Justice and Peace - not just a job for Jesus!
Text and photos by Marian Pallister

Pictured: Fiona Corcoran, Anna Weir, Marian Pallister & Mary MacPherson.

On one of those intensely blue October days which the west coast does so well, Anna Weir, Mary MacPherson, Fiona Corcoran and Marian Pallister travelled to Fort William to take part in a meeting which was intended to encourage the seeds of a Justice and Peace mission within the Diocese.

It was hard to believe that there could be anything BUT justice and peace in the world on such a beautiful day, but we were soon embroiled in intense discussion about the inequalities which beset so many individuals, communities and nations in the 21st century.

We were reminded by our leader for the day, Fr Eamonn O’Brien ssc, that Christ’s incarnation was not simply about a miraculous birth and a savage death but that the Gospel records a ministry which concentrated in its entirely on fighting for justice and peace in a community which was cruelly overshadowed by political, religious and economic oppression.

Jesus mixed with the socially and religiously excluded. He ate and drank with people of disability, people with mental health problems, those who were homeless and those who were refugees.

He and his family were asylum seekers: he spent his childhood in exile.

And He grew up to urge people to feed and clothe the hungry, tend the sick, visit those in prison...

But do we?

Although in countries where there is strife the Church becomes a voice for the voiceless, in the comfortable industrialised world of which we are a part, the Church is all too often told to keep its nose out of the political and stick to the spiritual.

Party politics - yes!

But Fr O’Brien reminded us that politics with a small 'p' is what affects the whole of society - and that little has changed since the days when the Romans were the power in the Holy Land and so many people found themselves excluded from the well-heeled lives of their colonial masters.

Today we could draw parallels with:

	the Indian forced to quit his village who ends up on the streets of Mumbai because a multinational company has made it impossible for him to produce maize viably
	the South African woman excluded from society because she is HIV positive
	the young Scot sleeping over the grating of a city restaurant because a row with his parents led to the downward spiral that pushed him out of the safety net of social services
	the Kurdish family living in a high rise flat in a strange country, threatened with their lives at home because of their religious beliefs; spat on and sworn at in their new land for being ‘scroungers’
	the young student whose brilliant career has been cut short by a mental illness nobody - least of all he - understands
	the mum in the mental hospital because she’s addicted to alcohol that was only meant to help her through the bad times...

The Church’s role, Fr O’Brien suggested, is not just to help the afflicted but to afflict the comfortable.

Shouldn't we be looking at the root causes of such problems? The greed and indifference which lead to the existence of refugees, prisoners of war, victims of hunger, disease, disaster and injustice?

Our delegation from St Margaret’s shared the day with representatives from Oban, Dunoon, Fort William, Morar and Skye.

We each had ideas to share about those we felt should be the focus of a Justice and Peace mission.

We talked about fair trade, supporting the marginalised, being advocates for the sick, the hungry.

We also talked about how lonely a job it would be to be charged with such a mission in a parish. We all felt it was work for the whole parish, not just a few individuals, although there should be a link person or group to co-ordinate parish efforts.

So what can we do as a parish?

Certainly not rush out into the streets looking for the sick and the homeless and the asylum seekers and force our help on them. That would be a bit like the old joke about the woman who grabs the blind man’s arm, stops the traffic and pulls him across the road - only for him to tell her he was just waiting for his wife outside the Co-op....

This is just the start.

We have to identify core issues:

	at parish level
	at diocesan level
	at national and international level

We have to develop links and find resources. We have to tap into the Justice and Peace network.

Those of us from St Margaret’s - and the invitation is there for anyone to join this mission in a practical as well as a prayerful way - who want to develop Justice and Peace must get some training from the experts in the diocese and some support from Fr Michael and the whole parish.

Our meeting in Fort William was both a practical and a spiritual experience - Christ on earth became as vital as Christ reincarnated.

We will be receiving more information in the coming weeks and we’ll keep you posted through the website. We hope you’ll join us in comforting the afflicted - and afflicting the comfortable!