Welcome to Divine Election

In our last episode, we spoke with Dr Toni Pyke, of the Association of Missionaries and Religious in Ireland. Toni shared with us about the importance of hospitality to the stranger as a core element of the Christian faith. This might feel like a leap - but that really shows how thin our thinking is about these issues - but if we recognise we have to be hospitable to all our neighbours, it follows that we should be hospitable to our non-human neighbours. If, as Toni argues, helping others find belonging is one of the primary ways Christians can be public about their faith, it seems like a natural step to consider how we find our belonging.

This connection between caring for our neighbour and caring for our common home might come into view more clearly when we consider that these are the two issues that draw out the strongest negative reaction in the Irish electorate. Fear-filled conspiracies abound among the Far Right about those arriving on our shores seeking refuge and those who insist that we must care for the environment we rely on. 

One of the pillars of Catholic Social Teaching is exactly this - care for creation. So often, we at the JCFJ find that even politicians or secular activists are taken aback by the profundity of the Christian approach to environmentalism. It can never be disparaged as some indulgent form of "tree-hugging". Throughout the tradition - we can think of Francis of Assisi who was living this stuff out 800 years ago - care for creation has been tied to social justice. We simply can't care for God's good world without also caring for the very good humans that bear God's image. This integrated, humanistic approach to ecology is an exciting one, deeply relevant for our present situation, and entirely free of fear mongering.

So while Christians are free to hold a range of different positions on different political or policy possibilities, we are bound to care for the world that God has gifted us and the creatures who live in it. In this episode, we talk to Dr Ciara Murphy, the Environmental Policy Advocate at the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, to help us understand how Christians can respond to climate collapse and biodiversity breakdown in a way that is authentic to our faith. She is interviewed by Kevin Hargaden, the Director and Social Theologian of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input @JCFJustice on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Linked In, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Welcome to Episode 5 of Divine Election

For a long while, Irish people could flatter themselves in imagining that unlike the rest of Europe, we didn't have a problem with immigration. As a Canadian who moved here to study and ended up staying, I can say that I have been warmly received. But I have also seen racist outbursts directed towards others who come from places that seem more remote.

That perception has been shattered in recent years as anti-immigrant rhetoric has become ever present  on social media, arson attacks against facilities for recent arrivals have occurred - with apparent impunity - across the country, and riots have even broken out over a perception that "Ireland is full". 

Ireland is not full. This is patent nonsense. And I can say this with some certainty from my own life - immigrants often arrive here and love the positive elements of Irish society, embed themselves in their communities, and add to the life of the nation - economically, culturally, socially, in every possible way. 

Today we talk to Dr Toni Pyke, who is the Justice, Peace and Ecology Coordinator for AMRI.

 She helps us to explore the idea of belonging - how it is we can cultivate a culture where that process of embedding, integration, and flourishing that I have experienced in my own life becomes the norm. 

Instead of fear, Christians are called to see hope on this question. Instead of seeing the new arrival as a threat, the bible - and most forcefully, Jesus - is clear that we are meant to see our neighbour. 

At base, Christians have a unique view on these questions. In Catholic Social Teaching, this is called "the universal destination of goods". 

This is a technical label to describe what we find plainly stated in the Psalms: The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. 

When we take that theological commitment seriously, we see how absurd it is to imagine that what kind of passport you carry (or, indeed, don't carry) defines whether I am bound to help you. As Psalm 24 continues - "The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it."

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input @JCFJustice on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Linked In, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Welcome to Divine Election.
 
It might be common enough for political discussion to focus on crime, but the details of punishment are obscure to most people. How many times have we heard some version of the "what we need to do is be tough on crime" conversation? We might have recited that script ourselves.

But Christians have a reason to dispute the standard, so-called commonsense approach to justice.  A fundamental reason for Christians to be concerned with who we put in prison: Jesus. 

Christians are those people who believe that God became a man and spent his last night before his death in custody. "Christian" names that group of people who follow a Messiah whose final parable teaches that when you visit a prisoner, you visit him. The prisoner in Jesus' day was the most marginalised and alienated of figures. The prisoner in our day remains marginalised, alienated, and deeply vulnerable. It is no disrespect to the victims of crime to insist that the dignity of the criminal remains intact and to recognise that our dignity is exposed when we fail to show regard for someone who bears the image of God. 

In Catholic Social Teaching we encounter a principle called "the preferential option for the poor" which is a technical way of summarising one of the major themes of the biblical narrative - God turns his eyes first to those who are in the margins. The prisoner is literally pushed off the page of our society, behind a wall, out of sight, so easily out of mind. Hoisting ourselves over that wall to consider the prisoner can be a profound expression of faith in the Christian belief that no one is beyond redemption and everyone is worthy of respect because we are all creatures of a loving and good God. 

