Social Justice Sunday will be celebrated on 29 September. The Australian Bishops’ Social Justice Statement for 2019-20 is called ‘Making it Real: Genuine human encounter in our digital world’. It affirms the positive possibilities for encounter and solidarity offered by new digital media, while warning of those elements that may be harmful. With the friendship of the Good Samaritan as our inspiration, we are called to “make real” the love of God in the virtual neighbourhood.
Click on the above image to download the statement and associated resources which includes:
The Archdiocese of Melbourne launched the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s Social Justice Statement for 2018-19 “A Place to Call Home” on Tuesday 18 September 2018.
500 people, including school children, representatives from Catholic parishes, agencies and organisations working to help people with homelessness walked through the streets of Melbourne giving public witness and prayer in support of people who are homeless. Beginning at Federation Square, they stopped at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, the Salvation Army Temple and the German Trinity Lutheran Church where their church leaders led them in prayer. They gathered at the steps of Parliament House where the Minister for Housing, Hon. Martin Foley MLA and the Shadow Minister of Housing, Ms Georgie Crozier MLC, received the Statement from students from Galilee Primary School. The statement was officially launched on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Bishop Mark Edwards OMI and Netty Horton, CEO CatholicCare.
At this critical point in our society, there is a crisis of insecure housing and a tragedy of rising homelessness with nearly 116,000 homeless Australians on any given night. In the Statement, the Bishops affirm that housing is a basic human right, calls on all of us, government, Church and society, and individuals to recognise the dignity of every person who is marginalised and suggests practical measures to achieve real change.
On 30 September 2018, the Church celebrates Social Justice Sunday in which the Statement is officially issued. Read the statement, pray the Prayer for people who are homeless with others in your school, parish and community, and with the 10 Steps resource work together and with other organisations dealing with the issue to solve this crisis.
More photos: HERE (Credit to Ashoka Peiris)
“It's high time that Christians made up their minds to do something . . . What are we going to show in the way of resistance…? We will be standing empty-handed. We will have no answer when we are asked: What did you do about it?” – Hans Scholl
The Benenson Society and 11 schools gathered at Xavier College to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the executions of six members of the White Rose with a Mass and a human rights forum. The White Rose movement consisted of young German Christian (Catholic & Lutheran) university students and their lecturer and was a non-violent resistance group writing leaflets against the Nazi regime. The Benenson Society takes the White Rose as its emblem and as inspiration for its members.
Read a detailed account of the day here
More photos here
The Office for Justice and Peace supports and promotes the Benenson Society, an international human rights organisation that advocates for prisoners of conscience, against torture and for the abolition of the death penalty. Members can be found in 11 countries and there are a number of school chapters in the Archdiocese of Melbourne.
More info: benensonsociety.org