by David Jackson, former Laudato Si Animator for the Leeds Diocese
The subtitle of Pope Leo’s latest encyclical: ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ reads: ‘On Safeguarding the Human Person in the time of Artificial Intelligence.’ Pope Leo bases his critique and ‘disarming’ of AI on the solid foundation of the Church’s Social Teaching. It is some 50 years since the Synod of Bishops declared: ‘the work of justice and peace is a constitutive element in the preaching of the Gospel.’ A group of us set up a parish J&P Group soon after – inspired by those who pioneered the present Diocesan J&P Commission. The remnant of our parish group still exists – as does the need for parishes of mission and service in the name of justice.
The Church has come a long way! From the time when an anonymous parishioner scrawled the word ‘Communists’ on a notice in our Church porch advertising an early meeting of the new J&P Group to Pope Leo using the Church’s social teaching as the basis for judging Artificial Intelligence. But how have times changed?
For over 30 years I have received the daily meditation from the Centre for Action and Contemplation – headed until recently by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. A recent meditation was entitled: ‘Re-Enlivening Ministries’. He turns to St Paul’s advice to the early Christians to re-envision renewal today. For Paul faith is a ‘loving, communal’ way of life. Can a parish be the same?
‘We must begin to validate Paul’s original teaching on “many gifts and many ministries” (1 Corinthians 12:4–11) that together “make a unity in the work of service” (Ephesians 4:12–13). We need Christian people who are trained in, validated for, and encouraged to make home and hospital visits; do hospice work and jail ministry; support immigrants and refugees; help with soup kitchens; counsel couples before, during, and after marriage; teach classes in parenting; offer ministries of emotional, sexual, and relational healing; help with financial counselling; build low-cost housing; take care of the elderly; run thrift centres—all of which put Christian people in immediate touch with other people.’
A question?
How far does my parish mandate parishioners to these ministries of service? Answers will vary. We ‘do liturgy’ and ‘build loving communities’ fairly or even very well! But mission? Many parishioners may well be involved in such work – in schools, hospitals, care homes and social services, but do they feel they have been ‘mandated’ by parish leadership or the community so as to regard these roles as ‘ministries’? Much depends on the sort of leadership we experience in our parish. Is it in any way synodal – shared, or does it remain more ‘command and control’? Richard ends his meditation with a short description of the kind required:
‘Authentic leadership, I think, implies people who can spot, affirm, train, support, finance, and validate gifts and leadership wherever they see them in actual practice (think multipliers instead of monarchs). Then we are not all striving toward the top but striving toward supporting the supreme work of love flowing into the world.’
The conviction grows that as one day there was a danger that the work of justice and peace – we can add now care of creation – heeding the voices of the poor and of the earth our common home – could be safely left to a small group – now that work is beginning to be seen to take the form of ministries open to all the baptised – not the charism of a few but something that defines and is the DNA of a parish community. Thus it was in St Paul’s day. The work of ‘authentic leadership’ in any parish is to identify, nurture, support and celebrate the ministries of service and of mission.
Richard Rohr was once asked why the title of his Centre was ‘Centre for Action and Contemplation’. And which word was the most important. He said ‘And’ was the important word! Either lead to and define the other. Faith defined with St Paul as a ‘communal, loving way of life’ – a parish working for justice and peace – has to be embedded in experiences of union with the Divine – achieved by the steady conscious practice of some form of silent, contemplative prayer!
Surprised?
Contemplation always leads to action – both to build communities engaged in the Church’s mission of justice, peace and care for our common home.
SOURCES for action – in J&P and in contemplative prayer
I was very pleased to be alerted by a friend to a webinar hosted by the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre led by Father David Newhaus SJ.
Born into a German Jewish family in South Africa, who had fled the Holocaust, he was sent to Jerusalem aged 15 by his parents so he could avoid military service in South Africa. His parents opposed the apartheid regime and thought he was safer in Israel. He became an Israeli citizen at the age of 17 and has lived most of his life in Israel. After obtaining his Ph. D. in political science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he decided to become a Catholic and entered the Society of Jesus in 1992.
He now teaches Scripture in several institutions including in Israel and Palestine.
It was a thoughtful and very engaging session from someone with a unique perspective.
The title of Father David’s talk was:
Must we still hope? Is it right to continue hoping despite Gaza?
Perhaps there comes a time for despair.
