A delegation from Catholics for Aids Prevention and Support (CAPS) marked the twentieth anniversary of their organisation by meeting the Archbishop of Southwark, John Wilson.
Archbishop Wilson said the support offered by the group and the peer-to-peer support network Positive Faith “bears witness to the Gospel imperative to love each other with the love of Christ”. The Archdiocese of Southwark contains the largest population of people living with HIV of any Catholic diocese in England, Wales or Scotland.
The Overseas Mission Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has released a statement explaining the importance of mission to the Church.
The committee, made up of delegates from the Catholic agencies Missio, Mill Hill, Cafod and Catholic Missionary Union, coordinates the Church’s overseas aid and evangelisation efforts and organises the appeals programme including Mission Sunday and the Red Box appeal.
The statement, signed by the Bishop of Lancaster, Paul Swarbrick and the Bishop of Clifton, Declan Lang, says: “With Pope Francis, we dream of a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s structures can be channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than her self-preservation.”
Christian Climate Action campaigners were among those whose protests delayed Shell’s AGM in London on 23 May. Columban sister Kate Midgley and Ruth Jarman of Green Christian helped challenge the fossil fuel company’s failure to respond to the climate crisis.
As well as shouting and singing by protestors calling for an immediate end to reliance on fossil fuels, which halted the AGM for about an hour, a group of shareholders, including the Church of England Pensions Board, called on Shell to set more ambitious carbon-cutting targets.
The Just Money Movement has produced a resource pack for churches to help them mark Tax Justice Sunday on 11 June. It invites small groups and congregations to reflect on tax as a way of showing love, caring for creation and bringing about a fairer, more just society. There are notes for a short Sunday slot, a sermon, intercessions, or a whole church service. The Church Action for Tax Justice campaign seeks to promote the idea of tax as a fundamentally good thing and ability to pay it as something to celebrate.
Christian Climate Action and Green Christian have helped present a letter to MPs, calling for a new Climate and Ecology Bill. This bill was re-introduced into Parliament by Labour MP Olivia Blake on 10 May. It is now co-sponsored by a cross-party group of MPs and has the backing of 165 MPs and Peers from all parties.
The bill intends to address the full extent of the climate and nature crisis in line with the most up-to-date science. It calls for the UK to show better leadership on climate and nature. A part of this campaign is the “United for Nature” petition, which will be delivered to the prime minister on 5 June (World Environment Day) by a youth delegation.
Amanda C Dickie is giving a talk on St Titus Brandsma on 5 June at Clergy House, Westminster Cathedral. Last year, Dickie attended the canonisation of the Dutch Carmelite priest and journalist who refused to publish Nazi propaganda. He was killed at Dachau concentration camp in 1942.
Dickie, a journalist and lay Carmelite, will give a lecture titled “St Titus Brandsma – Prophetic Beacon of Light for the World Today”. To attend, please gather in the Cathedral Lady Chapel at 6.30pm to be taken to the venue.
Irish NGO Vita has launched a €10m sustainable investment fund which will support 1.3 million people in rural Ethiopia and Eritrea to adopt carbon-saving cooking stoves and deliver access to safe water.
According to the development agency, which was founded by Fr Kevin Doheny and Fr Norman Fitzgerald in 1989, the fund will help save 630,000 tons in carbon emissions annually as well as millions of trees.
The new fund was established with the assistance of religious congregations in Ireland and the US. Investors include Mercy Investment Services, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, the Sisters of St Joseph of Peace and the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
“This very innovative Fund reflects the core message of Laudato Si,” Vita Board member, Sr Margaret Tiernan RSM said.
The Bishop of Cork and Ross, Fintan Gavin, has invited the people of Cork to participate in this year’s Eucharistic Procession which is returning for the first time since 2019.
Speaking at the North Cathedral Visitor Centre, Bishop Gavin said, “The Eucharistic Procession has been an important milestone on religious and community life for the city, and I am pleased to see it return.” This year’s procession on 11 June will be the ninety-seventh. “We hope to reach out to as many people, parishes, and faith groups as we look forward to its hundredth anniversary in 2026,” the bishop said.
The first procession took place in 1926 to help unite the people of Cork in prayer after the divisions of the Civil War. It was attended by 40,000 people.
The Bishop of Clogher, Larry Duffy, has hailed the progress made and the faithful commitment of so many to the work of Christian unity, peace and reconciliation.
At an ecumenical service at Inniskeen, Co Monaghan for Pentecost, which was also attended by the Church of Ireland’s Bishop Ian Ellis, Bishop Duffy noted that 2023 marks two important milestones in the journey of unity and witness of Christians in Ireland. This year marks the centenary of the formation of the Irish Council of Churches in 1923 and it also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Ballymascanlon Talks of 1973 which led to creation of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting.
“These bodies were formed in difficult times, in times of civil strife and division, times of great fear. Their patient endurance and the work which they continue to undertake is further witness to the work of the Holy Spirit calling us into greater unity,” he said.
Sexual abuse allegations were made against a total of 44 priests in 19 diocesan colleges in the Republic of Ireland, according to The Irish Times. The report did not include the diocesan colleges of Derry, Armagh, Down and Connor, and Dromore in Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, the Archdiocese of Dublin, the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore did not have diocesan colleges.
Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences from 2014 until her retirement in March 2019, has died at the age of 80. For many years she was Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and was known as a theorist in critical realism.
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