Don’t blame poor, say churches; Cuts hitting poor show ‘a sickness at the heart of our society’, says Dean; Catholic Bishops launch campaign to ‘Speak Out For Marriage’
Don’t blame poor, say churches
Churches and Christian groups across Britain are marking a national week of action by speaking out against the stigmatisation and exclusion of people who are poor or homeless.
The annual Poverty & Homelessness Action Week gets underway on Saturday and focuses this year on what organisers call the “growing demonisation” of people in financial hardship by politicians and the media.
Churches involved in the week will reflect on the theme, ‘Can you cast the first stone?’, as they think about how they can support those in difficulty.
As well as offering a Christian challenge to stigmatisation and exclusion, the week aims to celebrate the resilience of people coping with poverty and homelessness, and the work being done by Christian organisations to empower them.
The week will be marked by hundreds of special church services, as well as anti-poverty projects and prayer.
Niall Cooper, National Coordinator of Church Action on Poverty, said: “It is appalling that the UK’s economic crisis and rising levels of poverty and homelessness are being blamed on those who are actually feeling their worst effects.
“Politicians and the media use abusive language and images, and fuel mistrust by contrasting supposed ‘strivers’ with ‘skivers’.
“They use this blame game to justify cuts to our safety net, which will drive hundreds of thousands of people further into poverty. In Action Week, we are saying that a blame culture is not the way to make things better.
“We won’t tackle poverty and homelessness by blaming those who suffer most from them. We need to stop the blame game now.”
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is supporting Poverty & Homelessness Action Week.
“We are living in tough times where six out of 10 families in poverty have at least one adult in work,” he said.
Free resources available to help churches and individuals get involved in Action Week include: an outline for a church service; a DVD of video stories; an online prayer calendar; and an e-action which will enable you to write to your local newspaper about the ‘blame game’. Visit www.actionweek.org.uk to take part.
Cuts hitting poor show ‘a sickness at the heart of our society’, says Dean
Ekklesia – Spending cuts hitting the poorest in areas like North East England are “a profound sickness at the heart of our society,” a senior church leader says.
The Anglican Dean of Newcastle, the Very Rev Chris Dalliston, made the remark to council leaders, bishops and MPs gathered by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones – who has also called on the government to think again about its cuts.
“It seems North is being pitted against South,” declared Dalliston. He described the situation brought about by cuts as “urban against suburban and rural, workers against unemployed, deserving against ‘undeserving’ poor”.
The Dean of Newcastle believes church leaders on Tyneside are seeing signs of society fragmenting as austerity takes hold.
“We will continue to call for a more just distribution of the considerable resources that still exist,” he adds, continuing: “The health of a nation is revealed most clearly by the way it treats its most vulnerable members. If that is true, and I’m sure it is, then there is a profound sickness at the heart of our society.
“For some of us in the North East, a region that seems to have struggled more than many down the years, that unfairness is compounded by our relative geographic isolation and by the modest scale of our populations … there is nowhere else for people to go, and our infrastructure is arguably less resilient.
“At a local level there is a case for a robust debate about how and where cuts are to be made, but the danger that brings is that the bigger picture is obscured in the arguments about this library, that leisure centre, this neighbourhood initiative.
“It might be easy to indulge in a victim mentality or blame culture. We need to try to maintain both a principled level of debate and a high degree of transparency,” concludes the Dean.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17840
Catholic Bishops launch campaign to ‘Speak Out For Marriage’
ICN – The British government will soon publish the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill which, if passed, will fundamentally alter the meaning of marriage.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales are launching a postcard campaign entitled ‘Speak Out for Marriage’. Postcards for parishioners to send to their local MPS, which should be available in every Catholic Church in England and Wales by next Saturday 26 January.
The Bishops are also encouraging people to write personally to their MPs voicing opposition to the Bill.
The text of the postcard reads:
‘Dear Member of Parliament,
As a concerned constituent I urge you to vote against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.
Marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation of the family and provides the best circumstances in which to raise the next generation. This is why society has recognised marriage as having an identity distinct from any other relationship, however much love or commitment may be involved; marriage is about the common good.
No mainstream political party promised such a radical change in its last election manifesto. There is therefore no mandate for it. Please vote against it and let me know your views.’
The Bishops point out that the law helps shape and form social and cultural values. A change in the law would gradually and inevitably transform society’s understanding of the purpose of marriage.
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=21796