, we pledge today, to continue journeying together into the future.
Bishop John Arnold, Bishop of Salford, was the guest speaker at the second meeting of the Southern Dioceses Environment Network, held at lunchtime today, 14th February 2022.
He talked to us about his experiences as the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales spokesman on the Environment and his attendance at the UN Climate Conference, COP26, in Glasgow. While much was achieved in that meeting, he was disappointed that there wasn’t a sense of commitment from the world leaders to make the changes needed for 1.5C and we could still have scenarios of 2C, 3C or even 4C. We’ve got to look to COP27 (in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 7-18 November 2022) to make more courageous efforts to introduce the changes that should have happened at COP26.
However, he told us as we look at the Church we should be pleased with the efforts of Pope Francis. “It was Laudato Si’ that really engaged so many people this time, pointing out real dangers and, as with everything he writes, it’s always a reminder that this isn’t for just institutions and bishops, it’s for each and every one of us. We, all of us, have got our part to play and he brings that gospel down to the individual level.” Our choices each and every day can make a difference.
Real interest has grown among our church members in the last few years, especially in our schools. He is pleased that Salford has started the Guardians of Creation project which will be helpful to all Dioceses, especially in matters of property where we can make changes in energy use as a large property owner. We all play a part in caring for our common home.
As it was Valentine’s Day, we also shared our Green Hearts and messages of hope on-screen during the meeting as part of The Climate Coalition’s annual #ShowTheLove campaign!
The next meeting of the Southern Dioceses Environment Network will be on Monday, 14th March 2022, 12.45-2.00pm. All welcome.
This developing network for all Catholics and our friends who care about creation meets monthly online.
Our guest speaker on 14th February is Bishop John Arnold is the Bishop of Salford and Lead Bishop for the Environment in England and Wales.
We are inspired by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching set out by Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Si’ and the teachings on care for the earth and one another found in the Scriptures.
Participants include CAFOD and Diocesan staff and volunteers, Laudato Si’ Animators, clergy, religious, parishioners and activists. Westminster Justice & Peace are the host organisation.
All are welcome.
For more details or to be added to the mailing list please message Colette Joyce, Westminster Justice and Peace Co-ordinator, colettejoyce@rcdow.org.uk or call her on 07593 434 905
On Zoom ‘Biodiversity’ talk by Columban Father, Fr Sean McDonagh, organised by St John Vianney Parish, West Green, Live Simply Group.
Fr McDonagh, a well known eco-theologian, will explore the importance for Catholics of protecting planetary biodiversity, ahead of an important UN Conference in Kunming, China, 25 April – 8 May. This Conference is the second part of COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference of Parties, and will consider how to protect all life on earth.
Fr Sean McDonagh is a Columban priest from Ireland who works to raise awareness on the connectedness between justice and peace issues, environmental sustainability and faith. He has spent 20 years in the Philippines where he witnessed first hand the impact of changing farming practices and loss of biodiversity in local rainforests.
Diocese of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission 