‘Catholic News’ is a podcast carrying interviews with a diverse range of people – lay people, religious and clergy – involved on the front line of the Catholic Church’s work in England and Wales.
22nd March 2023
On today’s Catholic News podcast, Archbishop John Wilson joins us to talk about the launch of CARITAS Southwark – a new diocesan Caritas social action charity to help those in need across the south east.
Archbishop Wilson is keen to work collaboratively:
“This is not about a takeover. This is about creating a network whereby there can be a real celebration of good practise, and where new initiatives, especially in parishes and schools, can find support and direction from existing organisations and charities within the church, so that our diocese, within which there is enormous social need, can really start to put the practical gospel of love, of neighbour into practise in a new way.
“Starting small. We’re sowing little seeds, but from little seeds come mighty oaks. And mighty oaks give shelter, especially to those who suffer and are in pain and in need. We come with faith and we come with a real desire to sow seeds today that will bear fruit in our practical love of those in need.”
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This is Archbishop John Wilson, the Archbishop of Southwark, and I’m very pleased to share news today of the launch of our Caritas Southwark network, which is a new thing for us in the Archdiocese. Today, thanks be to God, following a long process of consultation with people in our parishes and our schools, we’ve been able to formally launch Caritas Southwark as an agency of the diocese to put the Gospel into practise – to make the Gospel flesh. To reach out to the weakest and the poorest and those in need in our communities and ask the question, what can we do? How can we serve? How can we be the loving presence of Christ, that sees with the heart of Christ and the eyes of Christ, with the compassion of Christ, and meets the needs of people – whether it’s to do with food poverty or issues around refugees, whether it’s things to do with care of the elderly, we’ve got projects that we want to explore that look at how we help our young people, especially those who might be tempted, into areas that involve knife crime.
We’re very, very keen to work collaboratively and in partnership and also to explore new ways of how we might work together. We’ve got very good relationships with Pact, for example, that works with prisoners in supporting the link between prisoners and their families. We’ve got good links with the Manna Society (a day centre for homeless people near London Bridge), which is based here in the diocese and which the diocese already supports.
So this is not about a takeover. This is about creating a network whereby there can be a real celebration of good practise, and where new initiatives, especially in parishes and schools, can find support and direction from existing organisations and charities within the church, so that our diocese, within which there is enormous social need, can really start to put the practical gospel of love, of neighbour into practise in a new way. Starting small. We’re sowing little seeds, but from little seeds come mighty oaks. And mighty oaks give shelter, especially to those who suffer and are in pain and in need. We come with faith and we come with a real desire to sow seeds today that will bear fruit in our practical love of those in need.
In terms of the challenges to our Caritas project, they’re two-fold. One is to actually get enough people to be inspired – to be involved. That’s why we need volunteers from our parishes and from our schools working collaboratively with other partner organisations. But we need people to be fired up with a love for Christ that wants to put their faith into action, into practise.
We need people to realise the skills that they have and the talents that they have, and to hear their baptismal call. Because this is not to be a clericalist thing. This really needs the baptised in our diocese, the lay people, the lay faithful of our diocese, to really hear the call of the Lord Jesus, to put their faith into action in a most beautiful way.
One of the challenges is that we need to be able to raise up a desire within people to put faith into practise. A second challenge is to begin to discern the areas where need is to be met. So in our diocese, which is a big diocese across all of South London and Kent and the Medway unitary authority as well, there is great social need. There is poverty in parts of South London, there is homelessness. There are all kinds of ways in which people are isolated, they feel lonely, they find it difficult to access services, many of them are struggling.
There are one-parent families, there are people living with real material needs who can’t provide enough electricity and heating for their house, who can’t clothe their children. So there’s a level at which we can really build relationships on a small scale, one by one, to reach out to people who are in practical need.
Compare that, for example, with parts of Kent. Dover is in our diocese. A few months ago, I visited the lifeboat station at the Port of Dover and heard of the incredible work that they have been doing to rescue people who have taken an incredible decision to try and escape persecution, hardship, war in many cases, and cross the Channel. This has been a source of great controversy. There are great political issues at stake here, which to me, really don’t face the crucial issue, which is we have people before us who are in desperate need. And if we lose sight of the desperate need of the people, we lose sight of our conscience as a country. So it was incredible to hear the testimonies of those who work on the lifeboats in Dover. They simply said, “Our mission has always been and will always be to save people in danger at sea. We don’t ask who they are or where they’re from.”
I was really, really impressed by that. And they faced a lot of criticism, the lifeboat association, the RNLI, for this work, and to my mind, they are doing incredible work, as are the churches and different community organisations that work to welcome and support refugees in that part of the world.
