Anti-Poverty Week (14 to 20 October) is an opportunity to consider the issues of poverty and hardship here in Australia and overseas. To mark the occasion, Catholic Social Services Victoria hosted a lunchtime conversation facilitated by Brian Lawrence, who posed the question: “How many children have to live in poverty before the Fair Work Commission takes decisive action?”

Members and friends of Catholic Social Services Victoria are warmly invited to a lunchtime conversation with Fr Michael Kelly sj: ‘A journey with urban refugees in Bangkok’ An opportunity to explore an international perspective on issues facing people seeking asylum. Fr Michael Kelly sj, an Australian journalist and publisher, lives in Bangkok, Thailand, where his life intersects with many people seeking asylum.  Many of these live messy, dangerous lives, and those that work with them need to keep in mind that ‘the only unforgiveable sin is despair’.  Click here for a recent article on this topic by Fr Michael in Eureka Street. Download flyer here.
 

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Social Justice Statement for 2018–19, A Place to Call Home: Making a home for everyone in our land, confronts the growing challenge of homelessness and housing insecurity in Australia.

On Saturday 15 September 2018, more than 30 people from 12 parishes gathered at St Francis Xavier and St Clare Combined Parish of Greater Box Hill to share insights into how parishes might respond to Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ on care for our common home, the earth.

“Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. ” – Laudato Si #49. Catholic Social Services Victoria, together with Edmund Rice Ministries and Presentation Sisters, is hosting a practical experience of applying the principles of Catholic Social Teaching to promote the flourishing of creation and the building of a more just and compassionate society. 

During Anti-Poverty Week 2018, on Wed 17 October, we will be hosting a Lunchtime Conversation with Brian Lawrence on Child Poverty within Families, followed by an Ecumenical Anti-Poverty Prayer Service.  All are welcome.

In 2015, Pope Francis wrote “an urgent letter” to “everyone on the planet” to express his concern for the devastation that humans are causing to our Earth and its climate, and to ask all people to change the way we treat the Earth, each other and the poor. How are you and your parish responding to the Pope’s urgent request?  

 

The Season of Creation is an annual celebration of prayer and action to protect creation across the globe.  The season begins 1 September, the Day of Prayer for Creation, and runs through to 4 October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of ecology in several religious traditions. The theme of this year’s celebration is ‘walking together” and will be celebrated by Christian and other faith traditions as brothers and sisters on a pilgrimage of shared reflection and action to better care of creation.
 

At this time of change in Australian politics, it’s time to change our approach to refugees and people seeking asylum.

This was a call from more than 60 people from 20 Melbourne Catholic parishes on Saturday 25 August.  They were gathered for the 14^th Welcome the Asylum Seeker Parish Support forum.