Church steps up help for Calais migrants

Catholic parishes in south-east England were this week stepping up efforts to help migrants in Calais by collecting and delivering clothes and blankets for the estimated 3,000 people living in the shanty town known as “the jungle”.

The camp’s makeshift Ethiopian Orthodox church, named for St Michael, is to provide the backdrop for this week’s BBC Songs of Praise, scheduled to be broadcast tomorrow.

In west London, the parish of Our Lady and St Joseph in Hanwell has dispatched collected donations to Kent, en route to the Calais warehouse of Secours Catholique.

The north London parish of St Mellitus, Tollington Park, is to send its collection to Kent in early September. Until then it is offering itself as a depot for donations from nearby parishes.

Westminster diocese’s justice and peace commission is encouraging more parishes to organise collections by area or deanery. It is currently seeking a large space to serve as a depot, and is asking for help with offers of transport.

A Catholic group in Kent, which coordinates a charity called Seeking Sanctuary, is gathering and sorting donations from churches and faith communities in the county and driving them to the Secours Catholique warehouse.

“We feel a very strong calling to show solidarity with the migrants, and to show them that the Church cares,” said Ben Bano, who leads Seeking Sanctuary.

The charity has reported a need for small-sized jeans, trainers, sleeping bags, toiletries for men and women, games, books and cooking utensils. It says blankets are in particular demand, because the warehouse has recently run out.

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has announced that it will be making a contribution to aid efforts and is discussing the situation with French bishops and non-governmental organisations.

Bishop Patrick Lynch, who chairs the Bishops’ Conference Office for Migration Policy, called for the redoubling of relief efforts, and drew attention to the causes of mass migration.

“We must examine as a matter of urgency the arms trade that fuels armed conflict and civil war, climate change, unjust economic policies, poverty and corruption as some of the underlying causes of this fundamental global trend,” said Bishop Lynch.

Barbara Kentish, a fieldworker at Westminster Justice and Peace, welcomed the bishops’ response and promise of aid, and applauded the efforts of the French Church.

However, she condemned the “inflammatory and defamatory language used by some politicians”, and called for Catholics to “distance ourselves from what our Government is doing”.

The Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has spoken of “marauding migrants” threatening the European quality of life.

Ms Kentish said: “The Government’s solution is just to throw up more fences. Germany is taking so many thousand refugees, but we are taking none if we can help it.”