'Act justly, Love tenderly, walk humbly with your God'
Micah 6.8
All posts by Stephen Cooke
NW NJPN E BULLETIN OCTOBER 2023
The October issue of the NW NJPN E BULLETIN leads with news of Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s latest comments concerning refugees and asylum seekers and an urgent action request by the campaigning group Safe Passage. Other articles feature Black History Month; Pope Francis’ new Apostolic Exhortation on the climate crisis Laudate Deum (Praise God), released ahead of COP28 in Dubai next month, and a challenging poem by Norman MacCaig inspired by St Francis of Assisi whose Feast Day, 4 October, marks the end of Creation Time. Journalist Joseph Kelly reflects on the Synod on Synodality and also on the underlying causes of knife crime in the aftermath of recent attacks. We reproduce an excellent editorial from Together for the Common Good (do look at the many articles, podcasts and events on offer on their website) as well as highlighting Challenge Poverty Week (16-22 October). News in today announces that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi.
I hope that you have had a good September, and have managed to celebrate the Season of Creation in some way. It seems bizarre to think that whilst members of communities all around the country are trying to do things to help the climate in their own little way, we have a Government that seems to be reneging on their climate promises. More about that in the Climate Section below – and I make no apologies that again the main focus is on the Climate.
We have a very important Action of the Week with a deadline of this Thursday, the 5th October at 12 Noon. Please note it is for senior and local UK Church leaders from any denomination or independent church, as well as open to members of UK Catholic and Anglican religious orders, heads of lay communities and senior leaders of UK-based Christian charities.
Last Saturday we gathered in Birmingham for our Open Networking Day on The Windrush Generation. It was a very interesting day, and Ann Farr’s report on it is linked below. To me, though, the great thing about these days is meeting with like-minded people and hearing about the good work that is going on elsewhere. There is always something to be learned from both the speakers and the attendees.
The next edition will again be in three weeks time, around the weekend of the 14th/15th October. If you are wanting anything advertised in the next edition, please make sure that I receive the information by Friday 13th October. Many thanks to those of you who send articles in.
The NW NJPN E BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2023 highlights the next NJPN Networking Day to be held in Birmingham on Saturday 23 September with a focus on the 75th anniversary of Windrush. Our guest will be Rev. Canon Eve Pitts who will speak of the experiences of people from the Caribbean and the issues of racial justice that we still need to address today. Rev. Eve was the first black woman vicar in the Church of England and is a long-standing campaigner for racial justice.
Closer to home, Lancaster Diocese Faith and Justice Commission are hosting a Care for Creation event on Saturday 7 October.
50 years after General Pinochet’s military coup in Chile, renowned political artist Peter Kennard is re-staging the photomontage he created in response to the violence that ensued – his 1985 exhibition of that work at London’s Barbican Arts Centre was subject to censorship at that time because a meeting between Pinochet’s financial officials and British bankers was taking place there. Peter is now showing the exhibition in London from 12-23 September – read his chilling account, click on the images and go to see them if you can.
There are many events in the J&P Calendar taking place nationally and across the NW in the coming weeks plus the exciting news that Manchester University has appointed the first-ever Professor of Comparative and Ukrainian Politics in the UK and the wider English-speaking world. Schools news feature the latest Columban Media Competition 2023-2024 on the theme ‘Biodiversity Matters’ plus a conference in Liverpool on 13 October run by Catholic Education Service (CES), Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN), and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).
We’re back! Thank you for your patience during this time. It has been a very busy few weeks, but the Conference is now a distant, but very good memory – and plans are afoot for the next one! More on the Conference later.
We are now in the Season of Creation, and in my parish we will be having Masses around the creation theme this weekend. This is the third year running we have celebrated it, and it is something that young and old alike engage in. We have a cloth ‘river’ running down the altar steps, and in the porch we have some large, flat stones, that one of our teenagers has decorated with creation-themed quotes. These will be brought down the aisle in our offertory procession, and laid ‘in’ the river. I find it quite amazing the ideas that come to the fore.