Father David put the Palestine situation in the context of his own heritage and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
He referenced those who had resisted the Nazis such as Irena Sendler and the Ulma family, a Polish Catholic family living in Markowa, who hid Polish Jewish families in their own home. The whole family including 6 children were executed by the Nazis for this bravery.
A reminder of those who resisted in South Africa, Archbishop Dennis Hurley, Desmond Tutu, Steve Biko and of course Nelson Mandela.
Resistance is vital but can we continue hoping after the devastating events of October 7th and all that followed with the genocide in Gaza.
Father David invites us to go through a number of stages that might bring us to the possibility of Hope.
Awakening to pain
A sober look around
A cry (lament)
It is ok to lament for all the suffering around us
Stepping into the breach, in other words speaking out, being prophetic
A prophetic imagination ( citing Walter Breugmann) this is our chance to look for our vision for fulfilling God’s Plan
Remembering, how God has worked in history
Hoping because we have the hope of the resurrection
He shared that in April 2025 an ecumenical group including himself, members of Sabeel and Michael Sabah Latin Patriarch emeritus issued a statement, offering specific support to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
We refuse to simply pass you by. We not only do not forget you, but commit ourselves to solidarity with you. We carry you in our prayers. We cry with you. We seek to make your cries heard in a world which needs to be shaken out of its complacency.
Finally, to those Jews and Christians who have been led to believe that God wants Israel to annex our homeland:
We want to state clearly that you have been misguided. All, Palestinians and Israelis, are created in the image and likeness of God. They are all equal in dignity and rights. Furthermore, our God is a God of love who abhors violence and loves all God’s children. The Palestinians are your “neighbor”. The inviolable commandment in the word of God we share is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Roman 13:9). To expel the Palestinians from their homeland is not only an act of violence; it is sacrilege.
Father David ended his talk with this: we can be hopeful even in the most difficult times because of the Resurrection.
“The experience of Easter obliges us to proclaim: The Risen Lord has triumphed over death and evil and we are witnesses to this. (…) The resurrection is not our response to violence; it is our very identity as Christians, called to preach hope when hope seems impossible, to witness to life when our day-to-day reality seems to promise only death. This hope, in our smallness, in mustard seeds, leaven in bread, translates into our stubborn insistence on continuing to imagine a better common future and then setting out the work of living it now.”
Justice and Peace Commission, Message for Easter 2024.
Father David shared a whole range of resources, encouraging us to listen to Jewish writers who support justice for Palestine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHOoz6z4P8E
Rev Prof Mitri Raheb - Decolonising Palestine
In a brilliant webinar in November 2023, he describes life and Bethlehem at that time (it is worse now), Christian Zionism, and then discusses his book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjXi6wyTjGM
Omar Bartov – Israel: What went wrong?
Video discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkPTwB58FpI
Peter Beinart – Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
Video discussion
+972, Palestinians and Israelis working together
Independent, online, nonprofit magazine
Links to other talks/articles by Fr David include:
Catholic priest ‘writes what he lives’ in new book on Palestine/Israel
A new book written by Fr David Neuhaus SJ and titled ‘Conquest or Leaven: Reflections of a Catholic Priest in Palestine/Israel’, has been published by the Jesuit Institute South Africa.
One of the things I do at my local Catholic church in Mytholmroyd on a regular basis is be a bidding prayers leader. We have a resilient rota and the people that do it put lots of effort into it, always including prayers from our prayer tree, and allowing all to speak out with a personal prayer for us as a church community to join in.
I too, think a lot about this, reading beforehand the Sunday readings so that I can link my prayers to the thoughts of Jesus or Paul or an Old Testament prophet of the day. I must admit though the world I see out there makes it ever more difficult to think of prayers that can adequately explain the concerns I, and I am sure many of you, have of the state of the world.
As I write this, the Middle East remains in turmoil. It’s not clear Iran’s and the United States conflict will move into a full peace process. Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are seething with hatred of each other. Gaza remains one of the greatest miseries of any conflict there has ever been. The West Bank sees settler domination of the Palestinian population.
Then there is the Ukraine and Russia conflict. A battle line that has hardly moved at the expense of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of men, while innocent Ukrainian and Russian civilians fear the next drone attack on their house or flat. And conflicts abound elsewhere, whether it’s Sudan, Myanmar, and, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross over 130-armed conflicts of some kind, most of which rarely get onto our TV screens, or smartphones or our newspapers. That’s not without thinking of the impact of climate change as we start another punishing heatwave with record temperatures everywhere.
