This summer let’s bring parliament into our parishes
Set up a Parliament in your Parish to speak to your MP about how we can build a better world after the pandemic
Andrea Speranza from CAFOD’s Campaigns team explains how, by coming together in our parishes to meet with our MPs, we have a chance to build a fairer world after coronavirus.
“We don’t know what 2021 will reserve for us, but what all of us can do together is make a bit more of an effort to take care of each other.”
Pope Francis
When I heard these words from Pope Francis earlier this year, I felt a huge sense of relief. Whatever happens, we are not alone. But I felt a big sense of responsibility in equal measure, too.
What happens next depends on all of us. This is the time to come together, build community and act.
The coronavirus crisis exposed many of the inadequacies of how our world currently works. As the pandemic spread, devastating lives and shattering families in Britain and across the world, it revealed and worsened other challenges that plague our common home: the pandemic of hunger, the pandemic of poverty and the pandemic of runaway climate change. It has proved that we need greater cooperation between nations, solidarity between people and a greater focus on the poorest in society.
As Catholics, we are called not to stay silent and not to be passive. We are called to participate both individually and collectively in rebuilding a more dignified and sustainable world.
With this as our inspiration, this summer we are inviting everyone to organise an online public meeting with their local MP within their parish.
This is a chance for us to discuss how we can rebuild from the pandemic in a way that makes the world a fairer place and tackles some of the major global issues of our time.
Dare to do it!
Organising an online meeting with your MP is simpler than it sounds and we will be here to help you every step of the way. It can be a lot of fun and it’s a great opportunity to connect with other parishioners and reach out to new people, at a time when many of us have been isolated due to the pandemic.
With more than five million Catholics in the UK, these online meetings will be a chance for local MPs to hear the voices of the Catholic community in their region. It will alsoprovide an opportunity for us to get to know our MPs and hear about what they are doing to ensure the UK plays a leading role in the global recovery from coronavirus.
Referring to the COVID crisis, Pope Francis says: “If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life.”
Whether or not the world finally takes the necessary steps towards a new style of life depends on all of us.