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Feb 2010
Preparing for the General Election
Over the coming
weeks as key organisations such as Church Action on Poverty and
CAFOD publicise their election materials, the Commission intends
to make selections available to parish contacts. This is to
inform people from our faith perspective and encourage everyone
to feel able to contribute to local radio phone-ins, local
newspaper correspondence and husting meetings with candidates.
Already you can see ‘Faith in Politics’ on the Churches Together
in Britain and Ireland website
www.ctbi.org.uk/pdf_view.php?id=423
‘We should remember that encyclicals are not just
addressed to the great and the good, but also to each
one of us, “all people of goodwill”.
Politicians have to respond to their citizens. And if we
want them to change, to act, on climate change, on the
environment, on poverty – if we want new ethical values
in our politics and economy – then we too have
responsibilities: to make our wishes plain, to get out
and make the case to other members of the public who may
not agree with us, and to live responsible, sustainable
lives ourselves’.
Tim Aldred Advocacy Manager
Progressio
To register for CAFOD election materials go to
http://www.cafod.org.uk/election

‘World Poverty Day'
Watch out especially for this day which the three main parties
have agreed to have soon after the the election is called. This
commitment has been made to ‘Bond’ - the network of 150 civil
society organisations including CAFOD. The day will give party
leaders the opportunity to put forward their views on
international development and for the differences between their
policies to be made clear. The Bond manifesto Vote Global
sets out a set of demands based on ending world poverty,
inequality and stopping climate chaos. Membership of political
parties is falling whilst membership of special interest and
campaigning groups is rising. Political parties need to make
sure they listen to and represent people’s wider political
interests.
www.bond.org.uk/data/files/resources/501/Vote-Global-UK-international-development-manifesto.pdf
Citizens for Sanctuary
An alliance of faith, citizen and refugee groups is
celebrating success after the UK Border Agency and
Nottingham City Council responded positively to their
campaign for local reporting for local people seeking
sanctuary, at a meeting in the Council House in January.
An election campaign can be found at
http://sanctuarypledge.org.uk This asks
politicians to act responsibly using the word ‘sanctuary’
instead of ‘asylum’ as this term has been found to be
understood positively by the public. The main concern is to
bring an end to the detention of children and families for
immigration reasons.

How to get food at an affordable price and
have more control over where it comes from.
www.sustainweb.org/foodcoops/
Alissa Pemberton is the East Midlands
advisor.
alissa@sustainweb.org
Money back for renewable energy!
From April
1st households or communities which install
low-carbon
technology
such as solar photovoltaic (pv) panels and wind turbines
up to 5 megawatts will be paid for the electricity they
generate, even if they use it themselves.
Retrofit PV
electricity
will be paid at 41.3p kWh. The average cost is
13p kWh so the initial investment (+ savings on bills)
will be more attractive.

The 50th Anniversary
celebration of what has been achieved and what
continues to be achieved in tackling poverty
worldwide.
How are you celebrating it?
www.cafod.org.uk/fastday
A special
Lenten fast
Give up
harsh words:
use generous ones.
Give up unhappiness:
take up gratitude.
Give up anger:
take up gentleness and patience.
Give up pessimism:
take up hope and optimism.
Give up worrying:
take up trust in God.
Give up complaining:
value what you have.
Give up stress:
take up prayer.
Give up judging others:
discover Jesus within them.
Give up sorrow and bitterness:
fill your heart with joy.
Give up selfishness:
take up compassion for others.
Give up being unforgiving:
learn reconciliation.
Give up words:
fill yourself with silence,
and listen to others.
Anonymous, Latin America
www.cafod.org.uk/worship/lent-and-easter
The Big Swap

165
million cups of tea are drunk in the UK every day.
Tetley, PG Tips, Typhoo, Twinings and Yorkshire Tea
account for 72% of the UK tea market. All of them have
taken steps to improve practice in the tea sector but so
far none of them have become Fairtrade. If just one of
these brands went Fairtrade it could make a real
difference to the lives of thousands of small-scale
farmers and workers. Fairtrade is the only scheme which
guarantees tea producers a minimum price for their tea
and gives an extra premium payment to invest in their
community. You can send an email to the companies here:
www.makeitfair.org.uk/take-action/
‘If
the global credit crunch has done anything, then it has
shown how irresponsible behaviour by a few can have a
massive impact on the many, and more often than not on
those least able to address the problems that arise.