Here in the UK, I am an electoral administrator, and I am on my third election this year. I see in them lots of rancour, a highly divided country, and many people disillusioned with their position in life and the cost of living of that life. I am 54 in July, and I must admit to feeling a sense of great unease about the state of the world, and of my country, despite me living through the dread of nuclear conflict during the last decades of the Cold War.
So how do we deal with all of this pain and human suffering? As a Catholic, I do something all members of the Commission must do, which is to go back to our Catholic Social Teaching, that life-affirming body of moral and ethical doctrine developed by the church, rooted in scripture, of the sacrifice of the saints and the writings of the church, turning to our God for guidance in life.
Whether that is holding that every human life is sacred and made in the image of God, or our belief that we are inherently social and we have a right or duty to seek the well-being of all, we know that we have rights and responsibilities that we must stand up for, truly believe in and advocate to all. We have a moral call to stand up for the poor and vulnerable, to ensure the dignity of workers and to know we are all one human family, regardless of all the differences which often lay at the heart of the conflicts noted above. By caring for God’s creation, we also stand up for our children and future generations.
I delight in the wonderful work of Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo, to remind us that, as Catholics, we must care for all of us, whether by supporting a food bank, advocating for fair change and calling for peace. Unlike many of our politicians, Pope Leo does stand up for those who the world so often ignores. We all need to be brave and follow that example in our own communities. So, using scripture and the love of God, my bidding prayers seek solidarity and a call for change, and they always will.
The Assisted Dying Bill will again be presented to Parliament. It raises many issues about life, death and the choices we make.
I remember my grandad coming home to die when there was no treatment for his cancer. I was about 15. We ate our meals listening to his laboured breathing via an intercom and we could tell when his pain was particularly bad. I was at home when my mum asked the GP about increasing his pain medication. He was a fellow parishioner. He quietly explained that doing would take the pain away but it would also depress his breathing and probably hasten his death. Mum was upset and asked for time to talk with him about what he wanted. She cried after the doctor left. A couple of days later grandad was prescribed the medication. He died peacefully at home with family around him.
As my mum approached her own death her regret was about grandad. As a child she (and younger her sisters) had rejected any lady friends he brought home after her mother’s death. She felt that she might have taken away his chance for a second marriage and happiness. She had no regrets about decreasing his pain when he was dying. My grandad was very kind and lived for his family, I suspect that his choice to take the medication was influenced by both a wish for the pain relief and his not wanting to be a burden.
The Madness of Crowds is a novel by Louise Penny set in the aftermath of Covid in Canada.
At its heart it is a murder mystery but through the characters she develops deep emotional and rational themes about assisted dying and the right to life. It even touches on the horror in Sudan and our Western responses, which are from a position of privilege. Having said that, it is engaging and not a heavy read.
It challenges us to think of how acting out of love for someone might influence a choice. Murder is not always done from a position of hate. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
It helped me to think more deeply about the circumstances in which I might prefer to receive medication to relieve physical pain and thus reduce the emotional pain of the people I love.
Thankfully that seems like a long way away!
I hope and pray that whatever happens to this Bill the NHS will improve access to palliative care that supports people who are close to death in whatever setting they choose.
The news is full of commentary with regard to the Equality Act 2010 which established the Public Sector Equality Duty.I worked in Human Resources and my understanding of it is very different from what I have heard this week.
The Duty recognises that certain groups of people are, and have been, historically disadvantaged by our policies and laws. It states that it is a State responsibility to reduce the factors that have given rise to the disadvantaged so that we become a fairer country. The Duty says that Public Sector management must consider the different impacts of any changes in policy or practice to make sure that such disadvantages are reduced (or at worst maintained) if they cannot be proportionately and reasonably reduced.
The legal frameworks in the UK and USA are very different.
UK legislation (excluding Northern Ireland) focuses on equality of opportunity e.g. every job is advertised openly and the best person appointed via a fair process which is altered to enable disabled candidates, for example, to compete effectively.
In the USA the legislation creates targets. which can mean that a disadvantaged applicant who does not have the best match of skills and knowledge required to do the job well may be appointed in order to meet a target. This no doubt contributes to so much anti Diversity rhetoric spreading here from the USA.
For example, many years ago, when I worked in the private sector, I was concerned that the few recruits every year, in a city that had a high ethnic minority population, were white. Research showed that all our applicants had been white which indicated that the issue related to what our adverts said and/or where they were placed.
