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January 2025
St Fidelis Catholic Primary School
Catholic Social Teaching Newsletter
Compassion, Challenge, Excellence: bringing children to Christ through education
Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome to our monthly Catholic Social Teaching newsletter. This month we are thinking about the Option for the Poor. This Jubilee year, people across the world are uniting in solidarity to demand action to the global debt crisis. Pope Francis says, "More than a question of generosity, this is a matter of justice." CAFOD have a petition where we can lend our voice to seek justice for those in poverty.
You can join this petition by visiting www.cafod.org.uk and adding your name.
Let us pray:
Teach us to see with your eyes their tremendous dignity and to care for others as you care and may they experience your compassion, concern and love.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer
We think about 7 principles of Catholic Social Teaching:
- Dignity
- The common good
- The dignity of work and participation
- Solidarity
- Option for the poor
- Creation and environment
- Peace.
The option for the poor reminds us of God’s preferential love for the poorest and most vulnerable people. God’s love is universal; he does not side with oppressors, but loves the humble. Some people see this as the ‘option for the earth’ too. Pope Francis writes, “the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor” Laudato Si’ #2.
Cafod work wherever the need is greatest: “We refuse to accept the suffering of our brothers and sisters. No one should be beyond reach of the love and support they need.
More information about Catholic Social teaching can be found through our CST page on our school website: https://www.st-fidelis.bexley.sch.uk/catholic-life-of-the-school/catholic-social-teaching
“You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to them what is theirs.”
Saint Ambrose
(340-397 AD)