Tag: catholic

Bishop Nicholas Hudson Condemns Settler Attacks on West Bank Town of Taybeh

Bishop Nicholas Hudson

Source: CBCEW

Bishop Nicholas Hudson, Auxiliary Bishop in Westminster with responsibility for Justice and Peace, Chair of the International Affairs Department of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and Moderator of the Holy Land Coordination, has condemned the alarming escalation in settler violence taking place in the West Bank town of Taybeh.

On Tuesday, 8 July, priests representing the town’s three Christian churches issued a joint statement about the repeated attacks on their land, holy sites, and property. They reported an account of arson that threatened the 5th century church of Saint George (Al-Khadr), one of the oldest religious sites in Palestine, and highlighted an on-going campaign of violence and intimidation that impacts on the security and stability of Taybeh.

Bishop Nicholas Hudson learned about the challenges facing the town and the local community when he visited the Catholic Church of Christ the Redeemer in January as part of an international delegation of bishops meeting in the Holy Land.

He said: “Just six months ago, I was in Taybeh visiting what is now the last remaining entirely Christian town in the West Bank, as part of the annual Holy Land Co-ordination meeting.

“We were able to hear firsthand from Fr Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of the Church of Christ the Redeemer, about the extreme pressure being placed on the local community by Israeli settlers acting with impunity.

“In recent days we have learned of an alarming escalation in settler violence and intimidation that is going unchecked by the authorities. The local churches have appealed to the international community for help and solidarity, and we wish them to know that we have heard their cry. We strongly condemn these attacks and all acts of intimidation perpetrated against civilians in Taybeh and across the West Bank, and we urge the relevant authorities to take decisive action to prevent such incidents from happening again.

“Taybeh, or ‘Ephraim’ as it is known in the Bible, holds deep significance to Christians. These deliberate and repeated attacks are a violation of human dignity and international law in a place that once offered shelter to Christ himself.

“The Palestinian Christians we encountered in January stressed to us that all they want to do is live and work in peace in their own lands, without the paralysing restriction of movement placed upon them, so they can provide for their families and live side-by-side with their neighbours.

“We encourage the Catholic faithful in England and Wales to pray for the suffering Christians and all those affected by this violence in the West Bank. Equally, we invite all people of goodwill to raise their voices in the face of oppression and injustice, urging our leaders to use their influence to bring an end to this persecution.

“It is important to echo the cry of the Taybeh church leaders when they say that the Holy Land cannot remain alive without its indigenous people. As they say, ‘Forcibly removing farmers from their land, threatening their churches, and encircling their towns is a wound to the living heart of this nation’. We stand in solidarity with the Christians of Taybeh and the wider Holy Land, who have a right to live in safety and security. With them, we have faith that truth with justice will prevail.”

Read the full statement by the priests of the churches of Taybeh: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/52772

4 June 2025: Austen Ivereigh Speaks to the Northern and Southern Catholic Environment Groups

A very special combined event was hosted by the Southern Dioceses Environment Network and the Northern Dioceses Environment Group on 4th June 2025 to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis Papal Encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ – On the Care of Our Common Home (2015).

Colette Joyce (Westminster) and Mark Wiggin (Salford) facilitated the meeting, with prayers led by Bernadette Jordan (Salford) and Siân Thomas-Cullinan (Brentwood).

We calculated that approximately 115 people registered for the event and we estimate 95 attended.

Our guest speaker, Austen Ivereigh, is a well-known Catholic journalist, writer and commentator with a special relationship with Pope Francis.

Austen helped us to reflect on where we have come in the last ten years and what we are being called to do in the next ten.

The publication of the papal encyclical Laudato Si‘ in 2015 galvanised Catholics around the world and in every country to unite with those of all other faiths and none in the common cause of caring for our home planet and all the people on it. Pope Francis urged us to integrate questions of justice into our debates on the environment, ‘so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ – for they are one and the same thing. (LS, 49). 

