All posts by Stephen Cooke

NJPN E-Bulletin 19th March 2023

God of justice and peace,
We thank you for the vision and mission of the National Justice and Peace Network,
and for the people who work and pray for a more just and peaceful world.
We ask you to bless them with your grace and guidance,
and to inspire them with your Spirit of love and compassion.
Help them to be faithful witnesses of your Kingdom,
where all are welcome, respected and valued.
Help them to be agents of change and transformation,
where all are empowered, supported and challenged.
Help them to be signs of hope and joy,
where all are healed, reconciled and celebrated.
We make this prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

(courtesy of Paul Southgate, NJPN Chair, who asked Bing (AI) to write a prayer before a recent Executive Meeting)

Dear Friends,
 

Another fortnight has whizzed past, and the big issues being the Immigration Bill and the Budget. Interesting that once a ‘big name’ gets involved (as in Government/BBC vs Gary Lineker), everyone jumps on the bandwagon. In this case it is good publicity, but it then becomes more about the celebrity than the actual cause.

We have a rather different Action of the Week, which we hope you will engage with. Our leading section this weekend, though, is the Refugee situation. As you can imagine, there are lots of articles, many of which are saying something very similar. I have just picked a few of them.

This weekend we celebrate Mothering Sunday; however, I don’t believe you need to have had children, or indeed be female, to have been in a position to have looked after someone. Many of my generation no longer have children at home, but instead have elderly relatives that they are having to look after. Most of us have that mothering instinct which we have to draw on from time to time. regardless of who it is directed at. 
So, to all of you out there that care for someone, have a blessed day. You may not always feel appreciated, but you most definitely are. Thank you!

The next e-bulletin should be out on Palm Sunday, the 2nd April, as long as life doesn’t get in the way.

With all best wishes,

Sharon

NJPN E-Bulletin 19th March 2023

NJPN E-Bulletin 5th March 2023

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
(Nelson Mandela)

Dear Friends,
 

Some years ago I ran a church youth club for Year 6 and over, and at that time CAFOD were using the above Nelson Mandela quote. It has always been one of my favourite quotes to inspire our youth, and it seems particularly apt in that this weekend 10,000 of our young people/catechists/Priests etc. are congregating in Wembley for Flame 2023. 
I was hoping to be there, but work/home commitments have got in the way. If there is some way that we can bottle the energy, vibrance and feel good factor of Flame, and bring it back to the parishes, and the organisations that we are all part of, then the church and its charities would be thriving. 

Speaking from experience here, many of our young people (the TikTok Generation as I have heard them called) are more worried about which gender, if any, they want to identify with, and whether what their parents are saying is politically correct, rather than rolling up their sleeves and getting involved.
We have a world that is in a mess; the climate issues, the threat of yet another World War; the cost of living. How do we focus the youth that are not engaged into realising that this is their world too?

One idea would be to encourage them to attend the NJPN Conference in July. At a recent Conference Planning Meeting, one of the big things that came out was to find ways to get some more young people to attend. The Conference has a great energy to it, and if we could just get them through the door, I am sure they would be just as enthused as we are to be there. I know my son was 19 when he attended the online Conference (during the Covid year). He is now 22 and this year will be his third Conference in person – and he has never looked back. If you have children or grandchildren that you feel might benefit from coming along, please consider bringing them. If they are students at Uni, maybe their CathSoc would sponsor them. I know some of the Dioceses are looking at bursary schemes for young people. Why not approach yours?

(CAFOD also have some ways that young people can get involved on their website. That is also well worth a look.)

Last week’s Networking Day on the Cost of Living Crisis was fantastic, and we have a little bit about it further down. Well done to our Speakers and the work that they are doing. I believe that a recording of the Day will be on the website sometime soon. Our Action of the Week came out of one of the discussions from last weekend.

All being well, the next e-bulletin will be out around the 18th March, so if you have anything that you want included, I would appreciate receiving it by Friday 16th please.

God bless, and keep up the good work,

Sharon

 

NJPN E-Bulletin 5th March 2023

Concerted Action by Justice and Peace Europe for 2023-2024

On Ash Wednesday Justice and Peace Europe launched their next concerted action. It will last for 2 years. 
 
Further details and concrete proposals will be shared in the forthcoming weeks.
 
Please publish the information and documents also through your channels.
 
 
 

NW NJPN E BULLETIN MARCH 2023

The March issue of the NW NJPN E BULLETIN leads with a statement from Church leaders concerned by the increasing cycle of violence in the Holy Land.  One year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pax Christi International expresses deep concern for the countless victims of a war that has led to death, injury, displacement, trauma, and ecological harm.  Joseph Kelly reports on the uncertain situation for Ukrainian refugees here in the UK as the war drags on whilst Professor Ian Linden examines the background that links Putin’s war and South Africa.  Other topics featured are Climate Action, the 25TH Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a look at Pope Francis’ papacy ten years on, CAFOD news from Lancaster diocese and upcoming events in Liverpool archdiocese, including a Romero Anniversary Memorial Mass followed by a talk from Peggy Healy. Ellen Teague reports on NJPN’s recent online Networking Day on ‘Cost of Living Crisis – Living or Existing’ and has advance news of this July’s NJPN Conference on the theme ‘Sustainability? Survival or Shutdown’.  All this and a packed diary.

