Columbans urge: 'Let’s get political in 2015'

Team outside Westminster Cathedral

The Spring issue of Vocation for Justice - the newsletter of Columban missionaries in Britain which focuses on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation - urges that we ‘get political’ in 2015.

2015 is a crucial year for the planet and its people. It’s a time for inspiration to be more political and engage with the justice, peace and ecology issues that matter to us. When it comes to our planet’s health, “2015 could be a decisive year in history,” Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, told a CAFOD gathering in London in November. He hoped Catholics around the world could muster the spiritual and political clout to be involved in building the movement for social and environmental justice.

In September 2015, world leaders decide on new goals for sustainable development, and in December, in Paris, a new climate treaty. Pope Francis is preparing the first ever encyclical focused solely on the environment and it is widely anticipated that it will urge international cooperation and action to address climate change. Religion offers a spiritual, ethical base on which people can sustain hope and work for long-term change.

In Britain, at home we have the General Election in May. This issue of Vocation for Justice urges engagement with the political process and the centerspread suggests questions to be put to candidates during hustings.

The 2020 vision statement of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland is deliberately positive. “Our starting point is a vision of the Good Society we want to live in by 2020, and how we can work together to build it.” It calls for a moral economy in the service of all.

The issue can be downloaded from the Columban website at:
www.columbans.co.uk/news/election-focus-vocation-justice/

To request a hard copy email: jpicssc@btconnect.com