Austen deepened our reflection on the method that Pope Francis adopts to respond to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, using a broad SEE-JUDGE-ACT model. The first stage is to enter the crisis and open our eyes to places where there is pain and suffering. What is happening to our Earth? The second task is discernment: finding where God’s action can be seen and what frustrates God’s action. The third was to move to proposals for action in line with the Kingdom, confident that what is aligned with the arc of the Kingdom is never wasted.

He suggested that the Laudato Si’ apostolate can be considered as enabling these three tasks: (a) helping people to see what is happening to our Earth and to help people experience grief and the desire to repent; (b) helping people enter into an understanding of what is happening (as does Laudato Si’ in chapters three and four); and (c) enabling processes of synodal discernment that move through these two stages into concrete actions.

A full report by Ellen Teague can be found here on Independent Catholic News

Supplementary Reading

AI – Artificial Intelligence and the Church https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html

Synodality – The Vatican’s Final Document on the recent world-wide process: https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/news/2024-10-26_final-document/ENG—Documento-finale.pdf 

Austen Ivereigh’s Publications Include:

  • The Great Reformer- Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope (2014). Biography of Pope Francis.
  • Let Us Dream (2020). Pope Francis reflection on what we learnt during the Covid pandemic.
  • First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis (2024). An eight-day Ignatian retreat drawing on the wisdom of Pope Francis and the spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Pope Francis and St Ignatius encourage us recognise our triple belonging: to God, to Creation and one another.

LINKS

Austen Ivereigh Website

Southern Dioceses Environment Network

Northern Dioceses Environment Group

Opening prayer: Bernadette Jordan (Diocese of Salford)

Adapted from a prayer by David Kossoff in ‘You have a minute, Lord?’ 1977

Lord, a word.
It’s about the world.
Your world that you made in six days,
Resting on the seventh and being pleased with your work.
And rightly so Lord.
It is a beautiful world you made.
Beautiful.
Well, Lord, it’s getting dirty.
We’re dirtying it, Lord.
You made the seas and the creatures therein, Lord.
And we are choking the creatures
with filth and oil, Lord.
You made all the creatures that
fly and swim and live on land.
And you looked on them and said, ‘Good.’
Well Lord, there’s quite a few
You wouldn’t be able to find.
Extinctions have happened and are happening right now.
We try to improve on your work, Lord.
We make a lot of noise and a lot of smoke.
And a lot of what are called waste-products.
Pollutants, Lord. Effluents and such.
Wonderful gifts you have given us, Lord.
Riches beyond imagination
Now we have the fastest roads and
The fastest cars and the fastest planes.
But sometimes we don’t stop to see the wonders
that are with us every day.
Every Spring you make it all new again, Lord,
Every summer it all grows.
Every autumn you show us colours to
Catch the breath, to swell the heart.
Every winter you remind us of your presence.
We need reminding, Lord.
We litter the place.
We clash with the colours.
And worse, to be quite honest, Lord,
A lot of us don’t notice.

Reflection from Bernadette
Pope Francis raised our awareness in his encyclical Laudato Si’ and coming together in celebration gives us hope. The natural world springs back new each year on Earth’s untrodden ground. This fills me with gratitude and thanksgiving. We are called to Hope that is linked to love and to a sense of responsibility for those who come after us. Lord, let us tread lightly on the Earth by reducing our demands and living simply.

Closing Prayer: Siân Thomas-Cullinan (Brentwood Diocese)

Loving God, as we close this time together,
we pause to recognise Your presence among us.

In our conversations, in our questions, and in our
shared commitment to care for this beautiful, fragile world
we carry with us the vision of Laudato Si’
A vision of a world
where the earth is treated not as a resource to be used,
but as a gift to be cherished.

A world where the dignity of every person is honoured,
where the vulnerable are protected,
and where justice and sustainability walk hand in hand.

Together, we hold onto the hope of a world that is fairer,
greener, and more deeply connected, where communities flourish,
creation is respected, and future generations can live with joy and peace.