So, for me, it’s really, really important that when we think about the needs of the other, that other has a face and that other has a name and that other has a family, that other could be me one day, it could be you one day. And if we lose sight of that, we may as well just give up and stop living. Because if we lose sight of our common humanity, what is the point of being alive?
It’s absolutely essential that we recognise that we are our brother and sister’s keeper. At the heart of any issue is a person. And if we lose sight of the person, then we begin to work in a way that is inhuman and that is intolerable. We must always, at the heart, see the person and value and love the person.
The challenges across our diocese are varied. What we want to begin to do is to discern how we move forward locally, using the talents in our schools and our parishes to provide for our community beyond our churches, beyond those who worship. This is not just to be something that is at the service of ourselves. We want to be present in our communities with the love of Christ. However those needs manifest themselves and whatever people come with those needs, we want to be able to say, we will do our best to help.
Our local parishes work in partnership with local refugee groups. And that’s very, very important. I think this needs a collaborative approach. It needs people to stand together and it needs people to speak together. And I think the key response is always to cut through politics. Politics matter, of course they do, but politics have to be at the service of the human person and the dignity of the human person.
Politics that isn’t at the service of the dignity of the human person is inauthentic. Of course, there are other considerations in all of this. I appreciate that. I’m not naïve. But when a person is in need, the presenting requirement is that we reach out to them.
That, to me, is the fundamental truth of the Gospel. That when a person is in need, my response as a Christian, my response as a human being, is to reach out in love and in support. And there will be issues around all of that which will need resolution. They need humane resolution, not simply isolating people or cutting them off or rejecting them or transporting them elsewhere. That doesn’t help anybody. Global solutions need countries to speak to each other and they need partnership and they need a compassion that puts into practise real solutions, not simply knee-jerk reactions that seemingly solve a problem at the expense of the dignity of human life. That, to me, is just preposterous.
The invitation for people to collaborate with us is very, very open. If you’re listening to this message and you think, “Well, look, I’d like to do something for people in need,” please get in touch with your local parish, please get in touch with our Caritas office. If you have a skill that you want to share, whether you are a person of faith or not, if you have a big heart and you want to put love into practise, then we’d be delighted to work with you. This is about us together in our communities for the common good, pooling our resources, pooling our talent, sharing what we have, giving of what we have so that others who don’t have can receive more – simple as that.
For me, there’s a very basic philosophy at work here, which is sometimes we can do something which is never going to be everything but it’s more than nothing. Nothing is not the answer. Something is the answer – even if it’s not everything. So we have to have vision and we have to be able to look beyond the impossible to find the possible.
27th January 2023
This audiobook, recorded and produced in collaboration with the Catholic Truth Society (CTS), sees us re-visit the ‘Victims of the Nazis’ series to shine a light on a truly remarkable woman – Edith Stein – who we know and venerate as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
Born on the Feast of St Wilfred, 12 October 1891, in the then German town of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), Edith Stein was a German Jew who descended to the intellectual heights of atheism, converted to Catholicism and, as a Discalced Carmelite nun, ascended to Mount Carmel to the crystal peaks of mysticism.
Her life on earth ended in the gas chambers of a Nazi concentration camp – which she entered unresisting as an offering to God. Spiritually a giant, in body she was small and frail. At first meeting she often disappointed those who had known her only by her fame as a major contemporary philosopher.
She has many devotees around the world and was declared a saint by Pope Saint John Paul II on 11 October 1998.
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This book was written by Monk Matthew and published by CTS in 2010. It is taken from a collection of texts, published in ebook form, titled: Edith Stein, Marcel Callo, Titus Brandsma: Victims of the Nazis. This audiobook version is read by Monica Nash.
Duration: 38 minutes
ctsbooks.org
You can visit the CTS website for more on this and other great publications.
25th January 2023
Bishop Nicholas Hudson, Chairing his first Holy Land Co-ordination, spoke to us on the eve of his return home from Amman, the capital of Jordan.
He had just spent five days leading a pilgrimage of Bishops from 11 countries around the holy sites of Jordan, as well as visiting some of the Catholic parishes and projects active in the country.
Jordan today hosts more displaced people than almost any other country, offering support for those fleeing violence in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, through the provision of accommodation, skills-training, medical facilities, pastoral care, and advocacy.
“Jordanian people have a real gift for welcome,” said Bishop Hudson. “Their welcome to the refugees is deeply touching and they have a deep desire to welcome more pilgrims too. It’s a land of joy in the sense that whenever you encounter people, you sense the joy in their hearts.”
The Holy Land Co-ordination, based this year in Amman, Jordan, took place from 14-19 January. It is an annual meeting of the Episcopal Conferences in Support of the Church of the Holy Land. It focuses on the three Ps: Prayer, Pilgrimage and Persuasion.
