Decent Work for All Seminar

To celebrate World Day for Decent Work on the 7th October 2021 the YCW have teamed up with our sister Movement the Movement of Christian Workers (MCW) to organise a seminar which will be held online on Saturday 2nd October 2021, 10am-1.30pm.

This seminar is entitled “Decent Work for All”. A range of speakers are planned to reflect the situation faced by the members and their contacts of both movements.

To sign up for the seminar please go too: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decent-work-for-all-tickets-165881902235 for you to book your place at the seminar. We do hope that you are able to join us on what promises to be an informative, lively, and forward-thinking occasion.

NJPN Conference 2021: “We come together for our common home”

Last weekend Marc Besford, National President, attended the 2021 conference of the National Justice and Peace Network of England and Wales (NJPN). The chant: “We come together for our common home”, ran through the liturgies at this year’s conference. It attracted 200 participants to Derbyshire for the first face to face meeting – albeit through masks - of Justice and Peace activists from every diocese and Movements since the pandemic started. The mantra came from a new hymn written by liturgical musician Marty Haugen especially for the conference, which took the theme, ‘2021: Moment of Truth - Action for Life on Earth’.

 A liturgy group, led by Colette Joyce, Justice and Peace Fieldworker in Westminster Diocese, and including pianist Christine Allen, Director of CAFOD, and Columban co-worker James Trewby on the clarinet reflected the broad range of participants seeking to mobilise for the November COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. Also, to promote ecological conversion and action in the Church and wider society, all inspired by the papal encyclical Laudato Si’.

Marc Besford with representatives of Leeds Justice and Peace and SPARK! Social Justice

 Conference chair Christine Allen reminded that there are now 100 days to COP26 and CAFOD is working with the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and faith leaders to lobby for global warming to be kept below 1.5 degrees. She reported that CAFOD, “amplifies voices around the world in climate vulnerable situations”. Bishop John Arnold of Salford, lead bishop on the environment for England and Wales, said Churches and faiths are making clear they want action and “we can mend our common home”. He has been in zooms with COP26 president Alok Sharma MP, “trying to speak loudly to politicians”.  In the conference Mass he thanked NJPN “for who you are, what you stand for and what you want, and for keeping Pope Francis as an inspiration in our lives and actions.”

 “It is important to acknowledge the truth of the crisis of our common home,” Fr P. Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam SDB, Coordinator of the 'Ecology and Creation' sector of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, told the conference in a video message. He said, “the planet is crying out and the poor are crying out; we need to open our ears and hear these painful cries;” feeling there is hope and that “this could be a watershed, a moment of change.” He told NJPN that, “you can count on the support of our Dicastery as we work together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as families, parishes, communities, and institutions, to heal and protect mother Earth.”

 Keynote speaker Lorna Gold, Chair of the Board of the GCCM and author of ‘Climate Generation: Awakening to Our Children’s Future’, highlighted the “vibrant network of networks sustaining and nurturing ecological conversion right across the world” and turning Laudato Si’ “into a lived reality.” She applauded the role young people have played in stimulating climate action. “Young people have done more in two years than the rest of us have done over three decades” she said. Lorna felt the pandemic is teaching us that we are all connected to each other and to nature and what it means to act together to face a common threat. She felt Pope Francis’ vision of ecological conversion refers to “community conversion” and asked: “What if that process of community ecological conversion was to extend to the entire world of faith communities that still encompass 80% of the world’s population?”

 Andy Atkins, head of Arocha UK, underlined how far Churches have come with programmes such as Live Simply, Eco Church, Eco Congregation, Climate Sunday and Fossil Fuel Divestment with Operation Noah. In fact, more than 5000 churches across the Christian denominations are registered with green schemes which “was unimaginable 30 years ago” but “we need to speed up.” He deplored the UK government’s loss of credibility to deal with the crises facing us. “At a time when the government says it is leading the world it has cut its aid budget and has opened the door to further fossil fuel development,” he lamented; “we should be saying ‘No More Fossil Fuel Exploitation’ in this country!” Lorna felt the 20 October announcement of fossil fuel divestment should include the 18 Catholic dioceses on England and Wales that have not yet announced divestment.

 Fr Eamonn Mulcahy CSSp’s presentation on, ‘Let us dream together: Pope Francis’ Gospel Vision for an Integral Humanity’, considered criticisms of excessive anthropocentrism, consumerism and the technocratic paradigm - all themes taken from Laudato Si’.  “We must be agents for healing and restoration” he said, “respecting every living creature and organism.”

 Speaker Mark Rotherham, of the Northern Dioceses Environmental Group, felt it essential we transform our current economic system so that it promotes both social equality and environmental protection. “A good life-sustaining economy is about slowly down and recognising planetary boundaries” he said. He described the arms industry as “a huge shadow over our nation” and felt that we need to withdraw legitimacy from this draw on global resources and energy.

 NJPN Chair Paul Southgate taught the conference a Navajo hymn ‘The world is so beautiful,’ and called on young people to feed in their primary concerns to the conference. Young university and school students told participants bluntly that they would like “less of fossil fuel companies pretending to care and schools accepting money from them”. They urged Catholics “to challenge the increasingly hostile policy towards refugees”, many of whom are victims of our UK actions in arms trading and raising global temperatures. One criticised “the detachment of our education system from real life” and the attitude that, “the more money we have the more successful we are.”

