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THE CATHOLIC PARISH OF
St EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
Finchley Road, Golders Green, London NW11 |
CONVERSATIONS IN
CARITAS
12 parishioners and Fr John attended the meeting
for the Northern Area held in St Edward's Hall on Tuesday 23 May. The
photograph below shows some of our Parish Group in discussion.
 26 people from
parishes in the north London area including several clergy and religious came
to join in the conversation on 23rd May at Golders Green. Echoing the issues
and themes raised in previous meetings, attention was drawn to the need to
increase levels of social engagement and responsibility in parishes, especially
towards families undergoing hidden and silent suffering in the face of
financial difficulties [redundancy, unelployment, debt etc]. The point was made
that innovation is needed to support such families, beaking down the barriers
that might prevent them from asking for help and for the parish to reach out to
them in concrete ways, including monetary assistance. There was an appeal for
greater parity between pro-life voluntray work and other social action
emanating from within parishes. Various ideas were suggested to address the
needs of the homeless and destitute, the urgent desire to draw more young
people in to the life of the parish by empowering them to do voluntary work for
the needy, and the absolute necessity to affirm and celebrate the good works
that are already going on, all of which requires improved and better
coordinated communication across the diocese as well as between parishes
themselves. At the end of the meeting Edmund Adamus reminded the gathering of
the importance of the St. John Southworth Fund to help effect transformation in
peoples lives as well as the aspiration of the Archbishop for it to continue in
to the future. Fr. Paschal closed the meeting with the prayerful reflection
that we must all work towards achieving a shared "vision" of caritas in
Christ-centred love and service.
Link to
Diocise
of Westminster Web Site |
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