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Justice Matters

jpic thevoice01 150When will it be?

We don’t yet know the date of the referendum, but it must be held between two and six months from 19th June, when laws about the wording of the question and the amendment to the Constitution were passed. Many believe that a Saturday in October is the most likely time.

pdf Download Issue 07 of our JPIC Bulletin (914 KB)

olsh laudatosi actionplan 150This Action Plan seeks to drive an OLSH ecological conversion. Simply put, this means recognizing that all things within God’s creation are connected, and seeking to transform ourselves and our Province in ways of loving which will make our communities sustainable and regenerative.

reflectionsonlaudatosi 150The 2015 Encyclical Letter LAUDATO SI’ of Pope Francis on ‘Care for our Common Home’ is the focus of the Australian Province’s steering committee on climate justice, a group that was created in response to the Province Assembly held in April, 2022 to help facilitate ‘OLSH ecological conversion’ through exploration of and reflection on this extraordinary encyclical, and a commitment to action for our struggling mother earth.

jpic ulurustatement2 150Both sides of the current ‘argument’

Indigenous Australians have been calling for a voice to parliament since 2017. In his speech on election night on 22nd May, 2022, the new Prime Minist Anthony Albanese, committed the Australian Labor party to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart “in full.” He has also called the Uluru Statement a “modest and gracious” request by First Nation’s people. This has rejuvenated hopes that there may now be progress on the Statement’’s demands. More recently he has vowed to hold a referendum during his first term in office, with commentators suggesting this will most likely be in mid-2024, or even 2023.

pdf Download Issue 06 of our JPIC Bulletin (1.61 MB)

Thursday, 25 August 2022 16:45

Domestic Violence and Abuse [JPIC Issue 05]

jpic domesticabuse 150The issue of domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence or another form of abuse from an intimate partner. It is a gendered crime which is deeply rooted in the societal inequality between men and women.

Of the 87,000 women killed globally in 2017, more than a third (30,000) were killed by an intimate partner, and another 20,000 by a family member. In Australia, a country of almost 25 million, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner.

pdf Download Issue 05 of our JPIC Bulletin (2.18 MB)

jpic refugees 150As of May 2022, there were 112 people seeking asylum who remain in Nauru, and as of December 2021 (when Australia’s arrangement with PNG ended) there were 105 people in PNG as a consequence of Australia’s Border Protection Policy (Refugee Council of Australia, 2022).

The Australian Catholic Bishops stated (2017): When we Australians support policies of cruelty and rejection, we close our ears to Christ’s call and turn him away from our doors. We know that we are better than this. As Christians, we know that it is within us to hear the call of Jesus. As Australians, we’ve shown ourselves willing to take the path of generosity and leadership. We can do so again.

The call of the Bishops echoes the call of Pope Francis for our brothers and sisters, “to be shown the love and tenderness of God.” This call is also echoed in our own General Chapter recommendations of 2011: As Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, “we are working with, advocating for and empowering the poor and all who suffer, particularly women and children through our ministries...among refugees and displaced persons.” (FDNSC Generalate, Rome JPIC Bulletin, Feb 2018)

pdf Download Issue 04 of our JPIC Bulletin (1.02 MB)

jpic climatejustice 150The Statement is the product of two years of work, issued in May 2017 on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum

We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

pdf Download Issue 03 of our JPIC Bulletin (2.74 MB)

Monday, 28 March 2022 14:37

Indigenous Rights [JPIC Issue 02]

jpic climatejustice 150

This second issue of “OLSH Hearts for Others,” a series that is designed for information sharing for personal and community reflection and discussion emerging from the 2021 Province Assembly, continues with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 13 September, 2007.

This Declaration will provide the background for future reflection and discussion on the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for a First Nations’ Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata (conflict resolution, peace-making and justice ) Commission.

pdf Download Issue 02 of our JPIC Bulletin (2.07 MB)

jpic climatejustice 150What is climate justice?

“Climate justice” is a term, and a movement, that acknowledges that climate change can have differing social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on underprivileged populations and is therefore an ethical and political issue rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature. Climate justice shifts our discourse on greenhouse gases and melting ice caps into a civil rights movement with the people and communities most vulnerable to climate impacts at its heart. “Climate change is happening now and to all of us. No country or community is immune and, as is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and the worst hit.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

pdf Download Issue 01 of our JPIC Bulletin (1.56 MB)

bushfires 150At the Chapter meetings of our Religious Congregation of Sisters, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in September 2019, I heard voices proclaiming the continued need for us to be mindful of our earth as we care for the environment. I heard voices also that proclaimed that people are looking for a sense of inner freedom in their lives and long for others to care for their plight.

Through my experience with people as I meet and journey with them, I hear voices of a traumatic life and experiences which leave them feeling abandoned even when they have people around them, I hear voices which tell of the need to squash their feelings through the abuse of drugs, I hear voices of people who have been abused, of people who are trying to make ends meet. In recent days and months, we have all heard the voices and seen the images of the destruction of the bushfires.

Saturday, 12 March 2016 10:17

Prayer and Reflection for Earth Hour

earthhour2016 150LIGHTS OFF IN 1 WEEK FOR EARTH HOUR
SATURDAY MARCH 19
8:30 – 9:30 PM

This year go beyond the hour. Commit to making Earth Hour a regular part of your life and help protect the beautiful outdoor places that we love from the threats of climate change.

 

Tuesday, 09 February 2016 00:21

Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking

stjosephinebakhita 150The international Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking will be celebrated all over the world on 8 February 2016, the Feast Day of Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave, freed, who became a Canossian nun, and was declared a Saint in 2000. The initiative is promoted by the Pontifical Council of Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Union of Superiors General.

pdf Novena to Saint Bakhita

pdf The Good Egg Guide for a #traffikfree Easter (3.67 MB)

Saturday, 05 December 2015 15:34

Global Climate Change March

climatechangemarch 03 150Over the weekend 800,000 Catholics joined the Global Climate March to send Pope Francis’ Laudato Si message to the world leaders in the Paris Climate Summit.

Locally, on Sunday 29th November, a group of OLSH sisters from the Provinces of Australia, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea joined with over 50,000 people and marched from the Sydney Domain to the Opera House in solidarity with millions of people around our Globe who were marching in the world’s first ever Global Climate March.

Tuesday, 20 October 2015 09:58

Kiribati and Climate Change

kiribati 150The low-lying South Pacific island nation of Kiribati has an average height of 2 metres above sea level, making it one of the countries most vulnerable to rising waters and other climate change effects.

The impact of climate change is already taking its toll on over 105,000 people living on the low-lying atolls of Kiribati. These lands are threatened by rising sea levels resulting in flooding becoming more common, seawater contaminating fresh water wells and sea water seeping into some garden areas and destroying crops.

refugee budapest 150

The attached interview is written by Amaya, from the Jesuit Refugee Service .

‘The aim of this interview was to understand from Nawras what daily life is like for Syrian people today. This will hopefully make our audience understand why people continue to flee to neighboring countries, and why they need safe and legal paths to access asylum in Europe. And above all, why Syrians desperately need peace in order to rebuild their lives in their country’.

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