Once we recognise that such systems are human, this
empowers us to believe that they can change so as to
take into account those who are in greatest need. The
Catholic tradition of striving for the common good is
global and universal in extent. The belief that all
human beings have a right for their basic needs to be
met is also universally held across different cultures
and traditions. This is the essence of what we mean by
natural law being embedded in different human
societies’.
Celia Deane-Drummond in ‘Seeds of Hope –
facing the challenge of climate justice’. Pub. CAFOD
£5.00
‘Peace News’


There
were four highlights to the day I spent at the ‘Winter
Gathering’. Sr. Susan is the first member of a ‘Catholic
Worker Community’ I have met. The Dorothy Day-inspired
Oxford house sounded a relaxed place of welcome.
Hearing the legendary co-founder of ‘food not bombs’
Keith McHenry speak about the international movement was
inspirational – ‘how to turn your yard into a garden
and your neighbourhood into a community’ had a lot
to say to the low-carbon, peak-oil challenges that many
groups are now addressing.
By his own admission George Farebrother ‘became
radicalized’ late in life in the campaign against
nuclear weapons. At his initiative 3.8 million
declarations of conscience were collected. This led to
the 1996 Advisory Opinion from the International Court
of Justice which went 90% of the way to recognising that
nuclear weapons are illegal. Citizens creating law
remains his focus in the Institute for Law and Peace (InLAP).
One way to do this is by engaging with officials within
the Ministry of Defence. I was glad to hear that there
is support available for getting beyond the ‘Britain would never do anything illegal’
routine response.
If you
are interested in knowing more,
please contact Rosy at the J+P Office.
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Enough for all – 12 Baskets
This is one of the downloadable resources for
Poverty and Homelessness Action Week Sat 30 Jan- Sun 7 Feb
It presents ‘loads of ways to share stuff better
and help each other through the recession. The recession is not
just a crisis but also a time for us to explore new ways of
doing things. We have had enough of an economic system built on
greed and selfishness. There is another way. There us a growing
gap between rich and poor. This is not only immoral, it is bad
for all of us, harming our health and happiness. But we can
close that gap. There is enough for all. Enough food, enough
resources, enough money, enough homes, enough love, enough joy.
But there is only enough if we don’t retreat into our shells. We
must greet our neighbours, give what we can, and share our
ideas, hopes, goods and skills. Our churches and communities
contain a wealth of skills and resources, including many we
don’t know about yet. Can we rediscover and share them?
www.actionweek.org.uk

Is our search
for security and prosperity costing
the
earth?
This
was the theme of Pope Benedict’s message for
Peace Sunday 2010 Jan 17th
• In 2009 the UK budget for defence was £38
billion yet the budget for work to reduce UK carbon
emissions was £1.4 billion.
• Many recent wars and conflicts have been
about access to resources - oil in Iraq, water in Northern
Kenya and Israel and Palestine, minerals in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. They have cost thousands of lives.
•
Wars cause direct harm to the earth: damaging
water supplies and causing water shortages, destroying farm
lands and food supplies. Whole life-systems are affected.
•
The heavy military use of oil and other
fossil fuels in war and war preparations contributes to
climate change.
www.paxchristi.org.uk/index.html
for downloadable resources

Sweat Shops
A new report,
Let’s Clean Up Fashion 2009, issued by two
organisations, Labour behind the Label and War on
Want, has exposed leading British fashion retailers who
have failed to ensure a living wage for their workers.
It
shows that the majority of workers in the global fashion
industry rarely earn more than two dollars a day in an
industry worth over £36 billion a year in the
UK alone. Many have to work excessive hours just to get this
meagre amount and have no possibility to earn the wages
needed to properly feed, clothe, house and educate their
families. The report looks at 25 top brands and concludes
that low wages are a result of a ‘race-to-the bottom’ to
keep prices as low as possible in order to maintain sales
and market share. Most of the retailers you can think of are
in the report and while some say they have plans to improve
the lot of the sweat shop workers many either failed to give
information or admitted that they had no plans to taken any
action.
Companies
which have made some progress towards a ‘living wage’ were
Gap, Marks & Spencer, Monsoon Accessorize, New Look, Next
and Primark
To read the report go to
www.waronwant.org/letscleanupfashion2009
Celebrating the Changing Face of our Diocese
At the 25th
Anniversary event of the Catholic Association for Racial
Justice (CARJ), Archbishop Vincent Nichols urged everyone to
act on the challenge laid down by Pope Benedict’s latest
Encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ to use globalisation to make us
brothers and sisters. Iona Thomas from Sacred Heart Parish,
Leicester, represented Nottingham Diocese at the day. In a phone
call before the event she reflected with me on the continuing
need to recognize the difficulties which people can encounter in
this society where racism and intolerance are still present. In
his talk, John Battle MP said “The Church has to mix solidarity
and prayer together in real action. We must reach out to
neighbours so community can be built between brothers and
sisters in their own neighbourhoods.” The impact of Islamaphobia
was raised by Khola Hasan who works in the area of Interfaith
Dialogue. He said that Muslims continue to be portrayed as
violent and extreme while ‘the amazing amount of charitable
work’ in which they are involved was ‘does not make the news.”
