MISSION STATEMENT of ST. BARTHOLOMEW
PEACE AND JUSTICE MINISTRY
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The Peace and Justice Ministry recognizes the Church as the Body of Christ.
- The goal of Peace and Justice Ministry is to provide leadership to St. Bartholomew parishioners to help them witness the Good News of Jesus Christ.
- Through education, prayer, reflection and direct communication, it helps parishioners to be effective in communities at local, national, and international levels, thereby enabling them to achieve meaningful and effective social action.
VISION STATEMENT
Integrate Gospel values into our lives as disciples of Christ through Outreach, Justice, and Spirituality.
Our Challenge and Goal:
Assisting parishioners to align faith with daily life.
To live differently in society as a reflection of our faith.
Responsibilities
Advocacy: Advocate for social mission (Outreach, Justice, and Spirituality) within the Parish.
Volunteerism, Personal Involvement: Be a model of social mission and faith in action within the Parish.
Education: Assist in the development, implementation, and recruitment of program initiatives.
Outreach: Discern and provide leadership for parish involvement in local, national, and global justice outreach.
Financial Support: Assist with determination and allocation of monetary stewardship for parish justice outreach and other initiatives. Along with other members, ensure that funds are being used responsibly and as intended.
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March 2021 Upcoming Events and Opportunities |
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Please watch for announcements at this time regarding public meetings. All dates and meetings are currently subject to change. Be safe and be well this Holiday Season!
MEETING SCHEDULE AND PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
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Peace and Justice Meetings are the third Wednesday of each month, and as always all are welcome to attend. Currently meetings are via Zoom.
- Peace and Justice Newsletter will be published monthly, reflecting ministry news and reports from the meetings and presentations.
March 17 Peace & Justice general and team meetings 7 PM via ZOOM meeting
- St. Bartholomew Church currently via Zoom.
- Meetings are otherwise scheduled for Third Wednesday of the month
- Teams: Programming, Communications, Finance and Grants
- All are welcome to attend and become involved!
- Please contact Donna Keogh for a Zoom link: keogh27dr@yahoo.com
Fair Trade Sales Suspended until further notice
- coffee, tea, chocolate
- after all four Masses
- benefits after-school tutoring at St. Anne Parish, teacher salaries and snacks.
Sundays Weekly Hot Meal Site 4 - 6 pm, Meal Site Teams - meals are grab-and-go, volunteers needed!!
Sundays Women's Jail Ministry visits 1 - 3 pm, classes 6 - 8 pm currently suspended due to COVID-19
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Themes of Catholic Social Teachings by The United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops: Fratelli Tutti
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In the coming weeks and months, the Peace and Justice Ministry intends to utilize the framework of Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti as a foundation for further study, reflection and discussion. The seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching can be found throughout the full text, and guide us toward thoughtful reflection on immigration, unjust economic systems, climate change, food security, peace, and the dignity of each human being. As such, it applies to all we do locally, nationally, and globally to seek justice.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on topics that are of interest.
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An overview of the Encyclical
Introduction
Inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis gives us Fratelli tutti, a proposal for a way of life marked by the flavor of the Gospel. It is a call to love others as brothers and sisters, even when they are far from us; it is a call to open fraternity, to recognizing and loving every person with a love without borders; it is a call to encounter others in a way that is capable of overcoming all distance and every temptation to engage in disputes, impositions, or submissions.
Fratelli tutti does not claim to offer a complete teaching on fraternal love, but seeks rather to consider its universal scope.
COVID-19 forced the Pope to interrupt his writing of Fratelli tutti. This pandemic has exposed our false securities, our fragmentation, and our inability to work together. In the face of present-day attempts to eliminate or to ignore others, Fratelli tutti is an invitation to respond to God’s call with a new vision of fraternity and social friendship.
The Holy Father hopes that, in these times, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity by acknowledging the dignity of each and every human person.
CHAPTER 1
DARK CLOUDS OVER A CLOSED WORLD
The first chapter describes for us the dark clouds over a closed world; these clouds extend to all parts of the world, hindering the development of universal fraternity; they are the circumstances that leave many people wounded by the roadside, discarded and rejected. The clouds plunge humanity into confusion, isolation, and desolation.
CHAPTER 2
A STRANGER ON THE ROAD
There is a stranger on the road, wounded and cast aside amid the dark clouds of a closed world. Faced with this reality, there are two attitudes we can take: we can pass by on the other side, or we can stop and be moved by pity. The type of person we are or the type of political, social, or religious movement we belong to will be determined by whether we embrace the injured stranger or abandon him.
CHAPTER 3
ENVISAGING AND ENGENDERING AN OPEN WORLD
God is universal love, and since we are part of that love and share it, we are called to universal fraternity, which is openness. There are no “others,” no “them”; there is only “us.” Human beings can live, develop, and find fulfilment only in the sincere gift of themselves to others; they cannot fully know themselves apart from an encounter with other persons. No one can experience the value of living without having real faces to love
CHAPTER 4
A HEART OPEN TO THE WHOLE WORLD
We experience social friendship, we seek what is morally good, and we practice social ethics because we know that we belong to a universal family. We must do our best to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate those who arrive.
CHAPTER 5
A BETTER KIND OF POLITICS
A better kind of politics seeks the common and universal good; it is politics for and with the people. In other words, it is the people’s politics, practicing social charity and pursuing human dignity. It can be carried out by men and women who, with political love, integrate the economy into a popular social, cultural, and political project.
CHAPTER 6
DIALOGUE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOCIETY
Dialogue is respectful, strives for consensus, and seeks the truth. Dialogue opens the way to a culture of encounter so that encounter becomes a passion, a desire, and a way of life. Those who dialogue recognize, befriend, and respect other persons.