As we step back into our daily lives, give us the imagination to dream big,
the courage to act boldly, and the grace to stay rooted in love for You,
for each other, and for our common home. Amen

Meals for Central London Catholic Churches Homeless Project Provided by Exclusive Mayfair Club

Clemente Attolico and colleagues with the delicious lunches they are taking to Farm Street.

By Nathalie Raffray

A prestigious Private Members Club in the heart of Mayfair has got involved with a project providing meals to people living on the streets.

Mark’s Club, in Charles Street, is one of several exclusive clubs to offer food donations to a homeless lunch project organised by the Central London Catholic Churches.

Annabel’s, George and Harry’s Bar, similarly exclusive clubs with a VIP list closed to most people, have also got involved, joining five-star hotels including the Connaught, Claridges and the Mandarin Oriental.

Set up in 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and supported by Westminster City Council, the homeless lunch service is run from Farm Street Church twice a week and can serve up to 180 people.

Clemente Attolico at Mark’s Club, told ICN that they heard about the project through Harry’s Bar.

They offer a variety of food, depending on the availability of the produce in the kitchen.

Clemente added: “We simply got involved so that we could participate more actively in our community’s wellbeing. A lot of properties were helping and it was only fair for us to participate as well. We are a small club, but we try to do our part.”

Father Dominic Robinson, parish priest at Farm Street church, said: “I’m so grateful to all the clubs for coming on board. It makes this such a wonderful community project which shows that a neighbourhood as wealthy as Mayfair also has a heart for the poorest.”

Besides the homeless lunch, served in the Arrupe Hall, the London Jesuit Centre, 114 Mount Street, also hosts the Cana Lounge Café downstairs where they serve tasty treats, hearty soups, sandwiches and hot cooked meals on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 11am and 2.30pm.

All items are offered for a reasonable recommended donation. All Café staff are volunteers, typically homeless or unemployed. The café’s mission is to help leverage skill development to get folks back into employment. Come and be a part of their journey. All food is made and prepared onsite. Daily specials, always fresh!

Takeaway and catering services are also available. For more details see links below.

LINKS

Farm Street Church: www.farmstreet.org.uk/

Cana Cafe: www.farmstreet.org.uk/cana-cafe

Mark’s Club: https://marksclub.co.uk/

Bishop Curry says that when Christians pray for peace in the Holy Land, it can be both supplication and a cry of protest

Photo: CBCEW

Bishop Jim Curry is an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Westminster

Bishop Jim Curry, the Lead Bishop for the Holy Land for the Bishops’ Conference, has joined our former Middle East North Africa consultant, Dr Harry Hagopian, as a special guest on his monthly Middle East Analysis podcast. Contributing to a discussion on Gaza, the West Bank and the wider region of the Holy Land, Bishop Curry said that when Christians pray for peace, it can be both supplication and a cry of protest.

“Obviously, the Christian always wants to pray, and we can’t just dismiss prayer as fanciful. Prayer is a cry of protest as well as supplication,” says Bishop Curry. “The fact that we can pray in our churches publicly for the situation in Palestine and Gaza, in the West Bank, that we remember our Christian brothers and sisters and the wider community is important. So we can’t ever dismiss it.”

Bishop Curry also spoke about the Christian presence in the Holy Land as foundational and a vital part of the rich tapestry of the region:

“One of our fundamental tenets is to go on pilgrimage, because these lands are holy to us, they are holy to the Jews, and to Muslims. Christians have been part of the mosaic of those lands for over 2,000 years, they belong there. They’re not interlopers. They’ve built schools, they’ve built churches, they’ve built communities. So going to visit them is important for us. When we last visited [for the Holy Land Coordination], we were able to visit Bethlehem, Beit Jala, where the Latin Patriarch has a seminary, Aboud, and Taybeh. We were able to show that they are not forgotten. But I’m always conscious that afterwards, we walk away. We walk away and leave communities to struggle with lack of access to jobs, to security, to freedom of movement.”