This point had been made at our own Diocesan Assembly ‘One
Body, many parts’ last month. Bishop Malcolm in referring to
people of faiths other than Christian, promoted a ‘dialogue of
life’ ‘where people work together for common local purposes as
well as some national issues where we share common values’.
If you are a member of an
organization and are willing to represent the Justice and Peace
Commission at events, please get in touch with the Office and
tell us– your part-time fieldworkers can’t get to everything!
(specially when we’re trying to increase our use of public
transport!)
126 Boxes for
Seafarers!
North East Lincs J+P group wrapped all
these gifts for Christmas distribution by the Immingham
Mission.
As
part of Justice and Peace work to implement the Diocesan
Commitment to the Environment, we are promoting the 10:10
Campaign. This is aiming for a reduction of 10% in carbon
emissions during 2010.
About two-thirds of
the average 14-tonne annual total per person in the UK comes
from the way we run our homes, our personal transport
and the things we buy.
If you have already committed
to this in your household, your office or your church please
let us know how it’s going. Whatever the outcomes in
Copenhagen we know that cuts need to happen now.
www.1010uk.org

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Autumn 2009
Learning Opportunities
Would you like to explore a variety of J&P
issues? Could a learning event raise awareness of these issues
in your parish? Might it result in more people being involved?
Included in the mailing is an outline of a
number of short learning modules which the J&P team can put on
in your parish. The first module on Catholic Social Teaching we
see as the base module on which the others are built. The other
churches have called Catholic Social Teaching our best kept
secret because it is rooted firmly in the Bible and made
relevant to the world today. Caritas in Veritate is an excellent
example, well received and praised across the Christian
churches. The other modules are suggestions only. We are
prepared to design modules to respond to any ideas you may have.
The sessions would last about two hours. They
would be participative aiming to create situations which allow
participants to experience the reality of life for people
struggling to improve their lives. We are keen to look at local
issues as well as problems in the wider world. In looking at
local issues, such as homelessness for example, we would want to
involve people working on the ground with homeless people. This
could be an opportunity to work with other churches or groups in
your area.
Please call the J&P team for further information
and to discuss your ideas.
‘Canticles and Compost’
I’d never been on a ‘Catholic People’s Week’
event before. The title attracted me. I found the eco-study
centre Ringsfield Hall in Suffolk a house full of beauty. The
grounds are set up to provide a ‘free-range’ experience for the
school groups who come in term time. That suited us too. Mike
Monaghan kept our focus on the inspiration of St Francis. We
returned several times to the Canticle of Brother Sun. Once it
was for night prayer at the fire-pit, led by the young people,
another time my sister shared her birthday gift of rose-oil -
each person anointed another participant after we had considered
the verse on ‘sister death’.
Challenge came in the Carbon Footprint exercise
and the Green audits we did. Recognition was given to the fact
that at the moment it is easier being planet-friendly if you’re
retired and fortunate enough to be physically active with a
sufficient income to make low-carbon choices but so much more
difficult if jobs require a lot of travelling. As Mike said;
‘I’m only putting the facts, it’s for you to make conclusions.’
After one session where Mike got us to face up to the new epoch
in which we are living when not just the carbon cycle but the
global water and nitrogen cycles have also been contorted by the
industrial processes of the last 200 years, he announced that
despite this critical state of God’s earth he had still been
able to make a list of 50 reasons to give hope!
On a slow return to the Midlands we stayed at a
B+B which had grown produce for local shops until the late 80’s
when Supermarket dominance destroyed the business – a feature
which the film ‘A Farm for the Future’* dealing with issues of
food security, touches on. But the next day we ate at a pub
which was producing bio-dynamically 85% of the food it sold.
That day we had the chance to visit the Swaffham Eco-tech Centre
– local people had campaigned for wind power and have been
benefiting from it for 10 years!
Rosy
www.ringsfield-hall.co.uk
www.catholicpeoplesweeks.org.uk
* a dvd of this can be borrowed from the office.
