Jenny Sinclair explores how Christians can offer faithful witness when familiar social structures are coming apart. Drawing on stories of joint leadership, she shows what becomes possible when church leaders step into the civic life of a troubled city and stand in solidarity with local communities. She demonstrates how the Catholic Social Teaching tradition equips us for this volatile moment, calling churches to move beyond partisan loyalties and the dynamics of service-provider charity. In response to today’s hyper-liberalism, she urges a relational approach: building local friendships and alliances, speaking truth, and intentionally reweaving our fragmented society. This is an unflinching yet hopeful challenge to live as outward-facing people of the common good at a time of deep unravelling.

This is a transcript. This talk was given for Churches Together Horsforth in Leeds in March 2026. You can watch the talk here and listen to the audio below.

Christian Witness in the Unravelling

From the Sheppard-Worlock Story to the Catholic Social Tradition

I think we’re all beginning to see that things are unravelling. It is pretty serious, what’s going on. That is our backdrop for this evening

First, let me introduce the Sheppard Worlock story.

I’m David Sheppard’s daughter. Now, when I was a teenager, the language world that I lived in was the church, justice, gospel, poverty, politics. That was the currency of our kitchen table. But I wasn’t happy being a bishop’s daughter. I really didn’t like it. I was a bit of a rebel. I preferred Liverpool’s music scene. If there are any teachers here tonight, I was one of the people you were worried about. I became estranged from the church. I left home in 1980. I drifted.

And then in my mid 20s, I experienced a dark night of the soul. And an unexpected grace, I had a conversion experience, and to everyone’s surprise, I was drawn to the Catholic Church. Of course, I had grown up in an Anglican family, a very prominent, high media profile Anglican family, so that was quite a big deal.

I married, I had children, I lived a quiet life. Then over 20 years later, in my mid 40s, in 2011, I felt what I now know - I didn’t know then - was a nudge of the Holy Spirit. My life was about to change. I was sensing things around me in the country that weren’t right, I was sensing the seeds of what now are really showing. I felt that the politics of both left and right were failing, and that the churches were unable to respond adequately to what was going on. You might remember the Tottenham riots around that time. This was three years after the banking crash.

I had a find a strong, faithful prayer life by that time. I was just working as a graphic designer. I wasn’t doing anything special. I’d done a really bad degree at Goldsmith’s. I wasn’t pursuing a career. But I prayed, and I felt that God was calling me, and, I felt a trail was being set for me – that I needed to meet this person, that person, that I needed to look at a significant partnership my father was involved with.

The Sheppard-Worlock Partnership in Liverpool

Let me take you back to when I was 13, in 1975. We had moved from London to Liverpool when my dad was made Bishop of Liverpool. As some of you might realise, Liverpool at that time was a really troubled city. High unemployment, a history of sectarianism, no go areas, a dysfunctional local government leadership, divided, unstable. Seen as a bit of a basket case, really.

We were sent there, and within six months of our arrival, the Catholic Archbishop was appointed, too. So two bishops, one from the Anglican Church and one from the Catholic Church were arriving within six months of each other. Neither of them had had any ecumenical experience before. Remember, this is pre Churches Together England, pre, the “ecumenical spring” which happened in the 1980s. The two bishops had only met once briefly some years before; they didn’t really know each other.

My dad, having arrived first, decided that he had to go and meet his opposite number. So he went round to Archbishop’s House, rang the doorbell, standing there on the doorstep, holding a bottle of wine. He said, I thought I’d just come and say hello. So that was the beginning of an extraordinary friendship, which became well known among people in the churches.

They saw themselves as “brothers in Christ”. They felt they had, humbly, been called at that moment to the city, and that somehow they needed to step into a leadership role – a joint leadership role. Of course, over time, their partnership extended to Baptist, Methodist, URC, Salvation Army, Free Church Partners, too. But I’m talking about their friendship tonight. They were close friends. In time, they went on holiday together; they spoke on the phone pretty much every day for 20 years. They prayed together, though they never broke the rules, they never took Communion together.