The Bishop also shared his first impressions of the Palestinian city Ramallah, the administrative capital, that he visited in January 2025 as part of the Holy Land Coordination meeting, organised by the Bishops’ Conference:

“I’d never been to Ramallah, and as I looked around as we entered the city I saw a peaceful, busy, bustling city with cafes and buses, restaurants and shops, and people about their business.

“It was a warm day, with a blue sky, and I thought ‘that’s what normality looks like’. People don’t run away from normality. We were asking ourselves, ‘what would normality look like?’ And there we saw it. Someone whispered into my ear, ‘You should have seen Gaza. It was bigger and more well-organised’. Now all we see are these images of rubble and people being displaced – hungry and frightened. I’d seen a different reality in Ramallah, a place that worked. I’m sure people complain about the services there, but I saw something different and it stayed with me.”

In the face of conflict, death, destruction and extreme hardship, Bishop Curry offers a suggestion to enable us to cling to a shard of hope:

“What can we do? We can go on advocating that normality is possible, that people can live well together. People want to live well together… Everywhere we went, we heard this plea, ‘We just want to live normal lives. We want jobs, we want our kids to go to school, we want them to be able to play their part in this land when they come back after university’. It still comes back to me, that image of what normality is. People don’t run away from normality.”

He reserved special praise and heart-felt prayers for the small Catholic community of the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza:

“They are giving a witness to the possibility that our despair can’t be the final word about the human situation. That little community there, the Holy Family in Gaza, they are a living sign that human beings can live together, and they can work together for each other’s good.”

Listen

You can listen to the full June 2025 episode of Middle East Analysis on the Catholic Bishops’ website or on Soundcloud.

Bishop Hudson says peacebuilding is a vital aspect of international security

Source: CBCEW

Bishop Nicholas has responsibility for Justice & Peace in the Diocese of Westminster

In response to the government’s recently announced Strategic Defence Review, Bishop Nicholas Hudson, Chair of the International Affairs Department at CBCEW, expressed the strong hope that the government will not neglect international peacebuilding efforts.  

Bishop Hudson said: “I understand that the government has a very difficult decision to make given the current fiscal position and international environment.” 

“However, if defence spending is to increase, it should not be at the expense of other ways of promoting peace and justice. Peacebuilding is a vital aspect of international security that must not be sacrificed to an increased emphasis on defence.” 

Earlier this month the government announced the review, with wide-ranging measures, including building 12 attack submarines and a commitment to raise defence spending to 2.5% by 2027-28 with the aim of 3% by the next parliament. 

Bishop Hudson added: “It is important to ensure that the expansion of military funding does not result in the diversion of resources away from foreign aid and support for the world’s poorest people. Without a balanced investment in diplomacy, multilateralism, and assistance to the poor as vital means of securing peace, we risk deepening the very crises we seek to prevent. 

“I also hope that the UK approaches the development of autonomous weapon systems with great caution, always upholding the principle that machines must never replace human moral judgment or responsibility in matters of life and death.

“I urge our government leaders to remember that true security comes not only from strength, but also from compassion and active peacebuilding.” 

Read the Catholic Bishops’ document on disarmament and the ethical use of weapons:

 ‘Called to Be Peacemakers’

Walking the Westminster Way

Westminster Justice and Peace Pilgrims arriving at Westminster Cathedral. Photo: RCDOW

“Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life. In the coming year, pilgrims of hope will surely travel the ancient and more modern routes in order to experience the Jubilee to the full.” (Spes Non Confundit, 5)

A group from Westminster Justice and Peace completed the Westminster Way Pilgrimage for the Holy Year on Thursday 29th May 2025, the Feast of the Ascension.

Setting out from English Martyrs Roman Catholic Church, 30 Prescot Street, London, E1 8BB, at 11.00am, the pilgrims visited five other churches along the way, finishing with Westminster Cathedral at around 4.15pm.

At each station we heard reflected on saints connected to London and the inspiration they continue to be for us today – St John Houghton and The Carthusian Martyrs of the Reformation, the missionary St Augustine of Canterbury, St Anne Line who sheltered priests and held secret Masses in her home during the Elizabethan persecution, St Erconwald, St Ethelburga and St Etheldreda, the scholars of the 7th Century who brought learning and education to both men and women, and St John Henry Newman whose own spiritual journey of conversion and prophetic sense of the nature of the Church had a profound influence on the 20th century leading up to the Second Vatican Council.

