Category Archives: Weekly View

Santa Marta Group meet at the Vatican to promote struggle against human trafficking

Senior law enforcement officers, Bishops, religious women and key international organisations met together last week for the fifth Santa Marta Group conference in the Vatican to update and share best practise in the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery.

At this year’s conference over 30 countries were represented, including delegates from Africa, Europe, Asia Pacific, North and South America. The conference had a regional focus enabling delegates to share tailored solutions to human trafficking within their geographical context.  They discussed the challenges they face and showcase the collaborative work the Church and law enforcement is doing to eradicate human trafficking. 

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Santa Marta Group was a speaker alongside other Church leaders.  The conference ended with a Papal Audience on Friday.

This year the conference coincided with the feast day of St Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of human trafficking and who herself was a survivor of slavery.  Cardinal Pietro Parolin will celebrate the feast with a mass in St Peter’s Basilica. 

Launched in 2014 by Pope Francis and led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols the Santa Marta Group is a unique global partnership between law enforcement and the Catholic Church. Since 2014 the group has grown to become a worldwide network covering 35 countries. 

Santa Marta Group President Cardinal Vincent Nichols:

“Slavery continues to affect the most vulnerable in our communities and the latest UN figures suggests over forty million people are now potential victims. This year’s conference hopes to build on the hard work produced by SMG partners since the group was established in 2014.The conference is an opportunity for law enforcement and the Church to share evidence of practical cooperation and effective responses driven by the importance of supporting survivors of human trafficking. 

“Slavery is an affront to human dignity and we all have a responsibility to fight against it. This conference is a unique opportunity to strengthen our global response as we move to specific and accountable actions.”

For more information go to http://santamartagroup.com/

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 11 February 2018

Dear Parishioners,

In Lent we are asked to prepare for Easter by prayer and sacrifice.  If you haven’t decided yet what you will do for Lent then please

consider one of the following (or more than one!).

*Give God some silent attention each day.

*Buy (£1) the ‘Walk With Me’ booklet which will help you pray and reflect each day of Lent.

*Join the Stations of the cross in Clitheroe at 7.30pm on Fridays and in Sabden at 7.30pm on Tuesdays.

*Attend the three Hope in the Future Parish meetings

*Spend a little time each day reading the Bible in the quiet of your home.

*Attend daily Mass (details weekly in the newsletter)

*Come to Exposition on Saturday mornings between 11am and 12noon

*Pay a visit to the church which is open daily during daylight hours.

*Encourage someone who has been away from mass to return to practice and accompany them to church.

*Recite the Rosary at home or join the weekday recitation in church at 9.30am.

*Visit someone in need of help or friendship or perhaps an elderly relative you haven’t visited for a while?

*Make up a longstanding quarrel.

*Help to clean the church on Monday mornings at 9.30

*Give up a favourite treat like sweets, drink, watching too much TV or cigarettes.

*Keep ‘Family Fast day’ on Friday

*Every Friday give up eating meat.

*Make a clean sweep. Go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), available Saturdays in Clitheroe from 11 to 11.45

*Attend the series of ecumenical Lenten talks on Saturday mornings in the Hall at 11am (Coffee from 10.30)

*Attend the Deanery Stations Mass  on Wednesday 7th March at 7.30pm in St Joseph’s Blackburn.

*Think before you take your car.  Walk in town and fight Global Warming.

Wishing you a fruitful Lent.

Fr John

 

 

Gap Year? – Just Youth

THINKING OF TAKING A GAP YEAR?  We’re Just Youth, a youth ministry project based in Salford run by the Spiritans, who work with children/young people in the North West.  We need volunteers between ages of 18-26 to join our team this summer—enthusiastic creative and willing young people .  If you are fresh out of college or Uni rise to the challenge and take a gap year with us.  admin@justyouth.co.uk or visit our website http://www.justyouth.co.uk

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 28 January 2018

CARITAS SUNDAY

Caritas Diocese of Salford is the official charity that co-ordinates Social Work within the diocese. Its vision is that the lives of all people should be free from poverty, disadvantage and discrimination. It helps the most vulnerable children, young people and adults in our communities to transform their lives and fulfil their potential. It raises awareness on human trafficking and campaigns for justice.  It welcomes the stranger and visits the housebound.  It works in schools and supports young mothers and babies.  Four young parishioners from Sabden raised £100 towards St Augustine’s High School total of around £800 to decorate the Caritas Young Parents Home in Blackburn.

