May 13, 2021
This year has been challenging for everyone. Again and again we have seen children and young people rise to the challenge. They have continued to look out for our global neighbours by joining our national assemblies, taking part in Walk for Water and writing messages to human rights defenders.
Continue reading “The Eyes of the world are on us”April 16, 2021
CAFOD’s Director, Christine Allen, considers how Pope Francis’ latest encyclical Fratelli Tutti can inspire us all to be a force for change this year and help to build a fairer world.
Continue reading “A year for action and transformation”August 18, 2020
One thing is for sure: we’ll each remember the spring and summer of 2020. But in a way we could not have imagined, writes CAFOD’s Helen Moseley, it has also given us a glimpse of a more hopeful future.
Continue reading “A glimpse of a hopeful future”May 15, 2020
Five years on from its publication – writes CAFOD’s Head of Theology, Linda Jones – Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical still challenges us to think again, to think differently, and to renew our commitment to bring about positive change.
Continue reading “Shaping the future of our planet through Laudato Si’”October 17, 2019
Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre Guinea works in Peru’s Amazon and is one of the two Secretaries attending the Amazon Synod. As the Synod takes place, Bishop David tells us about the importance of bringing the Amazon and its peoples into the heart of the Church.
Continue reading “Why the Earth needs the Amazon”September 27, 2019
Ahead of World Day of Migrants and Refugees on 29 September, CAFOD volunteer Sarah George writes about communities who have been forced to leave their homes due to climate-related disasters – and how Pope Francis calls us to act.
Continue reading “World Day of Migrants and Refugees: Waking up to climate-related disasters”May 27, 2019
Catherine from our Theology team reflects on the climate emergency facing the Earth, our common home, its impact on the lives of those who are poorest, and how Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ offers hope and inspiration for action.
Continue reading “Pope Francis’ words of hope for Our Common Home”June 28, 2018
Jess, a member of the Asia and Middle East team recently met with Pakhi * a former migrant worker from Bangladesh who now helps other migrants to protect their rights.
When I met Pakhi, she described her experience of migrating to Kuwait as a young woman to take up employment as a domestic worker.
Pakhi explained, “I went to Kuwait to start sending money back to my elderly mother in Bangladesh and save up for my future. I worked in Kuwait for more than 2 years and I was forced to work around 20 hours a day by my employer. I was paid for only 6 months work and my passport was confiscated. I was confined to my employer’s house and I wasn’t allowed to contact my family back home”.
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Continue reading “Standing up for migrants on the move in Bangladesh”
April 23, 2018
The week before last Pope Francis issued his fifth major document since beginning his papacy. It is largely a sustained meditation on the Beatitudes and how they can be lived out here and now. It is called Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and be glad); and its subtitle is A call to holiness in today’s world. So what, according to Francis, does it mean to be holy? Susy, from our Theology team, highlights some key points.
According to Francis, if you are by nature timid, morose, acerbic or melancholy, prone to put on a dreary face or swoon in a mystic rapture then you are heading in the wrong direction! Here are four ways of being holy that Francis advocates. I think they will be particularly pertinent to you as a CAFOD supporter:
Pope Francis always stresses that we must live out our faith in a practical way (#109). This means, that in our lives and in our work, we are urged to labour “with integrity and skill in the service” of our brothers and sisters (#14).
February 12, 2018
Susy works in the Theology team at CAFOD. This Lent, inspired in part by Laudato Si’, she will be going vegan. She tells us more about her reasons for abstaining from animal products and what she’s going to miss the most.
Thirty years ago my brother showed me a video (yes, it was a video in those days!) of a factory farm and from that day on I have been vegetarian. Or, to be more accurate, pescatarian.
I decided that there was so much choice in terms of available food, that there was no need to eat meat. I didn’t find it hard to be honest and I do not miss meat at all. However, when I spent a year in Chile, I think I must have been one of only two vegetarians in the whole country and I was viewed as somewhat suspect!
Thirty years on, I am now preparing to go vegan for Lent and hoping that I will start getting into habits that may last a life-time.
Have you decided what to give up for Lent yet? Tell us on Twitter or take our Lent quiz for inspiration.