We also passed by the Tower of London and stood sombrely on the site of the scaffold where St John Fisher and St Thomas More were executed, among others.

As we were walking during Laudato Si’ Week, pilgrim leader Colette Joyce also invited pilgrims to reflect on the flora and fauna of London as we went along. London is a surprisingly green city, blessed with around twenty percent tree coverage – which makes it technically a forest! We are especially grateful to the Victorians who planted the ubiquitous London Plane trees which can be found in streets and parks all over the city, while there are over 400 other species of tree to discover.

“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God… contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us.” (Laudato Si’, 84-85)

On arrival at the Cathedral, the weary walkers were greeted by the Cathedral Dean, Fr Slawomir Witoń. We ended our pilgrimage with prayers in the Martyrs Chapel and a reflection from Fr Slawomir on the life and witness of St John Southworth, patron saint of clergy in the Diocese of Westminster.

The pilgrims received the final stamp in their Pilgrim Passports and a blessing before returning home.

The Westminster Way

Event Report: Artificial Intelligence, Faith and Ethics at a Crossroads

l-r: Fr Michael Baggot, Jen Copestake, Fr Dominic Robinson, Dr Karen Singarayer, Matthew Sanders. Image: Diocese of Westminster

Dr Philip Crispin

From the outset of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has explained how the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) inspired the choice of his papal name.

Speaking to the College of Cardinals after his election, he said: “I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”

“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice, and labour.”

With serendipitous timing, the Catholic Union, in collaboration with Farm Street Church, Mayfair, hosted a panel discussion last Sunday 18th May entitled ‘AI, Faith and Ethics at a Crossroads: Discerning the Way Forward’ which explored the moral and spiritual challenges in this time of technological transformation. The event was convened and chaired by Farm Street Parish Priest, Fr Dominic Robinson SJ.

In her opening remarks, Dr Karen Singarayer, Vice-Chair of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, highlighted the opportunities and risks of the development of AI. She said: “The artificial intelligence revolution holds both promise and peril. The AI revolution seems to be impacting not only manual labourers but also professionals. The written word, once the exclusive realm of the human mind, is now increasingly the domain of machines. Video and audio too are more and more frequently AI-generated. Professions that long commanded social respect as learned or creative vocations now seem vulnerable in the face of the machine.”

She added: “These developments prompt us to ask difficult questions – what does it mean to be truly present to another human being? How are relationships, education, healthcare, and even evangelisation being reshaped by the advent of AI?”

Dr Singarayer paid tribute to the late Pope Francis as the leading moral voice regarding AI. He was ever mindful of the common good she said and noted his warning about the catastrophic consequences of allowing instruments of war to develop way beyond human oversight.

Jen Copestake, Correspondent at China Global Television Network Europe, said: “AI is no longer a matter of speculation; it is deeply embedded in all of our lives. We stand at a crossroads-not just technological, but moral and philosophical. As AI becomes more capable, present and even humanlike, the question is not just what it can do, but what should we do.”

She pointed to the pitfalls of AI which was not always programmed to embrace human diversity and posed the question whether soul-less machines with no human history could replicate human empathy and dignity.

Ms Copestake cited a prediction that, by 2030, 375 million workers globally would be forced to migrate or ‘transition’ and recollected that in Laudato Si Pope Francis had insisted that technological change should never render a person obsolete.

She spoke of the “seismic effect” of a predicted 70 per cent of jobs being transformed by AI and the imperative of protecting workers and the meaning behind the work they did which might, as Pope Francis had pondered, necessitate the move to introducing a universal basic income in order to preserve human dignity.

Furthermore, she continued, it was necessary to work upon improving the ecological impact of AI which was dependent on massive energy consumption. According to Catholic social teaching on ethical stewardship, harnessing the world’s resources should be sustainable not extractive.

