The diocese of Shrewsbury have made their "Justice and
Peace" Coordinator redundant. I am very pro-J and P, God is
Just, I'm very pro-God,
I go along with the "give a man a fish..." and the "I feed the hungry, they call me Christian, I ask why he is hungry they call me a communist" stuff that J&P groups put out. I believe in the Church's social teaching, I believe Catholics should be involved in party politics but I am also very wary of the Church's direct involvement in politics or economics and the identification of Christianity with a particular brand of politics.
For example, I am not convinced by the "Fairtrade" agenda, yes I believe in a paying a fair price for things, I believe in workers being paid fair wage but I am not happy with the whole bureaucracy that seems to be in place to ensure it happens. I am concerned about those from the "Fairtrade" market, it just isn't fair trade.
I am very uncomfortable with Catholic aid agencies involvement with non-Catholic aid agencies, they get too close to groups that promote values that directly opposed Catholic teaching. I am suspicious of such Catholic groups because they too often seem to propose a Liberal rather than Catholic agenda, indeed in many ways their employees seem to have too many "issues" with the "institutional" Church, code for I don't agree with those who are in communion with the Pope.
The teaching of Catholic Tradition is radical, it is about "casting the Mighty from their thrones" and "raising the lowly", it is about giving one's clothes to the poor, denouncing Emperors, Presidents and Dictators. It is about dying for Christ. Catholic Tradition however doesn't start with a series of policy statements, it starts with the Doctrine of the Trinity and from there develops into ideas of the equality and brotherhood of mankind.
From what I understand of Bishop Mark Davies, I suspect the reason for getting rid of the J&P coordinator is that perhaps they are not radical enough!
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