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ContentsPope invites families to Valencia
To ensure that you
receive ____________________ Quick Links & NewsNational Marriage Week in Hexham & Newcastle Hallam Everybody’s Welcome Training dates Bishop Edwin Regan’s Lenten Pastoral Letter Welcoming Families (Click homilies) Project datesOctober 20-22 2006 Symposium on Marital & Family Spirituality. Ushaw College, nr Durham. Booking not yet open. Other DatesCaritas’ Annual Spring Conference. April 4-5 2006. Corpus Christi College Cambridge. Booking form June 16-18 2006. A weekend residential conference to explore issues of fatherhood in the context of theology, sociology, spirituality and personal experience. 5th World Meeting of Families. July 1-9, 2006, Valencia Elizabeth Davies, Marriage & Family Life Project Officer, 39 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1BX Tel/Fax: 01902 621594 Email: Elizabeth.Davies@cbcew.org.uk
Diana Russell,
Volunteer Administrative Support. Tel: 020 7901 4823 (Thursdays only) Email: Diana.Russell@cbcew.org.uk Liz Taite, Administrator
Dept for Christian Responsibility &
Citizenship, 39 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1BX Fax: 020 7901 4821 Email: Liz.Taite@cbcew.org.uk
Please feel free to reproduce anything in this bulletin and to forward it to anyone you think would be interested. If you have a short news item that you would like included please send it by email to Elizabeth. Davies@cbcew.org.uk
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Everybody’s Welcome in East Anglia
Bishop
Michael Evans has launched Everybody’s Welcome in
East Anglia
this month with a
pastoral letter on baptism and welcome, writing: “We
are God’s family together, and we share the responsibility to
welcome everybody, and to love and care for one another. Supporting
marriage and family life, and further developing family-friendly and
child-friendly parishes, are a vital part of this. I ask each parish
to continue to explore how this can be better achieved in
practice.” Top Tip for March 2006 – Speak to Someone New
Top Tips
are designed to be ‘labour-light’ ways for parishes to get involved
in Everybody’s Welcome. This month we suggest inviting everyone at
Mass to speak to someone they don’t know or haven’t spoken to
before. This top tip came from a parish who does it regularly.. It
can be difficult to approach a stranger but also rewarding as Mary
found when she tried this out. “I thought I’d talk to a lady who
always comes to church alone. Afterwards she thanked me and said
no-one had ever approached her like that before at Mass. I felt very
humble. I really did very little but it obviously meant a lot to
her.”
Read more (including ideas for initiating a conversation with a
stranger)…. Everybody’s Welcome in Clifton
In
Clifton,
Bishop Declan Lang made a similar request in his
Lenten Pastoral Letter: “Throughout
the diocese this Lent I would like us to ask how do we ensure that
our parishes are welcoming and hospitable. Thank God, there is a
spirit of friendship in our communities but how can we better
this?... What ever the need of people, hopefully within our
communities they will find the healing presence of God.” Pope invites families to join him in Valencia
Pope
Benedict XVI will preside at the Fifth World Meeting of Families to
be held in Valencia, Spain from July 1st-9th
2006. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Bishop John Hine will be
leading a contingent of families from England and Wales. “The theme
of this World Meeting of Families, ‘the transmission of faith in the
family’ fits in perfectly with our own Bishops’ three year strategy
for following up the concerns expressed during
Listening 2004”
commented Bishop Hine. “The final phase of Celebrating Family in
2008 will be developing resources for parents and grandparents to
support them in Passing on the Faith. The World Meeting of Families
could not have come at a better time for us. I look forward very
much to sharing this experience with, I hope, families from every
diocese in England and Wales.”
Read more… Everybody’s Welcome in Plymouth
In
Plymouth
a new resource has just been co-produced by the Diocesan Pastoral
Council and the Department of Formation to help parishes respond to
Listening 2004. You are Welcome
at church is a Powerpoint training pack to help parishes
become ever more welcoming. As Bishop Christopher Budd writes in the
preface: “If what we teach and proclaim about the centrality of
marriage and family is true, both in the Church community as well as
the wider society, we should be wearing ourselves out trying to turn
it into good practice in our own communities. This pack invites all
of us to reflect on where we are and why we should seek new ways of
making our communities ever more welcoming.” Inter-faith Marriage
Interfaith marriage was
the focus of a seminar on February 8th jointly hosted by
the Committee for Other Faiths, Marriage Care and the Marriage and
Family Life Project Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of
England and Wales. The day seminar during National Marriage Week was
a first
attempt by the Conference to address the complex issues of
inter-faith marriage across departments. Among the recommendations
after a day of presentations on the experience of inter-faith
marriage and family life were: more seminary and continuing
ministerial formation for priests who are usually in the front line
of pastoral care and support, but also for lay people; stronger
networks of peer support for families affected; appropriate
resources for marriage preparation both for the couples and their
families.
Read a report of the day on the
Diocese of Leeds family life ministry website. Everybody’s Welcome in Portsmouth
Being welcoming,
inclusive parishes is a key theme of the diocesan Pastoral Plan and
so fits well with Everybody’s Welcome.
A leaflet listing
Tips for Becoming a More Welcoming Parish has been developed
with the suggestion that parishes pick just one or two ideas. A
series of
training days around the diocese begins this month to support
the Keeping in Touch programme.
Just Listen, a video training course from the Acorn Christian
Foundation is available on loan to parishes. Don’t forget that you can download plenty of free resources on the Everybody’s Welcome website including the Ministry of Welcome training resource, the Keeping in Touch (KIT) pack, and Everybody’s Welcome: Helping Your Parish to Become More Family Friendly. The site also hosts further resources developed by parishes and dioceses as well as stories of parishes that are already welcoming, family-sensitive and friendly. You can find diocesan contacts and news. Why not create a link from your own website? Everybody’s Welcome in Hexham & Newcastle
A
series of 18 meetings across the diocese begins on April 25th
organised by the diocesan team working on Everybody’s Welcome.
Marriage and Family Life coordinators Peter and Pauline Lavery are
working with the Diocesan Education Service to offer parishes these
opportunities to explore how they can become increasingly
family-friendly and welcoming.
“Family Life is a full-time job which is not so much about parents
and children living under one roof as about their hearts beating
together in harmony and love.”
Bishop Mark Jabale.
Pastoral letter on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord 2006 |