Speaking on AI’s use in Evangelisation, Matthew Harvey Sanders, CEO of Longbeard, Creator of Magisterium AI, said: “What we found is that there’s a lot of people out there who aren’t ready to step into a church and talk to a priest or share their concerns, but they are ready to test their problem, their query out on a chatbot. . . . This isn’t a question of trying to replace the priest at all. It’s just recognizing where people are at. . . . We’ve seen testimonials of people who started a journey to the church or had misconceptions clarified. It’s been a beautiful project.”

He hailed the accelerated polyglot digitization of the Church’s library holdings and the World’s first Catholic language AI model Ephrem designed to offer deep insights into the teachings of the Church.

Fr Michael Baggot, Professor of Theology at Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, spoke about how the Church is founded upon relationship, with God and each other. He said: “We are masters of communion. We are masters of relationship. We follow a God of relationship, not a solitary God, but a God who is eternal exchange of interpersonal love. If we’re made in the image of that God, we are called into being by a God of communion for communion-with that God and with the other persons made in the image of that God. We were made for interpersonal communion.”

The Church, he said, is “expert in humanity'” adding “I hope we know how to accompany people and their most profound needs.”

He warned against the abuses of AI’s virtual world, seductive and damaging as it moved from an attention economy to an affection economy but was lacking in compassion and an interior life.

Fr Baggot warned, too, against the possibility of “outsourcing” moral agency. While AI worked with data and statistical patterns it should never replace human responsibility. The Church insisted on equity, sexual and racial, he said.

Responding to audience questions, the panel hoped that greater efficiency through AI could liberate from certain forms of toil but feared that job losses could lead to social unrest and scapegoating. They feared, too, information overdrive and saturation.

AI should never replace the gift of humanity and personhood, underscored by the fundamental truth of the incarnational God, who took on our human flesh and blood, and served ‘fleshly’ human beings. Rather AI should be based upon human wisdom. Now was the time for discernment.

Watch the entire event HERE.

Read: Caritas Westminster Annual Review 2024

Source: Caritas Westminster

Caritas Westminster has announced the publication of their Annual Review for 2024, showcasing their areas of service and achievements from the previous year.

Richard Harries, Director of Caritas Westminster, commented: “2024 marked my first full year as the new Director of Caritas Westminster, and it gives me great pleasure to share with you the many milestones we achieved together over the course of the year.

“The Annual Review offers an overview of our efforts to serve the most vulnerable and empower charity in our communities. It brings together the many strands of our work, which ranges from direct services to enabling social action in diocesan parishes and schools. It also includes compelling stories from the people and communities supported, as well as significant events and highlights from 2024.

“Caritas Westminster’s direct services include a safe house for survivors of trafficking and exploitation, support for the Deaf Community and those with intellectual disabilities, a start-up hub for social impact entrepreneurs, financial aid, and resources to tackle domestic abuse.

“Caritas Westminster also strives to be the ‘voice of charity’ within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster, facilitating voluntary service and social action. The Caritas Community Development team offers expertise, network links and project management support to help parishes and schools start or grow charitable initiatives that address the needs of their local communities.”

Highlights from the Annual Review include:

– 47,500 people supported by social action projects run by diocesan parishes and schools
– Recognising outstanding volunteers at the ‘Love in Action’ Volunteering Awards
– 2,964 miles travelled by the Caritas Deaf Service team for liturgies and events in British Sign Language
– Celebrating ‘Achievement Day’ at Caritas St Joseph’s
– 128 therapists and counselling professionals trained by Safe in Faith
– 50 businesses supported by Seeds Hub
– 30 women passed through the doors of Caritas Bakhita House

Bishop Paul McAleenan, Chair of Caritas Westminster, said: “This Annual Review recounts the activities of Caritas Westminster; may it also inspire us in our journey of faith and service as we read of Christ’s work being carried out in our midst.”

