NJPN Column in the Catholic Universe: Aisling Griffin – Understanding Conflict Through Peace Education
I’ve often been in schools talking about Pax Christi’s work when I’ve been asked about a current conflict, such as the on-going situation in Palestine/Israel. I’ve been reflecting on, not only the need for education on conflict but also the things that make for peace.
Many schools may teach about Israel/ Palestine in lessons. However, this is not something all of us feel equipped to discuss and it can often be seen as too complex or difficult to talk about. Discussions and debates about how we see it reported it in the media, stories of conflict and discrimination and comments on social media, make it clear that we need to be equipped to enter into constructive conversations and dialogue. We need an understanding of what is happening in order to be able to work for a just peace. Below are some examples of resources that could be used to do this.
As peacemakers we must reflect on the wider context of conflict and peace education. Companies with factories in Britain produce components of the weaponry used in war and in violent crowd control against peaceful protestors. As a country exporting weaponry to oppressive regimes we need to reflect on our role in promoting and sustaining conflict around the globe. Some of these companies also go into or work with schools to promote science and technology. What are the ethics surrounding this? Should faith schools be inviting them in? Is this showing children and young people a balanced viewpoint and promoting peace?
In Palestine/Israel, and around the world, there are many people working nonviolently to promote a just peace. We rarely hear their stories. Educators, activists, Israeli conscientious objectors and Israeli/Palestinian communities, such as Neve Shalom/Wahat a Salaam, are all working for justice. There is no peace without justice. Let us work to promote these voices and narratives, to see the true cost of violence and war. By learning about the root causes of conflicts and ways in which to discuss them we can engage with them more fully and promote peace in our own lives and globally. Peace education enables us to do this.
As Pax Christi works in both peace education and supporting our partners working for a just peace in Palestine/Israel, we also need to continue to support each other in dealing with conflict and injustice.
See:
Pax Christi: https://paxchristi.org.uk/peace-education/secondary/workshop-resources/
Quakers in Britain: https://www.quaker.org.uk/resources/free-resources/teaching-resources-2
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/QuakerPeaceEducation
Aisling Griffin is Pax Christi’s Education Worker.
NJPN Column in the Catholic Universe: Fr Rob Esdaile – Build Back Different
Next weekend (June 11-13) ‘Global Britain’ is hosting the G7 Summit in Cornwall. The gathering is not truly global, because invitations are limited to the richest industrialised nations, all of them in the Northern hemisphere (although our government has extended an invitation to India, Korea and Australia). However, it does offer a major opportunity for action, both on the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and on the ecological crisis which is the subject of the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November.
The slogan ‘Build Back Better’ has been floating around for the last six months or more. But the real question is: What do you mean by ‘better’? If you mean more of the same model of economic growth based on ever-increasing consumption, the same dependence on fossil fuels, the same throw-away culture which is clogging the oceans with single use plastics, the same supply chains that offshore our own carbon-footprint and keep so many living below the breadline – then all that will ensue is more deforestation, more exploitation of the poorest, more global warming, more turmoil.
‘Better’ has to mean ‘more sustainable’ – both ecologically (keeping below that 1.5 degree rise in global temperatures and reversing habitat destruction) and politically (creating more stable and just societies). ‘Better’ has to mean the redirection of the resources now devoted to war preparations to the fight to save our planet from our own worst actions.
‘Better’ has to mean greater global solidarity in facing both this and future pandemics: the swift supply of vaccines to the poorest nations (not least because, to coin a phrase, ‘no one is safe until all are safe’); and release of those same nations from the debts built up in fighting the virus and in shoring up their own economies.
But above all, ‘better’ has to be about having a renewed vision of the kind of world we seek and a willingness to campaign for it. That demands a Church with a better understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, a seeker after God’s Kingdom and divine justice (Mt 6.33). We Catholics have to be at the heart of the struggle to ‘build back better’, insisting that better means different – a kinder, cleaner, fairer Britain, global in our bridge-building where others would build walls.
Fr Rob Esdaile is parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes, Thames Ditton.
23-25 July 2021 National Justice and Peace Network (NJPN) Conference: https://www.justice-and-peace.org.uk/conference/
NW NJPN E Bulletin for mid-June
An extra edition of the NW NJPN E Bulletin for mid-June features a wide range of resources for Refugee Week 14-20 June including a series of audio dramas from Counterpoint Arts by contemporary Kosovan and Balkan writers, available on Zoom plus news of a photographic series to echo this year’s theme ‘We cannot walk alone.’ Other news articles look at the horrific discovery of a mass grave at a residential school for indigenous children in Canada; German Cardinal Marx’s resignation regarding the Church’s ‘systemic failure’ on abuse; reports from JRS, CAFOD and LIfe on the Breadline. Joan Baez is honoured by the Kennedy Centre for performing Arts for her humanitarian and peace work over a long career. There are obituaries of Sr Isabel Kelly, campaigner against human trafficking, and broadcaster Peter France. Faiths4Change are offering fully funded places on an accredited course in Liverpool to explore climate change and carbon footprints and Green Christian announce a VI Form module based on Laudato Si’. Book reviews and diary dates complete a packed bulletin. Please read and pass on.
NW NJPN Justice and Peace E Bulletin mid June 2021
NJPN Column in the Catholic Universe: Phil Kingston – The Holy Spirit in our Mission
Pope Francis’ book’ Let Us Dream’ is one which brings me new life, principally because he places the Holy Spirit in a central role in our Church. This is something which I rarely find in the UK Church nor in other Churches in the materially rich countries.
However, this centrality abounds in the Churches of the poor countries. My perception is that we are still largely a Church of Christendom rather than one which reflects the Church of the first Christians as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles.
