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Awareness of our Surrounding World

 
 

 

 

View their latest newsletter here February-2021

 

JustAct is the social justice unit at the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. They equip church members and non-church members to take action on issues that matter most to them.

JustAct campaign on issues that matter most to their supporters. 

Sometimes this means adding your name to petitions, letter writing or making phone calls, but it can also result in direct lobbying. They also offer other types of resources for those interested in making social justice change.

This Month’s Petitions and some Resources
 
>Climate Crisis Multi-faith Day of Action – 11th March<
On March 11 join faith communities around the world for the biggest-ever multi-faith Day of Action on the climate crisis called Sacred People, Sacred Earth. People can sign onto a multi faith statement the signatories to which will also include globally recognised faith leaders; this will be launched on the day.
 
In 2020, Climate and Health Alliance brought together over 100 thought leaders to discuss possible alternative futures for Australia in 2030. The resulting scenarios describe the future we might expect from a range of different pathways. This panel discussion provides the opportunity to hear from experts about the development of these possible alternative scenarios for Australia and discuss the steps to a Healthy, Regenerative and Just future. 

>Safer Internet Day – 9th February<
9th February is Safer Internet Day, and is a great opportunity for all organisations to start the chat about being safer online, then keep building the digital skills of your staff, colleagues, customers, members or community throughout the year. Supported by the Australian eSafety Commissioner, there are several ways you can support and engage with Safer Internet Day. 

>Lent Event and Bible Study – Uniting World (17 Feb – 29 March)<
A Lent is an opportunity to reflect on the life of Christ and re-dedicate ourselves to following in the way of compassion and justice. Uniting World’s Lent Event is an opportunity over 40 days to live simply and be inspired to make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others. 
 
 

 change.org 

An update to 11 years too long:    It all began when:

Elizabeth Young RSM started this petition to Peter Dutton (Minister for Home Affairs)

“11 years is too long. Hon Peter Dutton MP, we call on you to release A from detention and grant him his SHEV visa immediately!

Despite more than 11 years in detention, and being recognised as a refugee, A has still not been granted his liberty. Now he fears he will be transferred back to Christmas Island as part of the government’s reshuffle of the detention network in response to COVID-19. ‘Christmas Island is where I was first held; I cannot return there 11 years later,’ A said.

A Sri Lankan of Sinhalese ethnicity, A fled his country, in fear for his life, in the midst of bloodshed during the height of the civil war. He was 29 years old when he arrived in March 2009.”  Read in full here

 And Now:  A is free – thank God!

We are now thanking God for some very good news: 

A has been given a visa and freed from detention!!! Let us then celebrate with him. Here is A’s message:

“Dear Australians, By the will of God and your support, I got the visa and am now, finally, a free man. I am forever indebted to you all. At this moment I am reminded of the words of God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God…. Read A’s Full message of thanks

#overcomingsilence 
Uniting global voices to promote gender equality in the Catholic Church.
WHY DO WE NEED THIS CAMPAIGN?_
The Catholic Church is facing a crisis.
 
A new generation of Catholics are questioning the Church hierarchy and its response to a changing world and emerging problems, such as sexual and power abuse.
Many questions are coming from deeply faithful Catholic women who are asking why the Church is so slow in recognising their value and opening decision making roles to them; roles that incorporate their faith, charism, expertise and education into structures of authority at all levels. 
With over 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide and over of them women, we must ask why there are so few female decision-makers in the Catholic Church.
 
Decisions that affect all of us, cannot be voiced by half of us.
Without female voices in leadership, half the Church remains silent.
 
Visit the website and tell Pope Francis why this must change. Write your message
this campaign has been created by Voices of Faith find out more www.voicesoffaith.org
 
 

LOYO – Our new Sister Community in the Philippines

Our St Kevin’s community are proud to learn more of our new sister Community so that we can understand their needs and better assist them. To do this we’ve sponsered one of our dedicated teachers- Fulvia Gerolisimo – who has embarked on a missionary trip to the Philippines to experience first hand our newly sponsored community of ‘LOYO’. 
 