So I looked at why our office jobs may not be attractive to ethnic minority applicants. At that time the first level, non mandatory, professional qualification in our industry required 2 A levels or 5 GCSEs. So the next time we had an entry level vacancy we included that as a minimum academic requirement.
We got a more representative range of applicants. Within a few years our office was more respresentative of the area within which it was based.
Here is an example of how targets can alter discussions around equality.
In my first public sector HR role I remember a discussion about meeting the self imposed target of 10% ethnic minority staff (a political policy requirement before the 2010 Public Sector Equality Duty). I suggested that given the age profile of the local workforce (most employees over 35) we should be moving towards a policy that those appointed to our entry level jobs - i.e. school leavers and new graduates , should reflect the proportion of that age group who were from an ethnic minority in the area. At that time any age based target for such jobs would have been significantly more than the 10%. The rest of the HR team said it was hard enough to get the 10% across the whole workforce and any change from that would not be acceptable to our political masters. So the disadvantage of our local, young ethnic minority population was not addressed.
The ACAS website is good at explaining best practice for employers. Privilege persists where the selection process for recruits, training or promotion favours one group of candidates over others. In the UK employers must be able to demonstrate that a fair competitive process has been followed, that is not the case in the USA.
In both UK and USA political appointments do not follow the same rules which is a great shame. It’s still a ‘who you know’ environment of opportunity.
I am glad that we have at last identified that many young people are disengaged. In part due to State policies and systems which do not support them to flourish within our society. Alan Milburn’s report is an excellent example of the Public Sector Equality Duty in action. I look forward to reading his cross Departmental recommendations in the autumn. Though my niece and nephew who are long term unemployed are now too old to benefit from changes.
Very early in my HR career, I remember being advised not to tell anyone outside the HR team that I did not think the Graduate Scheme Fast Track we were launching was unfair since our performance manage system was not as effective at identifying talented individuals within the current workforce as it could be. The HR Director’s advice - senior staff often paid private school fees to give their children an academic advantage and support their getting degrees, they naturally wanted to maintain that privilege for their children by reducing the number of competitors for such jobs. Luckily I was assigned responsibility for updating our performance management system and improving manager skills.
As Christians we need to carefully consider what we hear/read/see and think about situations in all their complexity. The world is a complicated place. Solutions are rarely either/or.
Like many, I find the damage done to residential blocks of flats and attacks on energy and water infrastructure wrong. The civilians in war zones rarely have the power to stop their rulers fighting neighbouring states or distant states, regardless of who ‘started it’. Of course civilians have always been hurt or killed in war, in collateral damage. I think that since WW2 the number of civilian casualties is a higher proportion of the total casualties.
Sadly, now it seems that it is accepted by some significant powers that direct attacks on civilians and their mass displacement is OK.
It isn’t.
I’m even sadder that the UN Security Council, thanks in a large part to the veto power of some states to quash resolutions of condemnation, gives the appearance that this behaviour is OK.
It isn’t.
Over the past few weeks, I have read three books about women in war. The Bookbinder of Jericho (Pip Williams) is set in WW1 Oxford and Women of Steel (Michelle Rowbotham) is factual and tells many stories of the women who volunteered or were conscripted to work in the forges and metalworks in the Sheffield area during WW2.
What struck me about both was how the feeling of being threatened by external forces bound local communities together and led to people stepping up and doing things they wouldn’t normally consider. For example, women who could sew took work dungarees up and in to fit the women who wore them. Their main fear was what the war was doing to those who were fighting on their behalf. There was a sense of ‘it is what it is’ and we just need to make the best of it.
The third book, City of Women (David Gilliam) is set in WW2 Berlin and was bleak and dark. In that book the women feared Nazi neighbours as much, if not more than the enemy. Civilians disappeared into prisons on the basis of accusations without trial. The same community spirit was not evident. It was each one for themselves.
I therefore applaud our politicians who regularly speak out for tolerance and remind us that we are a people who have welcomed so many others to live here over thousands of centuries. They abhor those who seek to spread division and hatred in our country.
I hope that each of us, in our own way, finds the confidence to quietly tell any friend and family member who veers towards supporting divisive views that we disagree with them because we are Christian and we follow the example of Jesus who welcomed the stranger and helped the marginalised.
We are many, the Pope is one, if we are all seen and heard talking about tolerance and living in diverse communities the world will be a better place.