Great news: the government is delaying the
decision on the next stage of Trident replacement. It has
decided to wait until after the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Review Conference which takes place in May of next year. The
Conference is likely to have the most serious international
discussion on nuclear disarmament for decades. Real progress is
possible and the government's delay decision makes a positive
contribution to the Conference's prospects.
More is being heard from the Government about
Trident replacement not being affordable.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
says the UK government decision to revoke five arms export
licences to Israel is a welcome move but far too little, far too
late. The licences cover spare parts for guns on the Sa'ar ships
which fired into civilian settlements on the Gaza coastline
during Israel's assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009.
The move comes after a review of UK arms exports to Israel by
Foreign Secretary David Miliband. CAAT spokesperson Kaye
Stearman said ‘This episode shows that we don't know how UK
components, whether exported directly to Israel or via the US,
will be used. The only effective and ethical action is an
immediate embargo on arms and components - this would help to
protect the people of Gaza and the West Bank and send a
meaningful message to the Israeli government about its policy
towards the Occupied Territories.’
Citizens for Sanctuary
Nottingham is one of 19 places around the
country where Campaign Action Teams have been set up with the
intention of implementing the recommendations of the Independent
Asylum Commission of 2008. These use a methodology developed by
the London Citizens Foundation to campaign for changes which are
both worthwhile and winnable. Diocesan J+P is taking an active
part in this initiative.
Lord of energy
Lord of energy, teach us to pray …
Our Creator - source of all power,
we want to align ourselves like iron filings
to your magnet.
We want to be drawn to your intent;
to live in a society that responds
to your beckoning,
to feel the surge of your life-giving energy.
Grant us wisdom in our use
of physical energy.
Help us to live by the standards
we choose,
not those of others:
to focus our desire on you,
not the fake comforts of modern living,
to be satisfied by a sense of your love,
not our own power or status.
Because we know that your way
is the only true way,
that everything we love and are
is a gift from you,
and that to know you as our Creator
is to glimpse eternity.
A prayer by John Polhill taken from the
materials for the
Climate Change Day of Prayer suggested as 4th
October.
www.christian-ecology.org.uk/day-of-prayer.htm
SUMMER 2009
National Justice and Peace Conference
‘On the
road together’ - the Conference title for the annual gathering
of the Justice and Peace Network had a special meaning for my
companion. Having been in UK for 10 years seeking sanctuary after
fleeing Zimbabwe, he had only just received refusal of his claim and
was returning to his accommodation to await eviction. However, from
all over the country we heard how refugees and migrants are finding
fellowship in their local communities – Don Flynn with 35 years
experience of following immigration issues told us that churches are
significant players in providing practical responses to need. He
believes that the call to regularise the status of undocumented
migrants and overhaul the asylum system which at present ‘is
incapable of identifying people in need of protection’ will have
support in the next parliament. From 'London Citizens' lead
organiser Neil Jamieson we heard how Christians are supporting
actions to counter destitution which can be regarded as the current
‘policy of starvation’ for failed asylum seekers.
When my companion is evicted he has been assured by a wide network
of compassionate Christians that they will continue to accompany
him. Bishop Patrick Lynch spoke of such a pastoral approach as being
directly inspired by the Emmaus story – listening, walking-with and
sharing, leading to empowerment and hope.
Rosy Townsend
Social Housing
MP Bob
Laxton was among 60+ MPs who had the policy calls of the ‘Get
Fair’ Coalition brought to their attention in the recent
Constituency Lobby. The issue of the failure of social housing
supply to meet the needs of the population was raised with him by
members of the Derby Churches Justice and Peace Group. The UK
already had a housing crisis, the impact of the recession is making
it worse. The poorer the area, the longer the waiting lists.
Alastair Murray of ‘Housing Justice’ made clear when he spoke at the
Nottingham Cathedral ‘Changing Face of Britain’ event in June that
stress on availability of affordable housing leads to the
‘scapegoating’ of vulnerable sections of society. Myths circulate
about migrants from new EU states getting social benefits
immediately on arrival in the UK whereas they are entitled to no
support for the 1st 52 weeks. Get Fair’s call for
the Government to invest an additional £6.35 bn over the next two
years to build 100,000 new social rented homes received the response
of an investment of £1.5bn to build only 20,000 new affordable homes
in the ‘Building Britain’s Future’ plans at the end of the month.
God's love calls us to
move beyond the limited and the ephemeral,
it gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the
benefit of all,
even if this cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able
to achieve,
alongside political authorities and those working in the field of
economics,
is always less than we might wish.