Please pass on to others.

Best wishes

Anne O’Connor

 

NW NJPN Justice and Peace E Bulletin March 2023 

Spring Mouthpeace 2023

I am pleased to send you this Spring Mouthpeace.  There are some things to do during Lent including things to watch and join online. The first starts on this Wednesday with the first of the weekly Pax Christi online meditation on the Peace Icon.  There are several things going on this weekend and though March.  Please check the Diary.
 
This Mouthpeace seems to have an ecological slant- thanks to some of the Laudato Si’ animators who have sent things  to me. But this is good preparation for the Swanwick Conference in July.  
 
Please pass this on to anyone whom you think may be interested. 
 
Marian
 

Pax Christi International Declaration on the War in Ukraine: One Year after the Russian Invasion

 
“Let us look at all those civilians whose killing was considered ‘collateral damage.’ Let us ask the
victims themselves. Let us think of the refugees and displaced… the mothers who lost their children, and the boys and girls maimed or deprived of their childhood. Let us hear the true stories…look at reality through their eyes…In this way, we will be able to grasp the abyss of evil at the heart of war. Nor will it trouble us to be deemed naive for choosing peace.” – Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, 2020, par. 261.
 
One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pax Christi International expresses our deep concern for countless victims of a war that has led to death, injury, displacement, trauma, and ecological harm. This war has generated almost 6 million internally displaced persons and 8 million refugees; killed more than 7,200 civilians including over 400 children and hundreds of thousands of soldiers; and caused generational trauma.
 
The war of aggression against Ukraine has clearly demonstrated that no international authority exists with sufficient wisdom to effectively address the root causes or with adequate means to have prevented Russia’s brutal invasion. International law provides every sovereign nation with the right to self-defense. In a world of highly destructive weapons, armed self-defense may trigger an escalation to extremes that can even lead to a nuclear war.
 
For this reason, Pax Christi International urgently calls on the international community to
immediately facilitate diplomatic initiatives, to restore the international order and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We plead with Russia and Ukraine to enter negotiations directly, on neutral ground, and with a mutually agreeable mediator.
 
Insufficient investment in developing and scaling up proven effective nonviolent strategies for defense, including civilian based defense, has created the impression that self-defense is always armed. Many Ukrainians are demonstrating clearly and with great courage, however, that nonviolent defense can be very effective and could be much more readily available with significant investment in resources, training, and research.
 
Pax Christi International calls on the international community to invest in developing nonviolent strategies for defense and just peace.
 
As a human rights and peace movement, Pax Christi International advocates for the right of conscientious objection for soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict. We call for sufficient independence for media, political opposition parties, and civil society in Russia; we highly value the many forms of nonviolent resistance to the war by Russian society; and we support all Russians who protest against the war, risking arrest and imprisonment.
 
This war also shows the immorality of the possession of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for nuclear abolition. President Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine reminded the world that a single nuclear bomb detonated could create a humanitarian disaster of unparalleled proportions. A full-scale nuclear war would spell the end of human civilization as we know it.
 
Pax Christi International calls on all States to delegitimize these weapons and strengthen the legal norm against their use by signing and ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
 
Pax Christi International also urges a Human Security approach in Europe and in the world. Russia should be included, as well as Belarus and Ukraine, in a broader security concept based on trust building and collective security, oriented by a just peace framework. A Human Security approach also recognizes with UN SCR1325 that peace and security efforts will be more sustainable if women take part in the prevention of violence, the delivery of relief, trauma healing, and recovery efforts for lasting peace.
 
The need for people-to-people peace processes that involve dialogue between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, including women and youth, are important to the prevention and transformation of violent conflict. Pax Christi International supports initiatives that allow contact, cooperation, and healing.
 
Pax Christi International is a movement for reconciliation and active nonviolence, founded at the end of the Second World War with a deep belief in the possibility of just peace. We are painfully aware that war is not limited to Ukraine; that violence is endemic in many corners of the world; that a new logic of peace and nonviolence is urgently needed.
 
We call Pax Christi members and all people of good will to pray and to mobilize for peace, urging States to address the relationship between human security, care for creation, human dignity, and sustainable peace and to advocate urgently for dialogue.
 
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inflicting untold suffering on the Ukrainian people, with profound
global implications. The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and
bloodshed keep growing. I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war.
I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (6 February 2023)
 
If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future,
we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence here and now, in the present.”
Mairead Maguire | Irish Peace Activist and Nobel Peace Laureate

Resources for Lent 2023

Below are two resources for Lent: a daily reflection booklet with scripture readings and a Stations of the Cross based on an essay ‘Healing through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ’ by my daughter Annie, a scripture scholar who died in 2020 during Covid. To print the booklets choose ‘landscape’, ‘print both sides’, ‘flip on short edge’ and ‘paper, actual size.’                                                                                                                        

Please read and pass on to others.