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As an aside, a result of the Sheffield Star newspaper collecting the stories of the women of steel was a collection and now there is a bronze statue of two women dressed as steel workers in Sheffield city centre. Personally I wonder how much their acceptance that they lost their jobs when the men returned from fighting underpinned the Women’s Lib movement in the 60s leading to Equality Acts in the mid 70s. I’m old enough to have joined the workforce knowing I could be sacked for getting engaged, married or pregnant!
Sadly the result of the elections indicates that sowing division, hatred and promising revenge are popular with large numbers of the electorate. I have avoided the news and not bought a paper today because I don’t want to read lots of people I don’t know theorising about why the results are as they are.
How would anybody actually know why any individual chose a particular party?
I reckon I will be praying the Serenity prayer more often
"God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I can’t change Courage to change the things I can and Wisdom to know the difference."
But I am NOT powerless.
If I read the papers/internet and see that there is discussion about doing something I thing is wrong or misguided, I can draft a quick email to my local councillor or MP telling them how I feel and requesting that they take my concerns into account.
If enough people send emails to their politicians promoting ideas of love, tolerance, acceptance and reducing poverty and environmental damage .
If I used social media, I could express such views there instead.
If people of faith take lots of little actions like that our country will avoid electing an individual who likes what is happening in an autocratic state where even the elected politicians of the ruling party will speak against what is happening ‘off the record’ to trusted friends/journalists/influencers.
I remember a Jewish colleague in early 80s Manchester telling me to stay vigilant because after the Jews in this country were forced to leave through persecution the Catholics would be next in line.
A friend has just returned from visiting her sister in Florida, she was saying how welcome she was when people heard her accent. The number of Canadian visitors, apparently some winter in Florida, and spend the rest of the year in Canada, has significantly dropped since the last election and many businesses, even ordinary stores are struggling with the loss of income and the rising cost of their fuel.
Apathy about the direction of travel in our UK politics does not reflect what Jesus taught us about the best way to live.
When we need to buy something it is generally easy to see the Cost of an item. It is much harder to decide what Value we hope to derive from its purchase. Cost is factual but Value is emotional and personal.
We live in a complicated world where we can see that what we did years ago is impacting us today. We know that what we do today will impact future generations. There are few ‘quick fixes’. But we can choose what we spend our money on and how we vote.
The speed of change and power of huge companies mean that new products can be released without a clear picture of the future harm they might do. Sadly social media illustrates this. Big tech profitability means that they have the financial resources to resist changing their business models to reduce harm. The race to market new apps, tech or fashion items and to create sales for the latest models is detrimental to the planet and for some people too their mental health . Luckily organisations like Backmarket and Vinted sell items that have been replaced to enable the purchase of new tech or fashion items and reduce the environmental harm.
In the 70s, the hole on the ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere was seen as an environmental threat. Like many people I chose to give up buying aerosol sprays with CFCs. Then the UN achieved a ban on the use of CFCs and the ozone layer is now healthy. When all countries work together major change can be achieved.
In response to the CAFOD Live Simply campaign several years ago, I decided to operate a policy of donating an item of clothing to a charity shop each time I bought a new item. Over the course of several years I have discovered that I now value all of the clothes I have. So if I see a new item on line or in a magazine I look in the wardrobe and if I can’t easily identify something to donate I don’t buy it. I value the clothes I wear because I have chosen them with care. For example I now buy brighter colours that cheer me up rather than neutrals that go with everything.
It is easier to say 'I value……’ than to live it. We have Fairtrade coffee at home but my husband hasn’t found a Fairtrade tea or milk chocolate that he likes. In politics, as in households, it is hard to live your values because compromises have to be made between the short and long term and between spending priorities. Especially since as a country we are in debt and borrowing to maintain ourselves.
I once went on a Problem Solving in Organisations course and learnt that we could expect to ask the question ‘why does that happen?’ at least 6 times to uncover the true root cause of the problem needing a solution. Health inequalities due to poverty and poor educational outcomes are systemic. We would need to pay much higher taxes to address the root causes of them. It’s no wonder short term plans to achieve minor improvements are implemented.
Elections come round regularly so maybe we should all think more carefully about what we Value and what we see as the best way forward to demonstrate it at a national level. In our democracy we elect the individual rather than their Party, though many people vote on a Party basis. We need to follow UK politics so that when we vote we can chose the candidate that we think best reflects our personal values and Catholic Social Teaching.
