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Fairtrade
In October we celebrate Fairtrade Weekend, Buying Fairtrade products means farmers, especially in developing countries, get a fair price for their goods and this has a beneficial impact on their communities and the local environment. St Peter’s is a Fairtrade Parish.
Over the following 2 weeks our Justice and Peace Group are selling raffle tickets for two wonderful Fairtrade Hampers full of goodies. The money raised will go to support the Fairtrade Foundation, who work to help Farmers to develop and get fair prices for their products. Please support this – you could be one of the lucky winners!
There will be a display in the Community Centre on Fairtrade and what they do this weekend. We will be drawing the raffle there after 10.30 mass, so it’s the last chance to buy tickets this weekend.
LiveSimply
LiveSimply at St.Peter’s
Pope Francis in his encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ invites us to “work with generosity and tenderness in protecting this world which God has entrusted to us”. An important part of our faith is to care for creation and to develop respect for other people in the world. The climate emergency endangers peoples around the world and affects the futures of our children and grandchildren. You will be familiar with the climate crisis, from the regular news coverage of its effects in different parts of the world, from last year’s COP26, and from the pastoral letter for Pentecost from the Bishops Conference that was available in Church in 2021.
In response, the Archdiocese of Birmingham has drawn up its own environmental policy. At the heart of this is the encouragement to all parishes to take up the Livesimply programme. The programme covers three areas:
Living simply /Living in solidarity with people in poverty /Living sustainably with creation.
St. Peter’s is registered as a parish with CAFOD to follow the Livesimply programme and we already as a parish follow actions in these areas. These include:
Living in solidarity with people in poverty
You are no doubt carrying out your own actions to do what you can to protect the natural environment in which we live and on which we depend.
CAFOD has produced a resource list of ideas for living simply, which may contain actions you have not thought of:
cafod.org.uk/content/download/29754/339060/version/6/file/LiveSimply%20-%20A4%20100%20Ideas%20list.pdf
Pope Francis in his encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ invites us to “work with generosity and tenderness in protecting this world which God has entrusted to us”. An important part of our faith is to care for creation and to develop respect for other people in the world. The climate emergency endangers peoples around the world and affects the futures of our children and grandchildren. You will be familiar with the climate crisis, from the regular news coverage of its effects in different parts of the world, from last year’s COP26, and from the pastoral letter for Pentecost from the Bishops Conference that was available in Church in 2021.
In response, the Archdiocese of Birmingham has drawn up its own environmental policy. At the heart of this is the encouragement to all parishes to take up the Livesimply programme. The programme covers three areas:
Living simply /Living in solidarity with people in poverty /Living sustainably with creation.
St. Peter’s is registered as a parish with CAFOD to follow the Livesimply programme and we already as a parish follow actions in these areas. These include:
Living in solidarity with people in poverty
- the parish project that supports the work of the St. Therese Hospital, a medical facility run by the Comboni Missionary Sisters for sick children in the conflict zone of South Sudan
- support for fair trade for farmers around the world through the use of Fairtrade products in the Centre and through the sales of their goods
- support for the work of St. Chad’s Sanctuary in Birmingham for their work with asylum seekers and refugees with donations of food and clothing
- collecting food donations for New Starts in Bromsgrove
- holding collections for CAFOD twice a year
- creating an environmentally-friendly churchyard with wildflower sections, reducing the mowing areas, putting up nesting boxes for birds, recycling wreaths for re-use and collecting all garden waste
- the Finance Committee is in the process of conducting an audit of energy use in all our Church buildings and trying to improve insulation in the Community Centre with replacement windows
- we now use a green energy supplier for all our gas and electricity: Interdiocesan Fuel Management
- 2 new initiatives are recycling printer ink cartridges and blister packs for medicines and there are collection boxes for each of these at the back of Church.
You are no doubt carrying out your own actions to do what you can to protect the natural environment in which we live and on which we depend.
CAFOD has produced a resource list of ideas for living simply, which may contain actions you have not thought of:
cafod.org.uk/content/download/29754/339060/version/6/file/LiveSimply%20-%20A4%20100%20Ideas%20list.pdf