Anne O’Connor

STATIONS OF THE CROSS HEALING THROUGH THE LIFE, DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 

A JOURNEY FROM LENT TO EASTER 

NJPN E-Bulletin 12th February 2023

 

Dear Friends,

I will be honest with you, I am frightened to watch or listen to the news at present. This week has been particularly bad with the horrific images and rising death toll from the Earthquake that has affected Syria and Turkey. 

The ongoing situation in Ukraine, and the promise of more help from European leaders, seem to be dragging us more towards an all out conflict (obviously there are other conflicts, but too numerous to mention); that and Shay Cullen’s article, which I will share with you later, in which he mentions that a US Air Force general has warned of a conflict with China as early as 2025….oh, and the whole Chinese Air Balloon being shot down over the US too…what the heck is happening? 

When I see the good work that happens when people work together, both locally and internationally, I wonder how the world’s leaders can constantly be at odds with each other. You can understand why people stick their heads in the sand and don’t get involved – they must feel as if whatever they do will not make any difference – but as Saint Teresa of Calcutta said 

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

The e-bulletin addresses all of these issues, and I like to think that all of us go forward in hope and love and be that little ‘drop’ to make a difference. Thank you to everyone who engages in some way with it.

Talking of hope, bookings are now open for our Annual Conference at the Hayes in Swanwick, Derbyshire. This will be my third conference, and if it is anything like the last two, I will come away feeling re-energised and full of hope! Please come and join us. Details and booking form are on the NJPN website.

Our Action of the Week is around the climate, and the issue of divestment. See what you can do to help change things in your Diocese.

In two weeks’ time we have our Networking Day via Zoom (details below), so the next e-bulletin will be out around the weekend of the 5th March.

Wishing you all well,

Sharon

NJPN E-Bulletin 12th February 2023 NJPN E-Bulletin 12th February 2023

NW NJPN E BULLETIN FEBRUARY 2023

NW NJPN E BULLETIN FEBRUARY 2023

The February edition of the NW NJPN E BULLETIN leads with a hard-hitting opinion piece from Joseph Kelly of The Catholic Network on the background to the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. In a wide-ranging article, regular contributor Professor Ian Linden looks at “How ‘Global Britain’ is letting down the world’s poor.” At the end of this month it will be one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. To mark the day, CND and Stop the War have called a national demonstration in central London on Saturday 25 February at midday to say ‘no to war,’ and ‘no to the risk of nuclear war.’ We also have a request for host families for Ukrainians and a moving poem (first published by Pax Christi), ‘A plea for peace,’ by Mary Hale. Manchester Museum is set to re-open this month after an extensive refurbishment with news of the repatriation of sacred objects to communities of origin to Aboriginal communities plus a digital data base to catalogue images of over 5,240 objects looted during the 19th century British punitive expedition on the Kingdom of Benin (now Edo State, Nigeria) as part of the museum’s ongoing commitment to prioritise cultural heritage material for return.  Ince Benet, former home of Fr. Tom Cullinan, has undergone a refurbishment and is now a prayer/retreat centre near Liverpool. There is a packed diary for February and March as well as notices of a wide range of interesting Zoom talks on pages 10-12.

Also included in this mailing are two resources for Lent: a daily reflection booklet with scripture readings and a Stations of the Cross based on an essay ‘Healing through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ’ by my daughter Annie, a scripture scholar who died in 2020 during Covid. To print the booklets choose ‘landscape’, ‘print both sides’, ‘flip on short edge’ and ‘paper, actual size.’                                                                                                                        

Please read and pass on to others.

Anne O’Connor

NW NJPN Justice and Peace E Bulletin February 2023

STATIONS OF THE CROSS HEALING THROUGH THE LIFE, DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 

A JOURNEY FROM LENT TO EASTER 

NJPN E-Bulletin 29th January 2023

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Taken from The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-10)
 

Dear Friends,

I hope that you have had a good fortnight. The weather has certainly been very seasonal – very cold! Not good if you are being careful about putting the gas/electric on.

The above logo introduces our Conference, which will take place between the 21st – 23rd July, at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. Don’t forget to save the date! Geoff tells me that Booking Forms will be going out with the postal copies of the newsletter very soon, and a copy of the form will also then be available on the NJPN website. Keep an eye out for it.

So it has been another dismal week in politics, another scandal, another resignation – and to top it all, Sir Rod Stewart is another celebrity that has come out and spoken against the Government. He reckons that in all his 78 years he has never seen the country in such a state. More on that later.

There were a few worthy items sent for our Action of the Week, but we have gone with this petition from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) as it is urgent, with a deadline of 31st January. The other items you will find further down this e-bulletin.

I should be sending the next edition out in around two weeks time. In the meantime, keep up the good work and stay warm and safe.

God bless,

Sharon

NJPN E-Bulletin 29th January 2023