It has been one of the biggest Holy Land Co-ordinations I’ve known – and I’ve been on about five of them. I was counting, at our final meeting this evening, I think we were 35 people sitting in a large circle with bishops representing about eleven different countries – it has been a fantastic week. It began with going to the ordination of two young priests. It was really heart-warming to arrive into such an atmosphere and see a beautifully full church.
The next day saw us go down to the River Jordan, to the newly-developed baptismal site – the very place of the Baptism of Our Lord. There was an almost festival atmosphere with the church completely full and the same number of people outside. They reckoned there were some like 6,500 – 7,000 people there. There was an atmosphere that we recognise from our own experience in England and Wales, where people are so happy to be able to come together for that sort of celebration when COVID prevented them doing it for so long.
The following day we had just as touching an experience, but completely different when we spent the morning with Iraqi refugees, and I’ll say a little bit more about that later on, but that was deeply touching.
Then we went out to different parishes – about seven different parishes. Bishops, priests and some of the lay members of the Co-ordination go out to different parishes. I went about 100km north of Amman, where we’ve been based, to go and celebrate Mass in the parish of Ajloun – and deeply touching it was. The contrast between the 6,500 – 7,000 of the day before and the 40 or so people who were in Ajloun was deeply touching. Just as precious in their smallness, and I could see how much it meant to them when I said, “we’ve come to let you know that you’re not forgotten, because we all belong to the one Body of Christ and we will always hold you in our hearts”.
The next day, the whole Co-ordination went somewhere completely different – a third of the way down the country to a place called Madaba. There we had a really excellent and informative presentation from Caritas, where they were telling us everything that they’ve been doing for refugees. And then we went into an actual school and we had addresses from different members of the school, telling us everything that they’ve been doing to welcome refugees and also local Jordanian Christians and some Muslims into their school.
Then we had one of the most memorable moments from the scriptural topographical aspect of being in Jordan, which was to go up Mount Nebo, which is of course, the place where Moses viewed the Promised Land for the first time. We came off the mountain to go and meet with young people from the Patriarchate in Jordan. The Patriarchate in Jordan has organised a very effective youth leadership scheme and we were all very impressed by their presentation of their work and their vision of youth formation for children and young people across the country of Jordan.
We had an evening with ambassadors the following day and then, on our last full day, it was deeply touching to go and meet children with disabilities and the adults looking after them. Something of an appropriate climax to the week was for us to be able to sit down with the Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and we were able to have a ‘question and answer’ session with him about life, not just in Jordan, but across the whole Holy Land. On our last afternoon, we spent time with Christian parliamentarians working in parliament in Amman – one coming up from Madaba, one based in Amman – came to talk about their vision of Christian life in Jordan.
Q. What will be the main messages that you, as bishops, will be bringing home from the Co-ordination?
What I take away from this week in Jordan is that Jordan is a land of many contrasts. It’s a land of welcome, it’s a land of joy. We experienced that welcome with the welcome extended towards us. Jordanian people have a real gift for welcome. Their welcome to the refugees is deeply touching and they have a deep desire to welcome more pilgrims too. It’s a land of joy in the sense that whenever you encounter people, you sense the joy in their hearts. There was real joy about the liturgies we experienced, there was simply a joy of encounter.
We found a great deal of joy at the pilgrim sites as well, where they were communicating their joy in all that they’ve done to develop those places in order they hope to welcome more pilgrims to this part of the Holy Land.
It struck me as well, from quite early on, that it’s a land of sadness too. There’s a lot of sadness in the eyes of the people you meet. Understandably in the eyes of the refugees – Iraqi refugees, who’ve been here seven or eight years and have been trying time and time again to get a visa, to start a life in another part of the world.
There was a lot of sadness, as well, in the parishioners I met in the parish that I went to for that Mass. When I was talking to the young adults, I asked them, “when you think of those you were at school with here in this town and the young people who were your friends, how many of them have gone away to another country?” And the three people said, and they’re all in their early to mid 20s, they said, “do you know… its almost everybody.” But they said, “we’re going to stay.” The joy, which always contrasts with the sadness, came out and they said it with real joy. One said, with a beautiful smile on his face, “my parents are here, so of course I’ll stay.” Another said, “I’m trained to be a doctor and I want to be a doctor to the people here in Jordan, so I’m staying.” So you get this interplay of joy and sadness all the time.
I think, as well, one of the key takeaways for me is the fact that Caritas are doing absolutely wonderful work to welcome refugees, but they’re feeling under-resourced and they’re feeling that there have been so many waves of different refugee needs that they’re not getting as much resource as they did.
