Bishops call for action to tackle poverty

Poverty is threatening the fabric of society and some families are enduring so much hardship that they are effectively destitute, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have warned.

In a joint statement issued after their recent plenary meeting in Leeds, the bishops urged that steps should be taken to “curb unjustifiably high pay” and to promote the living wage. “Widening economic inequality corrodes the common good,” they said.

The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, told a press conference in London last week that he and his fellow bishops had a full exchange about the impact of poverty in England and Wales, during their biannual gathering at Hinsley Hall, Leeds. Two bishops of northern dioceses – including Bishop Tom Williams, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Liverpool – have said that some families are facing destitution.

On Wednesday, Bishop John Arnold, an auxiliary of Westminster, reiterated the call to tackle poverty when he addressed a parliamentary reception of MPs and peers.

“We should judge the success of our society on how well we support those most in need. We are not doing too well at the moment,” he told the gathering organised by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales’ agency, Caritas Social Action Network, pointing to children who turn up to school without having been given breakfast.

The bishops’ statement comes at a time when people are experiencing pressure on their finances as they struggle with the cost of living, particularly fuel bills and pre-Christmas spending, while average wages are either frozen or have increases well below the rate of inflation. Those on benefits have been hard hit too, with housing benefit being cut for those with spare rooms and benefits overall being capped, regardless of a family’s size. Unemployment, though, has fallen from 7.8 per cent in October to 7.6 per cent in November.

Despite their critique of the country’s economic situation, Archbishop Nichols said he was not minded to lobby the Prime Minister about the bishops’ concerns. Instead, Catholics should focus on social action and there should be more support in the dioceses for the work of agencies such as Caritas.

Among other issues discussed during the Leeds plenary, the bishops agreed that the Church would not open any new schools under the Government’s academies programme unless it gave a reprieve on the cap demanded on places for believers.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has required that all new schools should be academies or free schools, which limit local authority involvement. But he has also made it a requirement that if new academies are oversubscribed, half of all places should be offered across the board and not just to children of a particular faith background.

The new system, say the bishops, means that Catholic children would be turned away from Catholic schools. Existing Catholic schools that convert to academy status are exempt from the cap.

“We believe that those Catholic academies that are established actually deliver a very good education and are among the best,” said Archbishop Nichols. “We want to explore with the Government why that success cannot be offered to a new academy without this cap.” The bishops at the plenary also heard that more than 15,000 Catholics in Britain have already accessed the Church’s questionnaire on marriage and the family. Sent out ahead of synods on the family, the consultative docu­ment has been made available online by the bishops of England and Wales.

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