Last year this parish raised £793 for Caritas’s Refugee Response, out of a total of £37,238, this went directly to the ground-breaking work across the Diocese to welcome refugees and asylum seekers.  From almost zero activity just two years ago, Caritas has set up Refugee and Asylum Centre Drop-Ins in Haslingden and Wythenshawe to provide casework support and a welcome face to those escaping war or persecution.  They have provided Volunteer-led English lessons; worked with Revive in Manchester to arrange days out in our parish communities in the Ribble Valley and Irlam; and in October they launched the Refugee Come Dine with Me parish initiative, after a pilot involving many of our parishioners.  Caritas has continued to pioneer the Refugee Community Sponsorship Programme, taking the Canadian model, where a community group welcomes a Refugee Family; from meeting them at the airport, to finding local accommodation, helping with schools, medical registration and providing friendship.  From the original pilot at St Monica’s, Flixton another nine parishes have followed suit and Caritas worker Sean Ryan received an MBE in the New Year’s honours list as a recognition of his leadership and coordination of his leading-edge work with refugees.

Caritas offers emergency accommodation to the destitute, and supporters are campaigning for individual asylum seekers, even in some instances housing them in their own homes! They continue to respond to poverty and social injustice in our parishes in whatever form it might take.  This year’s second collection will enable us to reach out with compassion to those greatest in need.

To learn more, go to www.caritassalford.org.uk or contact the parish’s Caritas Representative, Anthony Brown on 01200 422811.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 21 January 2018

Dear Parishioners,

The Maintenance committee met on Tuesday to review recent projects, ongoing work and urgently required maintenance.

Major completed projects include the external repair and redecorating of SMSJ’s church, presbytery and social centre. Inside the church the loop and audio system have been improved by relaying wires and introducing four auxiliary speakers.

The total refurbishment of the porch/sacristy in Sabden is nearing completion. A steel H beam replaced the main roof support which had rotted, the plaster and cement were hacked off the walls, an area of dry rot was eliminated, the window replaced and floor, walls and ceiling were insulated to warm the coldest room in Sabden! The outside steps have also been replaced.

Major redevelopments begin in Dunsop this week to extend the extremely cramped sacristy and provide storage space for the church by incorporating a back room from the presbytery. The house will be divided from the church before a total refurbishment will make it an attractive rental in the property market. The income will eventually repay the parish for the budgeted cost of £66,000 and then provide financial security for St Hubert’s Church which as you are aware is now listed at grade II. A new toilet will be introduced next to the Church.

From Monday 26th February to 9th March work will be carried out in the porch of St Michael and John’s. During this period, entrance to the church will be by the side door, though for Sunday Masses on 3rd & 4th of March we may have to lay some temporary flooring.  As many of you may be aware, the heavy oak church doors are difficult to open, not because of the weight of the doors but because the floor has risen. This is the result of the iron tray holding the door mat rusting and lifting the floor tiles. The iron will be replaced by stainless steel and the tiles will be relaid.

Two smaller jobs in Clitheroe will be an extension of the CCTV surveillance. In the Social Centre the doors between the top bar (the School Room) and the Hall (the Assembly Hall) will be sound proofed.

So, enough to be getting on with!