In the parishes, the dominant theme was how many of the parishioners are really poor, so that there is a lot of poverty here as well. So if I take away an image of welcome, of joy, but also sadness and one of poverty, actually. Jordan is a place that has been extraordinarily generous in its welcome but is feeling stretched and is beginning to feel a shortage of resources. I would also want to say, very forcibly and positively, that Jordanian people have an instinct for treating their fellow human beings with dignity. This came to me when I was asking the bishop, who is the vicar for this part of the Holy Land for Jordan, I said to him, “Why is Jordan so generous towards refugees?” He said, “Well, it’s because we’re always generous towards the stranger,” and he said it was a beautiful smile on his face. When I probed a little further, in light of what we’d heard from Caritas, and in light of what I heard about the poverty in the indigenous population, he said, “Yes, we have real difficulties because there’s 25% unemployment.” We heard that there’s 50% unemployment among young adults, young people in Jordan. He said, “Jordan’s very, very short of water.” But then he said, and that beautiful smile came back, “But somehow we manage – somehow we manage to welcome all these people.”
I came away from that conversation reflecting on the dignity with which Jordanian people welcome everybody who comes to them and welcome, particularly, those in need. It really contrasts with the lack of dignity that we’ve seen, and which was actually highlighted in the Advent message of Local Ordinaries for the Holy Land when they were talking about the indignity that comes with the upsurge of violence on the West Bank in recent months with the growth of illegal settlements. There has also been the highest Palestinian death toll in 20 years, so the contrast is very, very marked, actually.
As I stand back from all of that, and prepare to pack my bags to go back home, something that comes to me very forcibly, really, is that countries with plenty need to try to find ways of sharing some of their plenty with a country like Jordan, which is doing everything it can with utmost generosity to welcome those who are in much greater need than they are themselves. Also, let’s face it, countries with plenty need to ask themselves, “Can we not take some of the refugees which Jordan has given shelter to?”
I was deeply impressed by Jordan, deeply impressed by the people of Jordan, deeply impressed by the quality of welcome that we’ve experienced here, and which they show to others.
The words that I will take away in my heart will be, “what dignity.”
5th January 2023
“In one way it was a very straightforward celebration of a Funeral Mass as would take place at the death
of any Catholic in any parish church. And yet in another way it was a uniquely historical event and an event of great emotional depth and stature.
“I think we can say it’s the first time [in over 200 years] that a pope has buried a pope who has just died and in that sense there was a uniqueness to it. But I think it was also a moment in which, for me certainly, there was a heightened sense of loss – a sense of my own sadness that Benedict is no longer with us in person. At the same time the ceremony was an unshakable expression of faith and trust in the promises of Jesus. So we had both sadness and hope, we had the grief of loss and the certainty of faith.
“There were some words used in one of the prayers that appealed to me, particularly, and it was an appeal to Mary Salus Populi Romani, that she would intercede that Benedict would now see the face of Jesus and that we would be comforted on our pilgrim way.
“Those words touched me because I reflected on how much Benedict, his life and his spirituality, was focused on a relationship with Jesus. Those books that he wrote about Jesus of Nazareth in some ways summed up not only his learning but also his spirituality and his prayer.
“The other day, Archbishop Gänswein, who knows him better than anybody did, was saying that it was that image of Jesus always accompanying the Church, always being with the Church, that was the most radically fundamental thing in Pope Benedict’s life.
“And I was thinking of the time when I was in St Peter Square when he gave his last homily as serving Pope before he left for Castel Gandolfo. In that homily, he used the image of Jesus asleep in the back of the boat when the storm came on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples were frightened.”
Archbishop Gänswein repeated that and gave a little gloss on it. He said, “Benedict used to say, ‘but now Jesus never sleeps and he’s always with us’.”
So during the Mass I was thinking about those things and, quite simply, how lovable Benedict was and therefore thanking God for the gifts that He gave us through him.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Vatican, 5 January 2023
5th January 2023
Shortly after arriving in Rome the day before Benedict XVI’s funeral, Cardinal Vincent Nichols spent some time in prayer and quiet contemplation before the body of the late Pope Emeritus
Lying in state in St Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict was visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims who paid their final respects and offered prayers for the repose of his soul.
“Yesterday afternoon, I was able to go into the Basilica of St. Peter’s and be in the presence of Pope
Benedict’s body to pray for him, and on behalf of many people who had asked me to join their prayers together in the presence of Pope Benedict’s mortal remains.
“It was a very simple time, and what was impressive was the movement of people as they came up the whole length of the aisle of St. Peter’s and paused ever so slightly in front of the catafalque where the body of Pope Benedict was visible.
“Everybody did the same thing. They made the sign of the Cross. They whispered a prayer and tried to take a picture with their phone. The stewards who were there were saying, “please move on, please don’t stop.”
