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Social Justice in our parish, where our missionaries are living and assisting in various ministries for many years, has best been exemplified by two important activity groups.

St Vincent de Paul Group

The first one is our St Vincent de Paul Group (SVDP), who for years has been assisting local families in their times of need. Presently there are six active members who this year undertook 378 visits to families and individuals in the parish area. These visits range from sharing a cup of tea and a chat with those who have little contact with others to assisting families moving from one home to another. This depends on the needs of the people encountered rather than being prescriptive. The cost-of-living crisis has meant an increase in reactive work rather than seeking those who need help. More than £14000 was raised in the last year, and many goods were collected. Twenty-one families were helped with furniture and household goods, and thirty families with emergency food and with paying their gas and electricity expenses.

Arising from the work and knowledge of the SVDP, and the clearly expanding need in our community, our parish Foodbank was established. A large group of volunteer parishioners helps out in two sessions each week, one in each of our two church halls. They have established links with many local shops and groups who contribute regularly to the supplies needed to support these sessions. The volunteers collect supplies during the week from these sources, store them in containers in the parish grounds, and staff the foodbank preparation and distribution during the two sessions. Gradually the scope of the bank has extended to provision of clothes and household items. Sufficient information is sensitively gathered from visitors to determine whether any other help might be appropriate such as advice in money matters and referral to other agencies.

Justice and Peace Group 

Then there is the Justice and Peace Group (J&PG) in our parish, which came about in response to encouragement from our then parish priest who was proactive in encouraging any ideas from parishioners which might be fruitful. Its focus is both local and international. There is already a lot of good work going on in our parish and we are keen to avoid duplicating what others were doing. We work on the principle of where possible, enable and support others who are already doing good work regarding social justice, and build on opportunities that arise to extend this and work where possible with Justice and Peace Scotland. Archbishop Nolan visited the parish, said Mass and discussed J&P principles and actions with parishioners.

 Activities have included:

Catholic Social Teaching: we attended one of the sessions at Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (OLIM) presented by Duncan McLaren and Mary Cullen. We plan to do similar sessions later this year for our parishioners.

Interfaith: again, following a similar service at OLIM, we hosted a Taizé service for local churches. We repeated this in February 2024 with a much better response. We were also represented at the local Hindu temple’s Diwali celebrations and at the Human Fraternity Dialogues in Glasgow.

Laudato Si’: we carried out an environmental survey among parishioners leading to a number of specific actions including registering as an Eco-congregation and supporting CAFOD’s “Prayers for Tomorrow” during Big Green Week. We are currently linking with our primary schools and secondary school with a view to supporting any environmental work in their planning for next year.

Helping and supporting others: giving local and national charities an opportunity to have informal “coffee” conversations with parishioners. So far, this has involved St Vincent de Paul, Rain or Shine, SCIAF (Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund) and Kibryde Hospice. Also, a talk from Classrooms for Malawi which resulted in the primary school engaging with them. We are currently building links with Refuweegies. We have raised the issue of students who, for whatever circumstances, are disadvantaged in their studies. As a result, a free tutoring service has been set up. A homework club has begun. We have also written to politicians regarding potential difficulties for people in voting given the new voter ID rules.

International activities: for some time, we had considered whether there was an appropriate way for us to develop links with another community abroad to help us extend our understanding of people elsewhere, but the opportunity arose naturally when Fr Stephen Reilly our parish priest joined Fr Pat from St Columbkille’s in visiting the parish of the Risen Lord in Ate, Lima. Fr Stephen, with the help of a newly formed parish group, is now developing joint activities including a joint prayer service. Similarly New Scots in our parish, including a large group from Nigeria, have been involving our parish in typical celebrations. Furthermore, the parish raised £860 which allowed us to support the building of 14 toilets in DR Congo.

We joined Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in encouraging a stronger stand against the current position in Gaza. Some of us subsequently attended SCIAf’s meeting with Fr Gabriel from Gaza. For the past two years we were represented at the J&P demonstrations at Dungavel and at Faslane.

Ongoing publicity and support: the Justice and Peace group as a group now plans a project concerning the refugees in this area, finding out facts and figures and what can be done to assist them. Finally, through the Parish Facebook page and the bulletin, we promote messages and events from Justice and Peace Scotland and other groups.

By: Vincent Davies, M.Afr.