Please read an email Fulvia sent to Fr Gerry recently:
 

“Hello Father Gerry, Hope you are well. 

Our stay here in Cebu has been quite overwhelming. My heart aches for the people. What we have seen has been so incomprehensible. 

Our visit to Loyo Elementary was pleasant yet sad. The school and community are in desperate need of every possible thing you can imagine. For one, the school itself has no running water so the children need to fill up 2  x 2 gallon bottles of water collected at the well approx 800 meters from the school, then walk up the hill to the school. That is their drinking water and bathroom required water for their school day. At the end of the day they walk back down the hill, refill their 2 gallons with water from the well and take it back home to their home for the family. 🙁

Both Anna-Maria and myself went shopping the night before for school supplies. We purchased 90 exercise books, 200 writing pencils and 40 packets of colouring pencils. (With Parish money) 
We also purchased the Loyo community (17 families in total ) a 50 kilo sack of rice which we then divided amongst the families . Emely gathered a member from each of the families to the school where we then distributed it. Some of the parents were crying upon receiving the bag of rice. We had the underwear to distribute and lots of other donations family and friends had given us for the school/community. 
After having visited Loyo we then purchased paint for the Prep classroom as the Prep teacher had been asking Emely for paint to paint her room for a long time. Our hearts broke upon hearing her desperation on covering the holes in the walls & peeled paint. All the classrooms are so run down, old, tiny, dark ( little if any sunlight)
Emely let her know we had purchased it for her and she came to the Patupat community where we were staying to collect it and to personally thank us, with tears in her eyes and biscuits she had baked for us. We still have about $30 left over so I will add that to Charity’s money. Hope that is ok with you. 

Dearest Father Gerry, my goodness I have so much to share with you about this whole trip. The people. The communities. The life of the people. Our sponsor child and her family. What we have seen, heard and experienced has been so incomprehensible. It hurts my heart so very much. 

Thank you for allowing me to travel here and experience this. 

Take care and God Bless,”

 
 
 
 
AUSTEN IVEREIGH, D.PHIL.
 
Fellow in Contemporary Church History, Campion Hall, Oxford
_____ Hélder Câmara Lecture NEWMAN COLLEGE, MELBOURNE 21 March 2019 _______

‘CLOSE AND CONCRETE: POPE FRANCIS EVANGELIZING A WORLD IN FLUX’

When he addressed its gathering at the Olympic Stadium in Rome in 2014, Pope Francis warned the Charismatic Renewal against turning in on itself, existing for its own self, and thereby becoming an obstacle to salvation. “You are dispensers of God’s grace, not its arbiters!” he told them. “Don’t act like a tollhouse for the Holy Spirit!” And he urged them to read the third document of Malines by two great churchmen of the 1970s: Cardinal Leo Suenens of Brussels, and the Bishop of Olinda and Recife for whom this lecture is named, Dom Helder Câmara. The Malines documents were a series of discernment reflections in the early 1970s by leading church figures on the fast-spreading and surprising eruption of the charismatic renewal. The one the pope was urging them to read, was about service to humanity, not separating personal faith from the justice of the Kingdom of God. Camara was the icon of that integrity in Latin America at that time: he had led the group of bishops who signed the Pact of the Catacomb following the Council, inspired by John XIII’s call for a Church for all, but especially of the poor. Francis had famously identified with this current on the days after his election, telling journalists he dreamed of a “poor Church, for the poor”.
 
In that Malines document, Dom Helder says this: “If the Church is to give the example it must, if it is to be the living presence of Christ among men and with men, it urgently and permanently needs to cast off its concern for prestige, to unharness itself from the chariot of the mighty, and to agree to live the prophecy of the Master, which is valid for all times:
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves … They will hand you over to courts of judgment” (Mt. 10, 16-17).”