“I believe 160,000 or more people have passed through the basilica paying their respects and praying for Pope Benedict. And that, to me, is an expression of how much he was loved.
“For me, I spent a lot of the time reflecting on my association with Pope Benedict and what I loved and appreciated about him. In a way, it was quite difficult to come away. There was a draw. I felt pulled to stay, but then eventually I had to leave. It was very precious time.
“I think how he will be remembered will be as a great scholar who wrote with clarity and simplicity, and who had a very loving disposition and capacity to make people feel welcome and part of whatever it was he was doing – the conversation or the event.
“So he’ll be remembered both for his learning, but for his warmth of heart and generosity of character.”
18th November 2022
Audio taken from a virtual press conference in which four Catholic bishops from England and Wales discussed their autumn plenary meeting.
Bishop Paul Mason, who chaired the press conference, spoke about the Church’s safeguarding work, Bishop John Arnold discussed four resolutions concerned with environmental matters, Bishop John Sherrington addressed the issue of buffer zones around abortion clinics and Bishop Nicholas Hudson updated journalists on the Church’s Synodal Journey.
The Bishops’ plenary meeting took place at Hinsley Hall, Leeds, from 14-17 November 2022.
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1st November 2022
Patrick O’Dowd, the director of Caritas Salford, spoke to us recently to give an overview of what the charity is doing to ease the burdens of struggling families in the north west of England.
Patrick relayed some shocking statistics about the devastating effects of the crisis, with hundreds of thousands of children lacking the bare essentials, families plunged into precarious positions, and even households with one member working are struggling to make ends meet.
Caritas Salford is part of the Caritas Social Action Network, an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
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19th October 2022
Every year, millions of pilgrims from around the world visit the foothills of the French Pyrenees to walk in the footsteps of Saint Bernadette at Lourdes. It’s one of the world’s busiest Catholic pilgrimage sites with around five million pilgrims visiting each year. It’s estimated that over 200 million people have visited the Marian shrine and sanctuary since 1860.
Why do they come? It’s a common misconception that most pilgrims visit Lourdes to experience a miracle. However, many are searching for strength and guidance in times of difficulty or distress. For many sick pilgrims, Lourdes offers the opportunity to bathe in the healing waters of the spring and to find peace with their prognosis rather than to seek a miraculous cure.
They also come to walk in the footsteps of a poor 14 year old girl, named Bernadette Soubirous, to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in a series of 18 apparitions at a Grotto on the banks of the river Gave between February and July 1858.
Hers is a remarkable story that led from suffering and surrender to sainthood. We can take solace and draw closer to the Lord and His Blessed Mother through Bernadette’s story.
In this audiobook, produced in partnership with the Catholic Truth Society, we listen to the message of St Bernadette – a message that is as clear today as it was in the 19th century.
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This book, written by Vernon Johnson, was published by the Catholic Truth Society (CTS). The text was revised and updated by Donal Foley in 2008. You can listen to this audiobook version for free. Read by Pierpaolo Finaldi.
Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes
4th October 2022
As the Social Justice department of the Bishops’ Conference launches a new revised edition of the Bishops’ teaching document on the environment The Call of Creation, Bishop John Arnold, our episcopal lead for environmental matters, has been speaking to us about the current ecological crisis, our responsibilities as Catholics and custodians of the created world, and his belief that we all need to play our part to protect our common home.
We’re fundamentally going to talk about the ‘Call of Creation’, which is the Bishops’ teaching document on the environment, released in 2002, and I know it was revised along the way by CAFOD, but we are now re-releasing in 2022. Just tell us why we’re doing this now.
Well, I think the world was woken up a great deal by Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ encyclical, and that did a great service not just to the people of the church, but to the world. But still we’re not acting quickly enough. And if you look at the statistics that are emerging we’re really making a terrible mess of the environment and it’s having an appalling impact on so many people around the world.
In the news… Pakistan – 33 million people directly affected by climate change. We’ve got Japan with Typhoon Nanmadol – three million people evacuated; the Puerto Rico typhoon; Alaskan storms; the west states of the United States with their wildfires; Kentucky with its ongoing flood damage. Really, it’s an appalling state of affairs. When are we going to make it urgent to be effective in our response?
And that’s really before we mention war and other things that are going on in our world… Let’s go back to your foreword for The Call of Creation, in which you say a truly Catholic understanding of the environmental crisis does not see it as a series of individual problems that need to be solved. Now, I find that very interesting. How should we, then, as Catholics, respond to this environmental crisis?
Well, I think Pope Francis gives us a lead, when he says everything is connected and that each and every one of us has our part to play.