The bright Easter window poster from the Jesuit Refugee Service " REFUGEES WELCOME " quotes Pope Francis;
"The Easter message of the Risen Christ invites us not to forget those women and men seeking a better future ".
It is an open hearted, inclusive message, running counter to public discourse in the UK in recent weeks in which an aggressive assertion of the need to assert "Britain's Christian heritage" has taken a distinctively negative turn. The Conservative shadow justice secretary recently criticised an act of public worship at an event in Trafalgar Square to Mark the end of Ramadan as "an act of domination and therefore division". GB News recently interviewing the Hungarian president on the state of Western culture seemed to endorse his remark that "Muslims have their own place and this place is definitely not Hungary", implying ‘and not Britain’! Reform's Home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf, himself a Muslim, has announced that Reform will end "the incendiary practice" of unwanted churches being turned into mosques.
A recent Financial Times feature heading, "Is British Politics getting religion?", drew detailed attention to the American religious right’s well-funded influence on religious politics here. It spelt out that American thinktanks added support to characters such as Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson (supported by Elon Musk) who claims he converted to Christianity while in prison and who fronted "Unite the Kingdom" Christmas Carol concert.
Robert Lowe MP, expelled from Reform for his extreme attitude to those British citizens of Pakistani heritage now claims that his new "Restore Britain" party will be a Christian based party.
Reform MP Sarah Pochin launching "Christian Fellowship for Reform" announced that "Reform will always stand up for Christianity in this country... we are fundamentally a Christian country and we are proud to be Christians”.
At the Whitehall Christmas Carol service, a Baptist minister was shouted down when she announced that Christ wasn't English and that "Christ was a refugee at Christmas".
Commenting on the Whitehall event, the Bishop of Kirkstall, Arun Arora, warned
"we are now in a place where in the next 3 to 5 years there will be a battle for those who want to pursue a kind of UK MAGA agenda as to what Christianity is".
Notably, the Maga supporters in the United States, such as Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carson no longer refer to "Judeo-Christian values". Rather they promote an aggressive Christian nationalism increasingly hostile to both Muslims and Jews. President Trump's MAGA "spending bulldog" Russell Vought has blogged that Muslims were "condemned" because they don't accept Jesus Christ as God, and since then the list of the condemned seems to keep growing. New Reform MP Robert Jenrick dispenses with Christian heritage references, emphasising that
"by 2030 almost a quarter of the population will have been born outside the UK. That's an astonishing statistic. There aren't many successful countries in the world like that”.
Vice President JD Vance has remarked that "under Labour the UK could become the first Islamic nation with a nuclear weapon", (apparently unaware of the existence of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a nuclear power!)
But if the political implications are becoming clearer, where does it leave understanding and practice of the UK Christian heritage?
I remember a public meeting in Leeds to consider a mosque application for a Minaret to echo out the daily call for prayer. The meeting opened with a gentleman immediately demanding that as this is a Christian country as an MP, I should simply declare that there should be "Muzzi muzzen" allowed here. To call the situation and try to have a respectful conversation I invited a young Muslim to explain the word "muezzin" and what the call to prayer meant to him. He carefully passionately and succinctly told us why he prayed to God three times a day. I thanked him for a great sermon on prayer. The "Christian country" gentleman shouted out "just because I live in a Christian country doesn't mean I have to be into God and prayer and all that rubbish," shocking the Muslims present.
So where does that leave our understanding of what it means to be a Christian here in our society? It can't be sufficient, as the new Christian right simply assert, that it was King Alfred the great who included the 10 Commandments as a preface to his legal code back in the ninth century. Moreover, the 10 Commandments are only half of the story to be complemented by the Beatitudes spelt out by Jesus in the Gospels.
As the Democrat challenger for the Senate in Texas recently spelt out
"my concern is the members of Congress who are quoting scripture and then violating the teachings of Jesus every day- who are not feeding the hungry, not healing the Sick, not welcoming the stranger."
Notably at the funeral of the Christian right Campaigner Charlie Kirk, President Trump said
"Kirk didn't hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagree with Charlie. I hate my opponents and I don't want the best for them."
In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback he set out his ethics,
"Get even. During the bad times I learned who was loyal and who wasn't. I believe in an eye for an eye. A couple of people who betrayed me need my help now and I am screwing them against the wall. I am doing a number.... and I'm having so much fun".