Fr John

A prayer from Laudato Si’

buy Gabapentin no prescription Said at our Laudato Si’ meeting on January 10

All-powerful God,
you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned
and forgotten of this earth,
so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty,
not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature as
we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 14 January 2018

Dear Parishioners,

In the early 1900’s the Catholic population of sub-Saharan Africa was less than 2 million. Today it is estimated that Africa is home to 200 million Catholics. That is, by any estimation, a staggering growth rate.

However, by 2050, based on projections from the World Christian Database, Africa should have over 450 million Catholics, becoming by far the world’s largest Catholic continent!

In 1975 when I began work in East Africa, my Bishop was a Dutch Mill Hill Missionary and the diocese was staffed by missionaries with only a handful of African priests. Within two years an African was appointed Bishop and the area of that single diocese is now covered by nine dioceses and all are staffed by local priests and bishops.

Following the 2nd Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI made the training of African priests a priority and today vocations are plentiful. There is major seminary in Nigeria which began life in 1952 with 12 students, today it has over 1,000 and is only one of 8 Nigerian major seminaries.

Today, African leaders hold important posts in the Church, men such as Cardinals Francis Arinze and John Onaiyekan of Nigeria, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo of the Democratic Republic of Congo (who’s also a member of Pope Francis’s council of cardinal advisers) Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana (who heads the Vatican’s ministry for Promoting Integral Human Development and heads a great deal of Pope Francis’s peace-and-justice initiatives) and Cardinals Robert Sarah and Wilfrid Napier.

Almost all dioceses in this country have African priests to help staff parishes. In our own diocese, four parishes are served by priests from Africa.

The traditional Missionary societies now overwhelmingly rely on candidates recruited from Africa and Asia while Africa has founded at least two Missionary societies of its own.

But success must not deceive us. Africa still needs missionaries to share the love, the mercy and knowledge of Jesus Christ, as also it still relies on our prayerful and financial Support.

Today we welcome to Our Lady of the Valley parish Fr Waslaw Krzempek of the Society of African Missions who will preach the annual mission appeal.

Fr John

The Epiphany – 7th January 2018

Laudato Si’ Group

The Laudato Si’ Group has agreed that the way forward for our Parish to begin implementing Pope Francis’ and Bishop John’s request that we respond positively to the Pope’s letter Laudato Si is to work towards gaining CAFOD’s Live Simply Award.

As well as a means for progressing Laudato Si’, the award will bring together the many strands of our Parish groups so we can work as a community to live sustainably with creation and in solidarity with the poor.

Under these overlapping headings there is much we are already doing and much more we can do.  Some of it will engage environmentally-concerned individuals and families with outings to learn about wild flower meadows around Slaidburn or a visit to a farm at Rimington which provides educational opportunities for children.  The Yorkshire Dales National Park and Natural England have conservation sites.  Dale Head church (near Stocks Reservoir) and Horton-in-Ribblesdale church are best examples of conservation.

We can apply lessons learned. The old Catholic cemetery on Waddington Road is a potential conservation site. “Bob boxes” (for bats and birds) can be a learning vehicle. Children can sponsor a box to learn how they work and what they attract. We can encourage domestic Wildlife Gardening and develop the ground behind St Mary’s, Sabden and St Hubert’s, Dunsop Bridge. We can have practical foraging lessons as family days out.

At a personal level we can learn of products associated with environmental damage and serious labour exploitation. We can check the ethics of purchases and think Fairtrade. We can buy vegetables in season to avoid the expense of storage and transport. We have plenty of water but purification takes energy. In avoiding energy wastage and wastage of food, fuel and wastage generally, we live in solidarity with the poor. Pope Francis reminds us that “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs”. At a Parish level we will provide a list of things to do and products to avoid buying on ethical grounds.

To learn more and have your say, come to the Parish Centre on Wednesday, January 10th at 7.30 pm. Joe Howson and Mark Rotherham (Lee House Mission Awareness Centre) will talk about their environmental projects and Joseph Cooper will talk about their Live Simply Award plans and progress at St Wilfrid’s Parish, Preston.

Now is the time to put Laudato Si into action!

Laudato Si Action Group.