We’ve got to see climate change and the damage it’s doing as not just a series of things that we can cure one by one. It’s a matter of care for creation as a whole, which means changing our lifestyle and everyone has got to be part of that. It also includes our political actions. The war in Ukraine is an appalling, damaging feature for the environment. It’s a dreadful thing to be happening. It’s affecting food supplies and destroying property. There is evidence of a number of deaths that have not yet been accounted for. It’s all connected and we’ve got to have a global look, as Pope Francis says, and put these things together so that we can recognise a plan for all of us in order to save our common home.
Now, without getting too controversial, I think there might be something of a problem with the psychology behind action. Sometimes you’ll get people saying, well, what about India, China, the US, ourselves, the big polluters? How can we avoid individuals getting disheartened by these big polluters so they carry on doing their bit, changing their relationship with the environment, going about it in a positive way, thinking about their consumption, recycling etc? How do we keep their spirits up so they continue to make a difference?
Well, I think Christian hope has a great deal to do with this – that we’ve not been defeated. Pope Francis is very clear, we live on in hope and that hope can’t be just something that we put nicely on the windowsill and say, it will happen, we’ve got to be part of this. And it’s all very well to feel very pessimistic about certain nations in the world and what’s going terribly wrong and they’re correcting their ways of destroying the environment.
At the same time, we’ve got quite an upsurge of popular understanding, people around the world, particularly young people, who are learning so much about the environment and wanting to make it a priority. Now, if our political leaders are going to lead us effectively, they’ve got to listen to us. And the more noise that we can make about their prioritising the environment, I think the better place we will be in to persuade governments around the world to make those necessary actions.
Now, obviously, you’re our Lead Bishop for the Environment, and I won’t ask you to speak for every diocese and to tell us about every single church building, for instance, but in your experience, and in your diocese, perhaps in particular, how are we getting on with our carbon net zero aims, emissions, efficiency in churches, schools and offices?
I think we’ve made some good progress. We’ve got the Guardians of Creation project, which is effectively helping us to combine our thoughts and share our best practise. We’ve certainly, as a church, got a lot of properties and we can do a great deal in terms of moving towards net zero in carbon.
We’ve got that sense of education going on. Certainly among the young people in my diocese, I do feel a real enthusiasm. We’ve got to try and make sure that we express our concerns about the environment, not in a frightening way for young people, but in a way that encourages them in their understanding of what they can be doing and what their families can be doing in terms of modifying our behaviour and helping at ground level with care for the environment.
But we’ve got a lot more to do, and it’s very important that we, as bishops, speak out very firmly about the urgency of what we face, and that, as bishops, we also need to be approaching the politicians loudly and clearly about what needs to be done and that they must lead.
Well, talking of which of course we have the COP 27 UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt in November. You talk about young people, but also we have a number of groups in and around the church, of potentially older people actually, that can support the bishops and help guide and be a bit more active. What can we do to make our voices heard to the world’s decision-makers ahead of November?
I think we’ve got to responsibly demonstrate what we believe and I think that’s happening more and more. Yes, there are a number of organisations, both of Christian faith, other faiths, or of no particular faith, who are promoting good practise. We’ve got to make sure that this education goes on, because when we know that we’re responsible, I feel that we can react more sincerely and constructively in our actions.
Talking about that – being better formed, understanding the theology and spirituality behind looking after the environment as good custodians of creation – how would you like people to interpret this revised Call of Creation document?
I think the tone of it is a very practical description of what’s happened and the direction in which we are going. It offers a sense of education that we can all be part of the way we respond to the needs of our times. We can do that in a sense which is promoted by our faith, that it’s part of our theology and our spirituality, and that it’s now something that we really need to turn our attention to because it underpins all the other difficulties in our world. We’re not going to solve poverty if we’ve not got an environment in which we can survive happily. We’re not going to sort out people’s lack of clean water if we’re not caring for the environment. We’ve got to make sure that we know about our common home and appreciate the value of it and that we are going to look after it and repair it. Which is so important.
We need to look beyond short term goals. So many politicians look to their term in office and wanting to be elected and that really depends on how much prosperity they can engage for their people. But this is a time when we can’t just be looking to prosperity but to the very survival of humankind because we’re not looking after that common home in which we live.
We know about custodianship, and we can always do better with that, but I think this document is very relational, isn’t it? It’s not just our relationship with the natural world as we see it, it expands beyond that. We mentioned war a bit earlier, relationship between peoples. You touched on it there, that damage to the environment affects the poor most of all, doesn’t it, as those poor communities inhabit the worst affected and most vulnerable locations. You mentioned at the very start of this piece the flooding and the terrible situations around the world caused directly by environmental damage. So do you see this as a relational document where it’s not as simple as just sorting out our relationship with the created world, it’s about sorting out our relationship with one another?