In the recent warmongering, President Trump, and his secretaries have regularly "othered" and dehumanised people, whipping up hatred, revenge and violence both at home and abroad.
Closer to home, Danny Kruger MP, who defected to Reform, tried to generate a Politics of a new Christian political Centre without resorting to the divisive statements such as those of billionaire Jim Radcliffe (Britain is being "colonised") and Matthew Goodwin's challenges to ethnic minorities as dis-entitled citizens.
Kruger get some support from James Orr, an evangelical professor of the philosophy of religion at Cambridge, recently appointed as the policy advisor to the Reform Party. JD Vance describes him as his "British sherpa”! He chairs the advisory board of the "Centre for a Better Britain" and is a member of the advisory council of the "Free speech Union". He has described asylum seekers as "invaders".
But his present interest is in developing a "vision animated by the Politics of home", emphasising that
"human beings are not fungible economic units but rooted beings who love particular places particular people and particular ways of life".
In an uncertain and turbulent world of ruthlessness and precarity, this approach can resonate.
The difficulty is that his reference to "particular place" can build in an attitude of exclusion. In other words., "particular homes" are not for everyone. This is reminiscent of JD Vance's interpretation of Saint Augustine's theology of Love in which he claims that in Augustine's "Ordo Amoris", family, neighbour and community come before the rest of the world.
Vance argued that immigration crackdowns are compatible with Christian love. Love is measured out through concentric circles always putting in one's own family and immediate community ahead of service to the stranger Pope Leo has responded
"JD Vance is wrong. Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others. He spelt out that true Christian love is not a. ‘rationed’ ranking system but one that demands care for all"
and he criticises the abuse of Catholic theology to justify restrictive Draconian migration policies.
But Professor Orr has pushed Vance's position even further, claiming that the nation is
"the outermost concentric circle of concrete affection"
adding
"if you think that the message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that Samaria should welcome and care for all Judeans dispossessed, think again”.
But as the theologian Luke Bretherton stresses. the urgent needs of strangers can supersede those of our close circles. Significantly both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis included major chapters explicating in detail the parable of the good Samaritan in their social justice encyclicals. In Fratelli Tutti" (para 80) Pope Francis writes:
"Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan in answer to the question 'who is my neighbour?'. The word 'neighbour' in the society of Jesus's time usually meant those nearest us. It was felt that help should be given primarily to those of one's own group and race.... Jesus completely transforms this approach he asks us not to decide who is close enough to be our neighbour but rather that we ourselves become neighbours to all. Jesus asked us to be present to those in need of help regardless of whether or not they belong to our social group."
Notably, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales published "love the stranger" which spells out this message.
As we enter the Paschaltide mystery of the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus at Easter, it is perhaps worth commenting on the misrepresentation of the flags bearing St George's Cross, which have appeared on lamp posts throughout the land.
They are now associated with abusive and violent demonisation of migrants - regardless of the fact that many migrants are themselves Christians. The Cross is the traditional symbol of an instrument of a slow and agonising death for those not protected by Roman citizenship. It became a scandalous declaration that no human life was beyond the love of God as Rowan Williams spelt out in his feature in the new statesman in December 2025. He writes,
"it was a declaration that human community was shockingly larger than what any state or culture could define and that to belong in the realm of God people would have to recognise that they stood on the same level as all kinds of unwelcome strangers and let go of their pride in belonging to any kind of privileged powerful or innocent Group. And when early Christian martyrs declared Christ is King when faced with torture and execution what they were saying is not that they were part of a movement aimed at universal control of society but quite the opposite. They were declaring that no earthly political system could make absolute demands on it's citizens. Ultimately, we are answerable not to some kind of sacred National or imperial authority but to the vision of a reconciled community of people who have met the possibility of love and homecoming at the point of their deepest loss and failure. In other words, the symbolism of the Cross was something that in principle spoke to all kinds of dispossessed and insecure people and promised a life giving absolving hopeful kind of human association"
"we don't give away our coats; we don't go the extra mile; we don't forgive 70×7; and we certainly do not put all our hope and trust in God".
We all have a little list of who we wouldn't want to live next door. St Benedict, in his rule, says:
First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength,
then love your neighbour as yourself.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not covet.
Do not bear false witness.
Respect all people.
And never do to another what you would not want done to yourself.
He goes onto insist;
"give help and support to the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and bury the dead, console and counsel those who suffer in time of grief and bring comfort to those whose sorrow".