Francis constantly links this centrality of the Holy Spirit to peoples’ current concerns and to the major problems of the world. He skillfully focusses upon Catholic Social Teaching as a well-based way of responding to these. In his Pentecost 2019 homily he said: “Without the Spirit, Jesus remains a personage from the past; with the Spirit, he is a person alive in our own time. Without the Spirit, Scripture is a dead letter; with the Spirit it is a word of life. A Christianity without the Spirit is joyless moralism; with the Spirit, it is life.”
Most of what follows is in Francis’ own words. He speaks of the Church’s commitment to the poor as an essential part of Catholic Social Teaching. Other aspects which he includes are the common good, the universal sharing of goods, and solidarity with all who are exploited and maginalised – not terms which I often hear in Sunday homilies.
He writes extensively about the three synods which he initiated. ‘Synod’ has been a new word for me and I am appreciating its freshness as a process in the Church. The term means ‘walking together’ and it is the Holy Spirit who brings harmony in that process.
The media have a key role in opening synods to the people of God and the wider world. Sometimes they undermine the capacity for discernment. In the synod on Amazonia some media reduced the whole synodal process to the issue of whether the Church would ordain married men. In reality, that synod gave us a mission and vision to stand with the native peoples, the land and creation against the powerful interests of death and destruction driven solely by profit.
Phil Kingston is a founder member of Christian Climate Action.
23-25 July 2021 National Justice and Peace Network (NJPN) Conference at: https://www.justice-and-peace.org.uk/conference/
NJPN Column in the Catholic Universe: Barbara Butler – Covid 19 Around the World – and the Need to Vaccinate
March 11th 2021 marked one year since the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic. The outbreak and resulting deaths continue. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has been tracking the outbreak since its beginning and so far more than three million people have died globally.
Statistics are changing daily. Most agree that America has recorded the highest number of cases and deaths so far. India is now second in line and Brazil is third. The UK has experienced the highest number of cases in Europe. The pandemic is now spreading wildly in Latin America, South Asia and Africa, all areas of the world where the poorest people live.
The pandemic has affected different countries in different ways and as usual the poorest countries and people suffer most. We have only to see the daily news reports from India to know just how terribly the poor suffer. We read that in most hospitals there are more dead people than live ones and that so many trees are being cut down for cremations now that normal supplies of wood have run out.
As countries able to do so vaccinate their populations the challenge of sharing the vaccines arises. Sharing may be by donating vaccines or by increasing aid, so that developing countries can buy and develop their own vaccines. See CAFOD’s statement on this issue at: https://cafod.org.uk/News/Press-office/Press-releases/interfaith-vaccine-statement It is sad that at such a time as this the British government is making a reduction in aid to the poorest countries, from 0.7% to 0.5%. See: https://cafod.org.uk/News/Campaigning-news/Overseas-aid-budget-cut
This is something we may all lobby about and seek to reverse.
Pope Frances, in his book, ‘Let us Dream,’ has said that those who risked their lives to bring care to people suffering from the virus are an example for us all as individuals, groups, churches and governments. He has set up a commission on the ‘Post Covid future,’ which he trusts will be new, outward looking and caring.
He writes of his hope that:
‘When the storm has passed we’ll envy no-one
for all of us have suffered
and we’ll not be idle, but more compassionate.’
Barbara Butler is Executive Secretary of Christians Aware, an ecumenical member of the NJPN. http://www.christiansaware.co.uk/
MouthPeace Summer 2021 Available Now.
The Summer 2021 issue of MouthPeace is now available to download below, please feel free to share with others you feel would be interested.
MouthPeace Summer 2021 – Click here
You can also find previous editions of MouthPeace, on the Liverpool Justice and Peace Commission website by clicking here.
NJPN Newsletter – Summer 2021
This latest issue focuses on post pandemic issues relating to domestic poverty and inequality as well as the effects of climate change with specific links to Catholic Social Teaching and sustainable development goals.
NJPN Newsletter Summer 2021
NW NJPN E-Bulletin June 2021
The NW NJPN E-Bulletin for June leads with a moving poem highlighting the current escalation of violence in the Holy Land with a link to last week’s main NJPN bulletin devoted exclusively to articles and action ideas about the conflict. Eye-witness accounts of the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the Indian population, especially in the poorer areas, is given by six religious Sisters. There is also coverage of the Pastoral Letter for Pentecost issued by the Bishops of England and Wales with a focus on the pressing issue of climate change, encouraging news from Operation Noah that the Methodist, Unitarian and Free Churches have all voted to disinvest from fossil fuels. and a report of this month’s NJPN AGM by Zoom with a talk on homeschooling during Covid and two follow-up opinion pieces. Other reports look at ways parishes can be more welcoming to deaf people, lobbying for inclusive language in the Lectionary by the Scottish Laity Network and how a popular television programme is helping highlight the story of Sophie Lancaster, a hate crime victim. All this plus resources and diary dates. Please read and pass on.
NW NJPN Justice and Peace E Bulletin June 2021
Diocese of Hallam announces divestment from fossil fuels.
Bishop Ralph Heskett announced that: “The Diocese of Hallam divested of the most damaging fossil fuel companies many years ago. In recent months, we have decided to divest of the remainder of our investments with fossil fuel companies and instructed brokers to actively seek opportunities for investing in companies involved in renewable forms of energy.
The Diocese continues to review our actions and investments to care for our common home”
Divestment announcement
NJPN E-Bulletin 18 May 2021
Dear Friends,
Apologies, but the usual e-bulletin was not produced at the weekend. Instead, we are looking at the dreadful situation in Israel, and asking you to get involved and add your voice and prayers to the atrocities that are happening now and reflect on what has happened in the past.
NJPN E-Bulletin 18 May