Oh, certainly. And one of the things that looked so optimistic with COP 26 was this loss and damage budget, where it’s proposed £100 billion a year be set aside for those countries that are already suffering so much. But as far as I know, very little has come of that promise for the loss and damage budget. But certainly we, as the prosperous Global North, are inflicting dreadful damage on so many countries in the Global South. It’s interesting to see that we are now being affected quite radically. California and the western states of the United States have had some real destruction. We’ve got troubles in Japan now with typhoons, and we had those floods in Europe. So we are all being affected. Perhaps that’s going to nudge us into more action, recognising that while we’re affected, other people have been really life threatened by what’s happening to them. The droughts in the Horn of Africa now going on for seven years, they’ve had no crops because of the seasonal breakdown in weather conditions. Yes, we’ve got to think globally. We have our common home and we must recognise our responsibilities to one another.
And finally, Bishop John, for those in our pews, our Catholic community, when they look at this, and they might get quite disheartened by all the things that are happening around the world. Obviously, we believe in working for the common good, but what would you say to them if they feel a little bit of inertia or a little bit of a difficulty in stepping forward and making some of those relational changes you’ve been talking about?
Well, there’s so much information on so many websites, diocesan newsletters and parish newsletters of even the smallest things that we can do which will make a change. Pope Francis had said that drops of water eventually put together make a reservoir. It is in those little changes that you and I can actually make a difference today. And it doesn’t mean great deprivation in our lives at all, but it means a more careful use of the resources that are freely available to us and that sense of promoting a “good” which will build up. I’m confident that we will make the whole question of the urgency much more prominent and that our political leaders will take a real notice and provide the policies which will save the environment.
2nd September 2022
In this audio interview, Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, takes us through the Consistory that saw him elevated to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Francis.
He explains the role of cardinal, how it impacts on his work in the Roman Curia and how he supports the ministry of the Holy Father.
9th August 2022
The director of a new Ukrainian Welcome Centre in central London has urged Britons to keep their hearts and doors open to Ukrainians who are arriving in the UK fleeing the war in their homeland.
Andriy Marchenko talks to us about the Centre, based at the cathedral of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family near Bond Street in central London
It provides a single point of contact for essential information for arrival, settling and long-term living in the UK and is a partnership between the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain.
“Many of these people have come through a lot of hardship before ending up in the United Kingdom. Many have been through a lot and they tend to be stressed out, they tend to be disoriented sometimes and we aim to help them, to signpost them to the right services in the UK, to give them correct advice so that they know exactly what to do – what their next move should be in order to succeed and, eventually, to thrive in the United Kingdom.”
My name is Andriy Marchenko. I’m the director of the Ukrainian Welcome Centre. The Ukrainian Welcome Centre has been set up in London as a joint initiative of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. This is, of course, a direct response to the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is common knowledge that there are many Ukrainians who are coming to the United Kingdom as they are seeking refuge here from Russian attacks.
Our centre aims to support these people as they arrive in the United Kingdom. They need to settle, they need to get all their documentation ready, they have to send their children to schools – the majority of those who are coming are mothers with children. They need to find the proper accommodation, they need social support, they need to find jobs, they need practically to start life anew – even if it is for a little while.
Many of these people have come through a lot of hardship before ending up in the United Kingdom. Many have been through a lot and they tend to be stressed out, they tend to be disoriented sometimes and we aim to help them, to signpost them to the right services in the UK, to give them correct advice so that they know exactly what to do – what their next move should be in order to succeed and, eventually, to thrive in the United Kingdom.
We normally organise open days here at the centre where Ukrainians can come and ask the questions that are troubling them. We also get quite an extensive support from the UK government. So, for instance, the Home Office Department for Levelling Up and the Department for Work and Pensions send their representatives to our centre for drop-in sessions with the Ukrainians where they can actually directly point those questions to the government.
We also provide additional services such as psychological support, GP access, immigration lawyers and so forth. We have set up quite an operation, mostly volunteer-based, but of course we have a lot of support on the part of the Eparchy and also on the part of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain who have supplied a lot of knowledgeable people with a lot of experience in dealing with such matters, who are instrumental to running this centre. I feel blessed that I am surrounded by so many people.
We have lots of plans for the future. Right now we have been more or less setting up [our operations] and the past few months have been what we would call the initial few months for our centre.
It is not a very easy process because there is quite a bit of bureaucracy involved. First of all, people have to apply from outside the United Kingdom to come here. So before coming here they need to be granted a visa. In order to get their visas, they need to travel outside Ukraine because there is no British visa centre in Ukraine. So first of all they have to travel to places like Poland, France or Germany and apply for UK visas there. They give their biometric data and then just wait for their visas to be processed. That can take quite a long time. For some lucky ones it is not very long, for some it takes a long time. I have heard of several people who have actually given up hope of getting a UK visa and travel to some other country or indeed back to Ukraine.