Something else that has also amazed me is the number of people who turned up to a Social Action Evening at our church on Friday. From being a church that struggled to find volunteers for anything, we ended up with 60 people engaging with our Diocesan Caritas Director, and some representatives from CAFOD. It was a thinly-veiled attempt to launch Live Simply, but it was remarkable that so many people wanted to get involved in general outreach – those that, due to busy lives, are usually unable to get involved in anything. Everyone sensed that need to do something and be part of something…..All we have to do now is channel their enthusiasm
before it wanes!
As you can imagine, after so many weeks of no e-bulletin, there are
multiple articles that I could share, but this particular one will be dedicated, topically, to the Climate/Environment. There are plenty of actions and events that you can get involved with – and many without leaving your armchair!
The next edition will be out in three weeks’ time, the 1st October. The reason being that we are holding one of our Open Networking Days in Birmingham on Saturday 23rd September (more details below). I hope to be there (although don’t fancy getting the train at 4.25am!). It will be good to see some familiar faces, as well as some new ones!
If you are wanting anything advertised in the next edition, please make sure that I receive the information by Friday 29th September. Thank you.
Enjoy what I hope will be the last of the very hot weather,
The next NJPN Open Networking Day will be held at the Polish Millenium House in Birmingham. In this year of the Windrush 75th anniversary our speaker will be Rev. Canon Eve Pitts who will speak of the experiences of people from the Caribbean and the issues of racial justice that we still need to address today.
Rev. Eve was the first black woman vicar in the Church of England and is a long standing campaigner for racial justice.
Although Autumn has not arrived yet and I hope we may have a few more Summer days, I am sending this out now as there are many things going on in September for the Season of Creation. Also there are several activities and things to join, reflect on and pray about involved with peace. Plus there are reports on past events in July that were inspiring and encouraging.
Hexham and Newcastle J&P Letter to MPs about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Given that the NJPN Conference this year was based around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Hexham and Newcastle Justice and Peace Co-Ordinating Council have kindly supplied a document document that we urge you to edit, print off, and send to your local MPs, making the point that it’s time they start acting on and making those goals a reality.
You can download the letter by clicking the link below;
As we approach the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 which unleashed the horror of nuclear warfare, the August edition of the NW NJPN E BULLETIN leads with a wide range of peace resources and events, including the film ‘Oppenheimer’, currently on general release, and ‘The Mistake’, a challenging play by Michael Mears touring in September and October and acted by Mears and a Japanese actress.
The Balfour Project announce a forthcoming podcast documentary “KEYS: A Troubled Inheritance” which intertwines the atrocities of the Holocaust for the Jewish people and 75 years of Nakba (catastrophe) of the Palestinian people since 1948. The podcast is devised, produced and narrated by journalist and broadcaster Mike Joseph with interviews of Jewish and Palestinian people who share painful and harrowing memories.
There are reports of Pax Christi’s recent AGM and also the July NJPN Annual Conference on the theme ‘Sustainability? Survival or Shutdown’.
Following weeks of catastrophic shifts in weather pattern: excessive heat, fires and floods Joseph Kelly urges concern to be accelerated into urgent action. This plea is echoed by young people for World Youth Day, held this year in Lisbon in the first week of August where Pope Francis will join them.
As the Government’s controversial Illegal Migration Bill becomes law, Ian Linden and Jesuit Refugee Service launch scathing criticisms, with JRS calling the Bill “anti-refugee and anti-human.”
Reports indicate major concerns about the effect of the Covid pandemic and missed schooling on children plus an inspiring account of a Liverpool Secondary School’s initiative to support the student’s mental well-being, led together by staff and students.
We pay a tribute to Brian Davies, formerly of CAFOD and known and loved by many, who died recently.
Please look at the diary page and also the first four pages of the bulletin which contain additional dates and events.