St Matthew's Gospel is strong on making connections with the Old Testament books of the Jewish tradition and his account of the sermon on the Mount contains echoes from the short book of Lamentations written after the 587 Fall of Jerusalem ("don't give with one hand and take with another").
The most familiar section of Lamentations is used in the Good Friday liturgy to recall the physical dismantling of Christ on Calvary. But it begins by describing the mourning of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants and the breakdown of community. But out of this darkness shines a ray of unconquerable trust in God and of wholehearted repentance.
"The darkness of disaster, though deserved, cannot be God's final word to the community. They remain his servants, his people who may confidently expect to experience in the future as they have done in the past, is steadfast love and his dependability. Despite the grief, they experience, God's compassion never fails; it is new every morning "
Brooding on my anguish and affliction is gall and wormwood. My spirit ponders it continually and sinks within me. This is what I shall tell my heart, and so recover hope: the favours of the Lord are not all past, his kindnesses are not exhausted; every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness. ‘My portion is the Lord’ says my soul ‘and so I will hope in him.’
‘Be not afraid’ is a phrase Jesus used many times. Human life is complex and we need food, warmth, shelter and the security provided by who we see as 'our tribe'. In the UK most of us live in cities and 'our tribe' lives alongside other tribes who may believe different things, have different cultural practices, or look different.
The advent of social media means that many young people have virtual, worldwide ‘tribes’. This can lead to a feeling of ‘apartness’ in the real world. In our minds we have a picture of ‘us’ and a picture of ‘them’. I think my ‘us’ does vary dependent on who I am with: other retired women, friends of other faiths or no faith, my family, friends of different ages. This reflects my liberal parents’ teaching that we are all made in the image of God and must welcome all other people non-judgementally.
Across the world it seems that the media and public discourse often speak in a binary way, using language that promotes the differences between ‘us’ and ’them’. Since the Second World War sociologists and historians have reported on how divisive language can empower those with Power to demonise those they consider to be ’them’ and make it easy to enact laws that discriminate and disadvantage whoever is perceived to be ’them’. I remember watching the film Hotel Rwanda and feeling a sense of horror as government rhetoric amplified hatred that eventually turned neighbour against neighbour and the eventual genocide.
We naturally fear anything that we see as threatening to fulfilling our basic needs for food and shelter as physical violence. We have evolved to cope with these, motivation theories reflect this. I am pleased that our Government is emphasising the use of armaments for defensive purposes only and supporting those resisting aggression. As with governments some Religious leaders also promote reconciliation and long term peaceful co-existence. Sadly some religious leaders don’t.
As our societies have become more complex and diverse we have developed psychological fears such as shame, loss of status, embarrassment, failure, rejection, loss of power, loss of health.
When we look at the ministry of Jesus we see that he always reached out to those who were different and challenged the cultural norms of the day whilst recognising the Romans when he said ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. In the words of Alan Hull ‘he got busted just for talking and befriending the wrong sorts’ ("Winter Song" Lindisfarne).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg_dsk7u26A
It is so important that we physically listen to the young people we know, who are growing up with so many unhealthy messages and experience so much pressure to follow and agree with influencers motivated solely by the clicks that bring them more money. The more we listen to their real fears and explore who their ‘us’ is and who their ‘them’ is, the more we can help them build their resilience and maturity to make healthy choices in a complex world.
So, Be not afraid of asking questions and listening to the answers of children and young people. We all have a Christian responsibility to help young people to grow in the love of God and to understand what it takes to live as God intended in a tolerant and inclusive society.
Understanding, acceptance and learning come from listening. The self-esteem of each one of us flourishes from a feeling of being heard and being accepted for who we really are. There are many on-line resources that can provide advice if in your listening you feel out of your depth to help in specific circumstances, the BBC Action line is a good start place. Sharing the search for advice and balanced information shows love.
And pray that our Church will accelerate the structural changes that will remove the marginalisation of all the groups that the Synodal Listening process identified to follow the lead of other Christian and other Religious groups who are further along the route of recognising the God that is in all of us.
My personal Pilgrimage of Hope last Lent involved visiting other faith services who welcomed people who are marginalised in Catholic faith. I now know that when I am feeling that my Church ‘doesn’t understand me' I can attend services where I am welcomed as a Child of God and gain the strength to work towards an inclusive, Catholic Missionary Church. This year I will again celebrate the Triduum with ‘my tribe’.
This was inspired by some feedback from the SPARK group.
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