 An enthusiastic action planning session at the end included dioceses forming Laudato Si’ Action Platform groups, organising Climate Sunday Masses, promoting the Live Simply programme in parishes and schools, and urging divestment from fossil fuels. Inspiration was taken from a presentation by Emma Gardner, new Head of Environment in Salford Diocese, who manages the flagship Laudato Si’ Centre and stimulates environmental action in Salford's parishes and schools. Columbans and Salesians are among those arranging a 24-hour prayer vigil on 5 November – during COP26 - that parishes can join, with intentions fed in from around the world. Many dioceses plan to connect with the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) pilgrimage to Glasgow and the Camino to COP26, setting off in September.

Around 15 workshops were available on such topics as: ‘Sustainable Development Goals,’ ‘Conflict and Environment,’ and a ‘Nature Explorer Walk’ with a botanist. Justice and Peace Scotland gave a briefing around ‘Attendance at COP26 – real or virtual’.  Since 2005, NJPN has regularly taken an environmental theme for the national conference and its Environment Working Group, formed that year, helped plan the 2021 conference.

CYMFed - What's Possible?

What’s Possible? Covid Success Stories from the world of Catholic Youth Ministry

 The Catholic Youth Ministry Federation of England & Wales (CYMFed) have released a set of stories showcasing some of the ground-breaking work that’s been done with young people over the last year.

 The document, called What’s Possible?, draws together stories from fourteen different projects across England & Wales. Among them are CAFOD’s online assemblies, an online ‘watch along’ of ‘The Chosen,’ last year’s ‘National Youth Funday,’ and a host of other projects, some online and some in the flesh.

 Bishop Ralph Heskett, the Bishop for Youth for England & Wales, said “I am greatly encouraged by the breadth of examples of outreach to our young people that has been undertaken during the Covid pandemic... This has been a time of struggle, loss and frustration for so many young people and I am delighted that the Youth Ministry community has found creative and sometimes new ways of reaching out to our young friends”

The document is called “What’s Possible? – Stories of Catholic Youth Ministry during the pandemic” and it can be found at HERE

The Dignity of Work and Fair Wage

Since 2019, we have been highlighting our work in supporting an exciting project set up in Leeds Diocese by the Leeds Justice and Peace Commission, which aimed at engaging more 16-30 year olds around the issue of Catholic Social Teaching called SPARK! Social Justice.

Since 1891 the church has spoken a great deal about the human dignity in the workplace and the call for a just and fair wage. Pope Pius XI in “Quadragesimo Anno”, which is the document celebrating the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII encyclical Rerum Novarum, refers to a just wage by saying that “every effort must therefore be made that workers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately.

As part of the continuing project, in the video below, YCW National President Marc Besford talks to us about the dignity of work and the right to fair pay and how young people should be treated in the place of work.

That dignity needs to be restored as unemployment has once more become a burning issue, and unemployment is reaching record levels even in nations that for decades have enjoyed a certain degree of prosperity, there is a renewed need to appreciate the importance of dignified work, of which Saint Joseph is an exemplary patron.

Pope Francis recently said to young people: “Don’t wait until tomorrow to contribute your energy, your audacity and your creativity to changing our world. You are the NOW of God, and he wants you to bear fruit!”. The YCW is keen to be part of this mission and we are calling on society to pay attention to what young people are saying and support us to build a future where: technology is there to assist and improve the quality of life for human beings never the other way round; young people’s God-given dignity can be respected in every aspect, especially in the workplace, where they fulfil their vocation; with sustainability, freedom, peace and love present in every aspect of our lives.

Feast Of St Antony of Padua

Today we celebrate the feast of St Antony of Padua. Our HQ is dedicated to St Antony. We wish a happy feast to our friends at St Antony’s Centre as well as the parish we are situated in.

St. Antony’s life is what every Christian’s life is meant to be; a steady courage to face the ups and downs of life, the call to love and forgive, to be concerned for the needs of others, to deal with crisis great and small, and to have our feet solidly on the ground of total trusting love and dependence on God.

It is in St Antony's love of the word of God and his prayerful efforts to understand and apply it to the situations of everyday life that the Church especially wants us to imitate. With our method of SEE, JUDGE and ACT we as young people are able to look at our own reality and apply faith in order to change the world around us.

St Antony of Padua, pray for us

Feast Day Of Pope St Paul VI

On May 29th the Church celebrated the feast day of Pope St Paul VI, whose anniversary of his election to the Papacy is later this month on the 21st June. This feast day is an opportunity to remember a key document in Catholic Social Teaching around the world of work that he wrote - Populorum Progressio.

Populorum Progressio outlines the Church’s support for: the right to a just wage; the right to security of employment; the right to fair and reasonable working conditions; the right to join a union; and the universal destination of resources and goods.

The universal destination of resources and goods means that the goods of creation are destined for humankind as a whole, but also recognises the individual right to private property. In addition, political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good.

This document builds on previous commitments from the Church around protection for workers and upholding the dignity of people in our economic systems, and has itself been a foundation for later works that reinforce these themes.

Joseph Cardijn, the founder of the YCW, rooted the mission of our Movement on these principles many decades earlier but the influence of his work has meant that the Church remains focused on upholding the dignity of work and protection for those who are the poorest and most vulnerable.

National Chaplain of the YCW, Fr John Marsland, said: “The Church has taught for over a century now that the world of work needs to be fair and just, one that protects the dignity of workers and encourages human flourishing. The YCW aims to put these expectations into reality and our mission remains as relevant today as it was when we were founded.”