God gives us the strength to fight and to suffer for love of the common
good,
because he is our All, our greatest hope.
Pope Benedict XVI Caritas in Veritate
Currency Trading
Interested in reforms of
Financial markets? Impatient that the 0.7% of national income
promised as Aid way back in 1970 has never been achieved?
Concerned about meeting the Millennium Development Goals?
Then join the campaign to
establish the case for a Currency Transaction Levy to help raise
billions of pounds by a levy of 0.005% on all currency trading.
A ten-minute film can be viewed
at;
www.stampoutpoverty.org/film/?bw=512
$3,000 bn worth of currency is
traded every day but the currency market unlike other financial
markets is currently exempt from taxation. If there was a
Sterling Stamp Duty of less than one hundredth of one per cent
it would raise in the region of £2bn a year.
Nuclear Hope
Bruce Kent
Vice President of Pax Christi has welcomed the outline agreement by
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons
"The
Obama-Medvedev agreement on nuclear weapons is a very positive sign
indeed. In Cairo President Obama made clear America's
commitment to seek a world in which no nation holds nuclear weapons.
This agreement, and his previous cut in funding for a new US nuclear
warhead, are positive signs that he is serious. It sends the right
signals to the participants at next year's Nuclear Non Proliferation
Treaty review conference. Nuclear abolition is now on the agenda of
the world's most powerful state. This new initiative should be
responded to positively by the British Government. It is absurd for
Britain to be planning, at vast expense, to renew Trident and thus
remain a nuclear power for the next 50 years".
Our Climate is in Our Hands
The parish of St
Francis Long Eaton recently held a mid-week evening liturgy
based on CAFOD Climate Justice material. Members of the Justice
and Peace Group spoke at all masses over one weekend. and
afterwards parishioners signed the CAFOD Action cards.
Encouraged by everyone’s response they took the campaign action
to Long Eaton Community Carnival. Children drew round their
hands on a roll of lining paper while other people found out
about the need to put poor communities at the heart of the
agenda of December’s United Nations Climate Conference in
Copenhagen. The parish group is planning to have more liturgies
on environmental justice in the autumn and build support for the
Climate March on December 5th.
DO LET US KNOW WHAT JUSTICE AND PEACE ACTIVITIES YOUR PARISH IS
INVOLVED WITH!
Tipping Point for Fairtrade?
Cadbury’s flagship brand Dairy Milk is now
available in shops as a Fairtrade certified product. 300 million
bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk are sold each year in the UK and
Ireland, so this will be a tipping point for Fairtrade. For the
cocoa farmers of Kuapa Kokoo co-op in Ghana, where Cadbury
already sources its cocoa, the move will see their Fairtrade
sales triple. They will sell a much larger percentage of their
cocoa as Fairtrade, getting a fairer price and a much greater
range of farmer and community support. The increase in sales
will also help existing certified farming groups such as Belize
Sugar Cane Farmers’ Association. This development is also set,
to help secure the future of cocoa farming in India, Indonesia
and the Caribbean, where the industry is facing ever increasing
challenges.
There is still a great distance to go to make every chocolate
bar fairtrade. Even with this increase in sales, the fairtrade
market will account for only one twelfth of the cocoa sold -
even in Ghana.
‘Hidden from View’
Parishioners of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in
Bulwell enjoyed a Tea provided by the Justice and Peace Group
after Saturday vigil Mass in July before a showing of this short
film about Bethlehem. One response which was discussed to what
was shown about life under the Israeli occupation was to contact
local supermarkets to ask them to stop stocking products which
may have been grown on land taken by the illegal settlements.
Are you involved in Transition?
A key feature of the Transition movement which is
addressing the two challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change is its
emphasis on resilient communities. Basic to this is the development
of local food production, local energy sources, transport and
sustainable housing. The current economic instability is driven by
the idea of continuous growth, which uses up the Earth’s finite
resources and is caused by the monetary policy of lending with
interest, which makes growth necessary to recover debt. Community
banks could provide loans to savers without interest, as practised
in a number of successful banking schemes in Sweden, Switzerland and
other countries. Several Transition communities now issue local
currencies, though there is no blueprint for success. As the
Transition website puts it: "Transition is a social experiment on
a massive scale. What we are convinced of is this: if we wait for
governments, it’ll be too little, too late. If we act as
individuals, it will be too little. If we act as communities, it
might just be enough, just in time."
www.transitiontowns.org
Please contact your
Justice and Peace Fieldworkers
Rosy Townsend and Tony Prior
with any requests for support.
We look forward to visiting your Parish.
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