Read the Annual Review 2024 here:  https://caritaswestminster.org.uk/annual-review-2024/

Bishop Jim Curry: The Suffering in Gaza Must End

Bishop Jim Curry (r). Photo: Mazur/cbcew.org.uk

Source: CBCEW

Auxiliary Bishop in Westminster and Lead Bishop for the Holy Land for the Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Jim Curry, has echoed Pope Leo XIV’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza1:

“This is a humanitarian disaster. Desperately needed aid supplies must be allowed into Gaza to be urgently distributed to civilians. The human cost is intolerably high with tens of thousands of weary, regularly displaced people threatened with starvation. We need an immediate ceasefire to end the suffering.

“As Pope Leo said at his first General Audience2, children, the elderly and the sick are paying a very heavy price, and I would echo the Holy Father’s heartfelt appeal for ‘dignified’ humanitarian aid to be allowed to pass into Gaza – not just an inadequate trickle of food and supplies that has been promised in recent days.”

Bishop Curry also referenced Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s joint statement, with the leaders of Canada and France, on the situation in Gaza, released on 19 May:

“International humanitarian law has to be respected and a viable pathway to de-escalation and peace sought by Israel and Hamas, supported by the international community,” said Bishop Curry.

“The remaining hostages in Gaza, held for 19 months since the Hamas terror attack on 7 October, must be released to put an end to their suffering and that of their families. I welcome the statement by the UK Prime Minister and the leaders of France and Canada, particularly the assertion that the best hope of achieving this and alleviating the pain and hardship facing the civilians in Gaza is to work tirelessly for a long-term political solution.

“It is important not to lose sight of the legitimate right of Palestinians to self-determination. The Church has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to enable Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side in peace.”

Bishop Curry said he was also praying for the Christians of Gaza:

“I continue to pray for Fr Gabriel Romanelli and the Christian community sheltering in the compound of the Holy Family Church, north of the Wadi. It is a humbling inspiration to all of us outside the conflict zone to witness their strength of faith in the Risen Christ, and how they continue to lead a humble sacramental life despite the incredible hardship and distress they are facing.”

Bishop Jim Curry is the Lead Bishop for the Holy Land for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and is a member of the Department for International Affairs.

References 

1 Pope Leo XIV, first Regina Coeli address, Sunday, 11 May 2025.

2 Pope Leo XIV, first General Audience, Wednesday, 21 May 2025.

Bishop McAleenan Responds to Government White Paper on Immigration

Photo: Mazur/cbcew.org.uk

Source: CBCEW

Following the recent publication of the government’s White Paper on immigration, Bishop Paul McAleenan, Lead Bishop for Migrants and Refugees, called on the government to reconsider the important role of immigration in shaping our shared history, and highlighted the vital contribution of those in low-wage, low-skilled employment.

Bishop McAleenan said:

“Whilst the Government’s commitment to skills training and education is understandable, I urge the government to carefully consider its approach to so-called ‘low-skilled work’ which is often carried out by those who come from abroad.

“We must remember the words of Pope Francis in Fratelli tutti, written in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic: ‘…our lives are interwoven with and sustained by ordinary people valiantly shaping the decisive events of our shared history: doctors, nurses, pharmacists, storekeepers and supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caretakers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety, volunteers, priests and religious… They understood that no one is saved alone.’

“The essential work carried out every day by people in low-paid, low-skilled roles must be recognised and valued. For many migrants, such jobs are the first step on the way to becoming fully integrated into our society. Without their contribution, dedication and hard work, our hospitals, schools, and care homes might not be able to function. The Catholic Church in England and Wales has been enriched by migrants throughout its recent history. Our ethnic chaplaincies, eparchies and schools have been models of integration.

“I also appeal to our political leaders, of all parties, whom we have entrusted with shaping the future of our country, to refrain from using rhetoric that risks sowing mistrust, fear, or division. Such language is unhelpful and serves only to create unnecessary fractures within our communities.

“To our Catholic community and all people of goodwill, I encourage you to welcome migrants into your communities with open hearts, offering friendship and support. In doing so, we help ensure that no one is left behind, undervalued or made to feel isolated.”