CHAPTER 7
PATHS OF RENEWED ENCOUNTER
There is a need to cure wounds and restore peace. We need boldness and truth. Those who were fierce enemies have to speak from the stark and clear truth. Only by basing themselves on the historical truth of events will they be able to make a broad and persevering effort to understand one another and to strive for a new synthesis for the good of all.
CHAPTER 8
RELIGIONS AT THE SERVICE OF FRATERNITY IN OUR WORLD
Because of their respect for each human person as a creature called to be a child of God, the different religions contribute significantly to building fraternity and defending justice in society. Dialogue among religions seeks to establish friendship, peace, and harmony, and to share spiritual and moral values and experiences in a spirit of truth and love.
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AN APPEAL TO BE THE BROTHER OF ALL |
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God, the Almighty, has no need to be defended by anyone and does not want his name to be used to terrorize people. For this reason, I would like to reiterate here the appeal for peace, justice and fraternity that we made together:
In the name of God, who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and who has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, to fill the earth and make known the values of goodness, love and peace;
In the name of innocent human life that God has forbidden to kill, affirming that whoever kills a person is like one who kills the whole of humanity, and that whoever saves a person is like one who saves the whole of humanity;
In the name of the poor, the destitute, the marginalized and those most in need, whom God has commanded us to help as a duty required of all persons, especially the wealthy and those of means;
In the name of orphans, widows, refugees and those exiled from their homes and their countries; in the name of all victims of wars, persecution and injustice; in the name of the weak, those who live in fear, prisoners of war and those tortured in any part of the world, without distinction;
In the name of peoples who have lost their security, peace and the possibility of living together, becoming victims of destruction, calamity and war;
In the name of human fraternity, that embraces all human beings, unites them and renders them equal;
In the name of this fraternity torn apart by policies of extremism and division by systems of unrestrained profit or by hateful ideological tendencies that manipulate the actions and the futures of men and women;
In the name of freedom, that God has given to all human beings, creating them free and setting them apart by this gift;
In the name of justice and mercy, the foundations of prosperity and the cornerstone of faith;
In the name of all persons of goodwill present in every part of the world;
In the name of God and of everything stated thus far, we declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.
Charles de Foucauld directed his ideal of total surrender to God towards an identification with the poor, abandoned in the depths of the African desert. In that setting, he expressed his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being, and he asked a friend to “pray to God that I truly be the brother of all”. He wanted to be, in the end, “the universal brother”. Yet only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be the brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us.
Amen
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TOP TEN ACTIONS IN SUPPORT OF LOVE CHAPEL DURING THE PANDEMIC CRISIS |
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Prayers and daily intentions truly do help! Thank you!
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A friendly phone call to those in need, and those who are alone, can make a big difference in someone's life in isolation.
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Contribute food at the Pantry location.
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Volunteer to pack food boxes inside Love Chapel, daily shifts available.
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Volunteer to make home deliveries to the shut-ins.
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Contribute to the special collection being gathered daily at the St. Bartholomew Church Office.
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Help The Hungry – One Meal at a Time by donating to Love Chapel
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Contribute staple foods and needed cleaning supplies to The Blessings Box, a donation station located at First Christian Church Youth Center.
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Donate to The Ecumenical Assembly and Love Chapel. The need will extend for many months, and their reserves will need to be replenished. It is never too late to donate!
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And importantly, engage your friends, family, coworkers and neighbors in this all-important work to support our whole community.
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We Are The Peace & Justice Ministry |
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- Chairperson Donna Keogh
- Programming Team: Steve Audretch
- Finance Team: David Harpenau
- Communications Team: Jan Banister
- Blood Drive: Greg Scherschel, coordinator
- Next drive Spring 2021
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Voter Registration: Steve Audretch coordinator
- Next drive TBD
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Ecumenical Assembly: Theresa Baugh
- Pro-Life: Kelley Snoddy
- Giving Tree: Theresa Westerfeld, coordinator
- Meal Site: Susan Chandler,
- Sundays 4-6 PM
- Volunteers always welcome!
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- Friends of Haiti: Judy Harpenau, liaison
- Bread for the World Offering of Letters
- Next campaign 2020 TBD.
- Bread for the World, Fr. Marty Peter, Convener
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Second Tuesdays 7 PM at First Presbyterian Church currently remote
- Indiana Abolition Coalition: Donna Keogh, liaison
- St. Vincent de Paul: Marilyn and Jim Clerc liaisons
- Women's Jail Ministry: Nancy Audretch, liaison
- Family Self Sufficiency: Jan Banister coordinator, plans for 2021 End-Of-School Year Celebration underway
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St. Bartholomew Hot Meal Site |
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There is a hot meal provided in our community through Ecumenical Assembly each evening. On Sunday evenings the meal site is Saint Bartholomew School cafeteria.
The meal site coordinator for our parish, Susan Chandler, is hopeful that more teams and individuals will consider assisting with meals. Info here:
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Sun 5pm-6pm
- SAINT BARTHOLOMEW CATHOLIC CHURCH
Mon 5pm-6pm
- FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Mon 5pm-6pm
Tues 5pm-6pm
Wed 5pm-6pm
- COLUMBUS FREE METHODIST – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Wed.
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4th Wed 6-7 PM
Thurs 4:30pm-5pm
Fri 5pm-6pm
- FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
4th Fri 6pm-7pm
Sat 4pm-5pm (excluding the 3rd Sat)
2nd Sat 11:30am-12:30pm
- OGILVILLE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
3rd Sat 4pm-5pm
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