Dear Friends,
From the Office for Social Justice and on behalf of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, I would like to offer every best wish to you for the coming year.
The Office is a small team of three. Dr Sandie Cornish is the Research and Publications Office, Lyn Delaguiado is Administrative Officer and I am the Director. As always, we are committed to giving voice to the most vulnerable members of our society and world, promoting the social justice tradition of the Church and assisting you to the best of our ability in your work for justice.
The commitment we all share for justice, development and peace envisages a world where divisions that give rise to oppression, poverty and conflict give way to the integral development of each and every person, the building up of communities and care for the environment in which we live.
Pope Francis puts it best in his recent World Day of Peace Message – Peace as a journey of hope:
The world does not need empty words but convinced witnesses, peacemakers who are open to a dialogue that rejects exclusion or manipulation. In fact, we cannot truly achieve peace without a convinced dialogue between men and women who seek the truth beyond ideologies and differing opinions. Peace ‘must be built up continually’; it is a journey made together in constant pursuit of the common good, truthfulness and respect for law. Listening to one another can lead to mutual understanding and esteem, and even to seeing in an enemy the face of a brother or sister…
Divisions within a society, the increase of social inequalities and the refusal to employ the means of ensuring integral human development endanger the pursuit of the common good. Yet patient efforts based on the power of the word and of truth can help foster a greater capacity for compassion and creative solidarity.
Thank you for your commitment to social justice and thank you for your continued support of this office of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
Welcome to this first edition of Social Justice Trends, which combines the traditions of the ACSJC Monthly Briefing and Justice Trends in a new digital form.
John Ferguson
Director, Office for Social Justice
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference