Justice and Peace is the cause I would like to commend to your attention this week. There are many reasons why this is important:

• In this year 1997, the first year of preparation for the Millennium, the "Year of Jesus Christ", we are reminded that Christ is the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, and that his reign is one of perfect justice.
• The Bishops have much to say on Justice and Peace in their recent document on the Church’s social teaching, "The Common Good", and those who attended our parish study evenings last autumn will have appreciated how alive these issues are.
• Justice & Peace questions are appropriate ecumenically. They frequently lack that element of theological controversy still prevalent elsewhere. Indeed one of the first causes which we shortly propose placing before you is promoted by "Christian Aid", which is sometimes unfortunately represented as a non - Catholic rival to CAFOD. The issue is the retailing by supermarkets of goods produced by exploited Third World workers - just the theme of our CAFOD Lenten collection, in fact.
• Justice and Peace issues appeal to the idealism of young people and are valuable ways of bolstering their faith.

Some Catholics, alas, shudder at the idea of "Justice and Peace". The idea smacks of the Church meddling in politics or of "long-haired hippies" or "dirty Greenham Common women" (I quote). But we cannot as Christians be alert to issues such as hunger or abortion without having a Christian response to the wider social context in which these evils thrive. True, the Church cannot be the Church just of one political party. But there must be a valid Christian framework for the whole spectrum of political life.

There are many Justice and Peace causes and you may like to propose some. Recent examples on our files include: membership of "Pax Christi" to promote peace, support of "Amnesty International" against torture and abduction, Third World debt, land mines, etc., etc., Our parishioner Mark Chapman (a 6.30pm worshipper, Tel: 591575) has offered to co-ordinate - not 'run' - activities and you may like to speak to him, suggest issues or offer practical help. DS..