Fr Dominic Robinson SJ – Homily for Palm Sunday

April 15, 2025

*Ecumenical Blessing of Palms, Mount Street Gardens*
Photo: Luis Appiah

Fr Dominic Robinson, Chair of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, delivered this homily at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Mayfair on Palm Sunday:

Hosanna… the Messiah has arrived to save us, but come Wednesday the fear, doubt, betrayal… condemnation… death on a cross… we turn on our saviour and crucify him.

Where are we in this crowd?

Maybe take that away with us this weekend – what is my reaction as the baying crowd hails the King’s entry into the city and then turns on him?

Where am I in any crowd?

I find myself asking that question often and regularly. In a world where we’re expected to believe that some things cannot change, where the injustice of abject poverty amid outrageous wealth is just taken as an economic necessity, where I sit on my hands at the suggestion I can do something to save our planet from disaster, when I shrug my shoulders and say I’ve done all I can to write to my MP to plead for more time and discernment on assisted suicide, when I say I don’t understand the conflict in the Middle East and leave it to the experts, when I say let’s continue to pray for vocations to ministry and they will come, when I say the Churches are really united in a diversity that’s actually good, when I say the abuse crisis in the Church has nothing to do with me.

Being in the crowd means responsibility. The crowd lulls us into a herd mentality to go with whatever the person next to me is saying or thinking. And Christ ends up crucified because good people were complicit in bad deeds.

The Church, that is all of us wanting to walk together as pilgrims towards the heavenly city again in this Jubilee Year, embarks on this painful journey again, accompanying each other, striving yet again to listen better to the signs of our times, to discern the way forward. At our heart are the poorest, the weakest, those without a voice, loved especially by the God who embraces death all the way to the tomb.

Hosanna to this Messiah is our anthem this morning. Only the passage of time will lead us to what that Hosanna really means.

LINK

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

Fr Dominic Robinson Signs Letter of Protest over Police Raid on London Quaker Meeting House

April 7, 2025

A group of West End Christian church leaders from different denominations have written a letter to the government and Mayor of London expressing their grave concerns over the violent police raid on the Westminster Quaker Meeting House. The full text of their letter follows:

Rachel Blake MP
Sir Keir Starmer, MP
Yvette Cooper MP, Home Secretary
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

As Christian clergy responsible for parishes and churches in the West End of London, we are writing to you as our two constituency members of Parliament, Home Secretary and Mayor to express our deep concerns about the police raid at the Westminster Quaker Meeting House on 27 March.

We lead work in buildings that, like the Quaker Meeting House, include a variety of activities: worship, meals for those in need, mental health counselling, classes, community group meetings, 12-step programmes, rehearsals, private staff residences, and commercial hires. We also host, whether as a part of our expression of faith or an act of hospitality, conversations and meetings on issues of social justice and global concerns.

The actions of the police at the Quaker Meeting House on 27 March could have happened to any of us.

Without knocking or ringing the bell, the police forced entry into the Meeting House, causing property damage to a historic building. Into a community space deeply committed to non-violence and pacificism, officers armed with tasers entered to control and intimidate. After showing unnecessary force toward a meet-up for people exploring non-violent social action, police then intruded upon and disrupted other events happening simultaneously at the Meeting House, including a life-drawing class, therapy sessions and staff working and living on site, seizing property such as phones and computers.

This incident has caused great fear and alarm in the Quaker community, who have historically represented a voice for peace and compassion for all. We stand with them in their sense of shock and violation. We share their distress, knowing that the same force could be directed against our own ministries and the community groups hosted in our buildings.

This is not an acceptable police response to a peaceable assembly of any kind, whether in church, mosque, synagogue or community centre.

We ask you to clearly condemn the police actions on 27 March, and reassure us that clear measures will be taken to ensure there are no future incidents of disproportionate and inappropriate police responses in places of worship and community centres.

Faithfully,

Rev Simon Buckley, Rector, St Anne’s Church Soho
and Area Dean of Westminster (St Margaret’s) Deanery

Rev Jared Jaggers, Associate Minister,
American International Church

Rev Jennifer Mills-Knutsen, Senior Minister,
American International Church

Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Parish Priest,
Farm Street Church of the Immaculate Conception.

Rev Dr Simon Woodman, Minister,
Bloomsbury Baptist Church

Jubilee Year: Mass for Migrants at Westminster Cathedral – 5 May 2025, 2.00pm

April 4, 2025April 9, 2025

Invitation to attend the Mass for Migrants

In this special Jubilee Year, you are warmly invited to join the three ‘London’ Dioceses of Brentwood, Southwark and Westminster for the annual Mass for Migrants on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th May 2025 at Westminster Cathedral, starting at 2.00pm with a procession of banners.

This year the Mass is hosted by the Diocese of Westminster at Westminster Cathedral.

The Mass for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker is prepared by the Justice & Peace Commissions, Caritas and Ethnic Chaplaincies of the three Dioceses and celebrates the contributions made to faith, life and work in the UK by all those who come from other countries to make a home here.

Music will be provided by musicians from the Lourdes Mass and a variety of Ethnic Chaplaincy choirs. We will also be joined by community organisers from London Citizens

Our celebrant and preacher this year is Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald MAfr OBE. Cardinal Fitzgerald is a British Cardinal who headed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 2002 to 2006. He has held the rank of archbishop since 2002 and was apostolic nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League, prior to his retirement in 2012. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal on 5 October 2019. He is one of the leading experts on Islam, Christian–Muslim relations and interreligious dialogue in the international Catholic Church. He is fluent in Arabic.

Parishes and Catholic organisations are welcome to bring banners for the procession. Everyone is invited to wear national dress. Those taking part in the procession are invited to arrive from 1.30pm where light refreshments will be provided and a locked space in which to leave possessions during the Mass.

Do come along and bring the family, whether you are from a migrant background or not! It is always a colourful and a lively occasion.

Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Chair of the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, writes:

“We truly hope that you can join us and we can fill the Cathedral on this day when we give thanks to God for the universal gift of work and for the huge contribution of migrants to our city. This annual event is such an important one in our Churches’ calendar as it represents the presence and involvement of so many Catholics from diverse ethnic communities, a mark of our true catholicity.

And at a time when we see a reluctance or hostility to truly welcome the stranger in our midst, this gathering takes on a prophetic role too as we are called to celebrate with great enthusiasm our diverse musical gifts, national dress, our cultural diversity in all its richness, and so witness to the dignity of every human person and the dignity of fulfilling work as a gift from God for all”.