Keith Adams is the Penal Policy Advocate at JCFJ. It is not too much to say that he is becoming a world expert on the intersection between criminal justice, penal policy, and Christian thinking. In episode 4,  our Director Kevin discusses with Keith some ways we can think distinctively as Christians about the plight of the prisoner.

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input @JCFJustice on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Linked In, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Welcome to episode 3 of Divine Election.

Lord Acton was one of the most important figures in 19th century British intellectual life, but he is now largely remembered for one absolute zinger of a line. You have undoubtedly heard it. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

There are seams of Christian thought that resonate strongly with this sceptical position, counselling that Christians should stay clear of politics and avoid the messiness and compromise it entails. This is especially easy to understand in Ireland, where the legacy of the 20th century involves a dark entanglement between the church and the State that discredited the Gospel.

In today's episode, we are joined by Siobhán Garrigan, the Loyola Professor of Catholic Theology, at Trinity College in Dublin. Siobhán proposes a much more constructive stance towards political power, encouraging us to remember that even if we never become a Minister in the cabinet, the nature of democracy means we all have agency.

 In a profound reflection, she suggests Christians can actually pattern their political life after the very essence of God - seeking out those policies and positions that create true things, sustain good things, and redeem those things that are broken, flawed, or unjust in our common life. 

This framework resonates deeply with the principle we find in Catholic Social thought about the place of Rights and Duties. Christians are staunch supporters of a robust account of human rights, but we recognise that rights entail duties. When we have freedoms, we also have a responsibility to use them well. 

Siobhán's gentle and creative intervention invites us to take seriously what it means to be a citizen who is a Christian.  Join us as Kevin Hargaden, the director and social theologian at JCFJ, interviewed her here.

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input @JCFJustice on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Linked In, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Welcome to Episode 2 of Divine Election. 

While in the grand scheme of things, no challenge facing Irish people can compare to the accelerating environmental crisis, it has been clear to us at JCFJ for a decade that we are in the midst of a devastating housing situation.

Last episode, Richard Carson helped us to think theologically about the place where we live and today, Peter unpacks that in concrete terms by discussing the systemic crisis that afflicts every element of trying to make a home in Ireland. Whether a renter, homebuyer, homeowner, or even a landlord, everyone in the equation can legitimately claim that the government policies are failing them. And that is to say nothing of the almost 15000 people - including almost 5000 children - that are officially without a home.

The core concept that Peter presses on us is solidarity. Separately for JCFJ's journal Working Notes, he has written what we think will become a legendary essay about this idea entitled "Ireland in Crisis – How Can Intelligent People Be So Stupid". As Christians, thinking about housing - whether before the election or afterwards - the key question we have to ask is how do we identify with those who are pushed into desolation by our approach to this most basic human need.

 This is not remote from our faith. Jesus tells a parable about a rich man who chooses day after day to spurn the opportunity to show solidarity to a homeless man by his gates. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for him. FR Peter McVerry is rightly regarded as one of the most prophetic, honest, and empathic voices in Irish society. We are proud to share this interview with him, where he talks to his colleague, Kevin Hargaden, about the causes of the housing crisis ... and the solutions.

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input @JCFJustice on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Linked In, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Welcome to Divine election this episode, we encourage you to think about place. Even a brief familiarity with the Bible reveals how important place is to the whole story Christians find themselves within. Loving your neighbour involves loving your neighbourhood! Our guest, Richard Carson, helps introduce the implications of this idea and can testify in his own life to how thinking about this has made a difference in his faith. 

One of the core pillars of Catholic Social Teaching - the rich theological tradition that guides how Catholics think about political issues - is subsidiarity. This is a complex word for a simple idea - that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level. Many of our most relevant political issues are fundamentally local in nature - questions about where we put schools and what kind of medical infrastructure should be built, do we offer kids a way to cycle to school, and whether the library is open on Saturdays. The tendency is always to centralise every decision in the national government, but Catholic Social Teaching instead suggests that you should push decision-making down as far as possible to regions, counties, and towns and ultimately leave some things for family units to decide for themselves. This idea rests on a love of place, a commitment to the location where God has placed you. It is a big idea, with direct implications for how we think about politics. 

But instead of having me ramble about it, let's hear from Richard, who is interviewed here by Kevin Hargaden, the Director and Social Theologian of JCFJ.

Reach out with your feedback, queries, or any other input  @jcfjustice on twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, linked in, or directly at www.jcfj.ie.  

Divine Election  is a short 8 episode guide to Irish politics from a Christian perspective.  At the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, we are dedicated to undertaking social analysis and theological reflection in relation to issues of social justice, including housing and homelessness, penal policy, environmental justice, and economic ethics.

With the Irish election coming up, we wanted to address a few topics that encourage you to reflect on the Common good as we head to the polls and after!

We have the privilege of interviewing three experts in place, power and belonging and then a chance to dive deep on policy with our own staff members!

Reach out to us @JCFJustice on twitter/threads/instagram/Blusky

Or contact us directly at www.jcfj.ie