Once they’re here, the process can be quite difficult for those newcomers. So this is part of our mission – to try and help them. We give them a one-stop, single point of contact where they can get all the necessary basic information – where to go, which services to apply for, and where to apply for those services.
I think the most important thing is for these Ukrainians to remain connected to their homeland because they can end up in very different conditions and situations. Sometimes we have seen these people come in [to the centre] just to speak Ukrainian instead of getting their questions answered. So I think the essential part of it is to keep them together as a community so that when it’s time to go home they will remain integrated to Ukraine rather than detached from it.
The main challenge is, perhaps, that these people are really very stressed and they have been through a lot and sometimes when we hear these stories it can be quite shocking.
Please keep your hearts and doors open to Ukrainians because this is the decisive ground where history is actually being made. Ukrainian people are not coming here on a whim. They have to come here to find refuge from what’s happening in Ukraine. Russian forces, the Russian government, have been deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and that includes residential quarters.
These people are actually on the run from something that’s unavoidable. They had to leave in order to survive, and by helping these people, the British nation is helping the Ukrainian nation survive – a fellow European nation. There is a lot of hardship but I would say that Russia is fighting a war against the whole of the civilised world and not just against Ukraine. It is very important to support Ukraine by supporting Ukrainian people.
The United Kingdom is at the forefront of supporting Ukraine and we would be absolutely grateful if British people continued this support to Ukrainian families at this grassroots level.
Practically all of them are asking, “Okay, you’re working at the centre, you probably know the situation better than us… When will it be safe to go back home?” We should remember that most of these women have left their men fighting in Ukraine. So, of course, they want to go back home, and they want their families reunited. Most of all, they want their old life back – their normal, peaceful life.
9th August 2022
The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family has opened a Welcome Centre in London in partnership with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain.
Based at the Eparchy’s cathedral near Bond Street in central London, the Centre provides a single point of contact for essential information for arrival, settling and long-term living in the UK.
Bishop Kenneth Novakowski, the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop for the Holy Family of London, talks to us about the new welcome centre and how the Ukrainian community in the UK is working with the government, NGOs and other charities and organisations to help Ukrainians fleeing war in their homeland.
I’m Bishop Kenneth Novakowski, the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop for the Holy Family of London. The shock of the invasion of Ukraine in many ways seemed to almost paralyse people of conscience and goodwill throughout the world in those first few days. Eventually the Ukrainian people started to realise that they had to flee from their homes – to flee from harm’s way – because of the consistent bombings and invasion of their country.
And so in the first several weeks of the invasion we saw a huge migration of people departing their homes and their cities to western Ukraine. More than 7 million, in a very short time, left the country and made their way into the border countries with Ukraine – especially into Poland.
The government of the United Kingdom developed two schemes to receive displaced persons fleeing harm’s way. One was ‘Homes for Ukraine’ and the second was concerned with family reunification.
According to government statistics here in the United Kingdom, 100,000 displaced people from Ukraine have been welcomed into the UK. Very quickly our cathedral of the Holy Family in Exile in central London became the focal point for people wanting to help and for those needing help.
So along with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family decided to provide a safe place – a place of welcome – for those fleeing and also for those who are sponsoring people who have opened up their homes and their hearts. A place of welcome where we would work closely together with other non-government agencies and governmental agencies to provide information, counselling and even community for those who are fleeing.
We were able to provide fairly large premises in our cathedral dedicated to that goal of providing a place of welcome to our newly-arrived brothers and sisters. This joint venture is true community outreach, and I can’t emphasise enough the co-operation we have had from so many other non-governmental organisations, other religious communities and the government.
In the area of pastoral care and concern for not only those who are arriving but for those who feel they want to have a place to pray during the daytime, we have kept our cathedral doors open between 10am and 8pm. This allows people to come in, have a time of prayer and silence – a place where they can come and think about the benefits that we have here in the United Kingdom. They can say a prayer and light a candle – for those who have died in defending Ukraine, for those who are fleeing and for those who are helping those that have arrived here. As this war continues we can become desensitised to the horror that the war is bringing to Ukrainian people but the reality is that the war is still going on. People are still losing their lives, their homes, their businesses.
Here in the UK, through the work of so many people, we are providing a place that is safe allowing people to keep their dignity. It’s a place of welcome from which I continue to ask for people to pray for peace in Ukraine or those who are helping in the various charity organisations working in Poland, Ukraine, and all the other border countries – especially organisations like CAFOD, Caritas Ukraine, Caritas Internationalis and for all of those volunteers who every day are providing care and kindness to those fleeing harm’s way.
