Justice, Peace & Environment

In a letter sent to a gathering in his home town of Chicago, Pope Leo said: "when people of different religious traditions come together in prayer, it has the power to change the course of history." Writing to participants in the International Encounter for Peace and Reconciliation at Loyola University, Pope Leo began by saying he was pleased they were continuing with the 'Building Bridges Init... Read More

This Sunday, 8 March at 7pm, you are warmly invited to gather for an International Women's Day celebration that is both prayerful and theologically rich, rooted in the Church's growing reflection on Gospel nonviolence and the call to become peacemakers in a wounded world. Taking inspiration from the 2026 World Peace Day message of Pope Leo: "Towards an 'unarmed and disarming' peace," the evening w... Read More

At the beginning of March 2026, with multiple countries now at war, it may seem a mad idea to discuss nonviolence. Or perhaps it's a very wise and sane thing to do? A sign of true repentance, and intended conversion to the Gospel? Pope Leo gave us the prompt in his Ash Wednesday address: "We perceive in the ashes imposed on us the weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war... Read More

This evening, for the second time in a year, the Metropolitan Police raided a Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young nonviolent activists who were meeting there, on the grounds that they were conspiring to commit a criminal act. The room in Westminster Quaker Meeting House was let to Take Back Power to hold nonviolent direct action training. Quakers support the principle of nonviolent... Read More

On the second day of their Spring General Meeting, the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference in Maynooth, published the following statement calling for peace in the Middle East: Yet again, the people of the Middle East are experiencing an unjust war with the loss of innocent lives. War is utterly destructive. In an era of change and readjustment of geopolitical balances and cultural paradigms, wa... Read More

Quakers in Britain have called on the UK government to focus on building a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East. The call comes after the news that British military bases will be used to bomb Iran as part of 'defensive' operations to attack missile facilities. Quakers warn that military action will not make Britain or its allies safer. It will escalate the conflict, deepen regional instab... Read More

Two Year 12 students from Coventry - Ellie Wood and Mahmoud Jalloh - made an extraordinary journey from the West Midlands to the heart of British democracy on 24 February. They travelled by train to London to speak inside the Houses of Parliament at the national 'Show the Love' climate event, organised by The Climate Coalition. Invited by the Columban Missionaries based in Solihull, long-standing ... Read More

Last month I went with the Surrey Bird Club to visit Elmley nature reserve. Elmley Nature Reserve, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, is a 3,300-acre privately owned estate that has been restored from intensive arable farmland into a premier wetland habitat since the 1980s. Becoming a National Nature Reserve (NNR) in 1992, it is the only family-owned and managed NNR in the UK. As we slowly drove to ... Read More

Twenty years ago, a small group of determined women gathered in Dublin with a shared conviction: that human trafficking could no longer be ignored. What began as a conversation became a movement. This year, Act to Prevent Trafficking in Ireland (APT) marks two decades of awareness, advocacy, and action-yet the crime it seeks to end remains deeply embedded and largely hidden in Irish society. This ... Read More

The World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed grave concern and condemned military attacks carried out by Israel against Iran, and the subsequent escalation and retaliatory strikes that are rapidly expanding across the region. "This dangerous spiral of violence places millions of civilians at immediate risk, undermines regional and international security, and threatens already fragile economic and... Read More

New research has revealed the impact of the 2024 riots on minority groups in the UK, showing that it made people feel unwelcome and fearful in their own communities and that they modified their daily lives to feel safe. Experts from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology undertook a qualitative study to explore the lived experiences of ethnic and religious minority groups during and a... Read More

A new World Council of Churches (WCC) campaign: 'From Condemnation to Consequences', running 4-18 March, will call on states to hold Israel accountable for ending the illegal occupation of Palestine. In light of the escalating crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the clear, yet unfulfilled, legal obligations of the international community, the campaign will demand concrete, legally-gro... Read More

Priests Against Genocide, an international network of 2,200 priests from 58 countries, together with 23 bishops, archbishops, and two cardinals, has issued a formal letter to Mr Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, urging the institution to suspend any participation in the so-called 'Board of Peace.' In their letter, the network states that its pastoral mission obliges members to defend ... Read More

On March 8th at 7pm, you are warmly invited to gather for an International Women's Day celebration that is both prayerful and theologically rich, rooted in the Church's growing reflection on Gospel nonviolence and the call to become peacemakers in a wounded world. Taking inspiration from the 2026 World Peace Day message of Pope Leo: "Towards an 'unarmed and disarming' peace," the evening will expl... Read More