Supporting civic life

But quite early on, they started acting in the civic space together. One of the earliest things that happened was they were approached by some local people who had spotted a piece of land where a Tate and Lyall factory used to be. These people were being faced with eviction and moved out of the city; they didn’t want to move out, they said “we want to stay together – and that piece of land there, we want to live there.” They wanted to build a village. That’s a long story that I won’t tell here - but it ended up being the Eldonian Housing Association.

The bishops’ role in that story was not to lead, but to support local people’s desire and to help them along the way. That was one example of a local institution that they helped build.

They also championed the union of Catholic and Anglican teacher training colleges which were under threat of closure. And over many years, they managed to assemble them together into what later became Liverpool Hope University.

So there’s a theme emerging here - that they are not just church leaders in churches and cathedrals. They’re acting in the city.

Rising unemployment, unstable politics

And some of you will remember the 1981 riots - serious social unrest between the black community and the police. Now, by this time, both bishops had very much established a culture within their clergy of being close to communities, a strong listening practice, a sense of solidarity with communities. The clergy already knew the people on the ground. This meant that when this unrest happened, the bishops were in an interesting position, because they had also forged relationships with the police. This meant they were in a unique position of being able to mediate between this great tension. So that is another example of the kind of leadership that we’re talking about.

Around about the same year, this is happening all over the country. There is rising unemployment, and, of course, we’re in the middle of the Thatcher years now. You might remember that moment when Norman Tebbit said, at a Conservative Party conference, that people should get on their bike and go and look for work. Now, that seemed quite an affront at the time, because it was seen to be the norm that you would stay home, and you would get a local job. We’re going to see a bit later on this evening how that has changed. That was the moment things started to change.

The bishops cared about communities and families, and they knew that jobs are absolutely at the heart of the flourishing of a family and a community. They began to be aware of the context in which they’re operating, they can’t help but become drawn into the civic life, the politics of a place, because that’s what God cares about, too.

In the year after the riots, they recognised that there was a real problem with a sense of agency among the black community. So they helped to establish the Liverpool 8 Law Centre. This not only helped the local black community access legal advice, but it also sets some people on the road to becoming lawyers. So, again, we are back to the theme of local institutions strengthening the city.

A change in Church relationships

Now by this time, the relationship had really settled. It was a daily relationship, they’d be on the phone together, they’d be responding to media calls together. They would do joint statements -I don’t mean the sort of dry joint statements that we see today from churches together nowadays. In those days, they’d be responding directly to questions, and they would be on the media quite regularly. They were quite vocal about challenging the government policies of the time. They acquired a reputation for being a bit “firebrand”. But their indignation came from their care for families and communities, what was happening to human beings.

Now, by this time, in late 1981, Derek Worlock, wrote to Pope John Paul and said, there’s something happening here - will you come and visit us? Something is happening. What he meant was, up until that point, the Catholic Church, in England, had been in a sort of siege mentality, still somewhat in its recusant history, there was a hangover from that past. For the first time, Derek was saying, “things are changing.”

I got to know Derek later on. He was a gifted diplomat, having been a private secretary to three cardinals, so had had a lot of international dealings. He was a canny operator. I would say he was politically more astute than my father. My father had the sort of common touch in the media. Between them, they were an exceptional combination. But Derek had been good friends with one Karol Wojtyła, who had become John Paul II.

Indeed, there was something going on. My father was saying to Derek, effectively, “you’ve got a gift that we all need - you need to be outward-facing and share it with the whole country. Not just serve your own.” This was a departure from the past. So, it was a genuine partnership; there was no leading figure; it was an equal partnership.

John Paul II wrote back and said, “Yes, I’ll come.” This was to be the first visit of a reigning pope to the UK since the Reformation. A historic moment. Now, we take it for granted when we see the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury kneeling next to each other, but it had never happened before Pope John Paul’s visit.

Because of the Falklands War it was difficult diplomatically, but Derek knew how to handle negotiations, and that’s why it was a pastoral visit and not a state visit. Of course, we then see Robert Runcie and John Paul II kneeling together before the tomb of St. Edward of the Confessor. Thereafter, this joint public witness became the norm. And that, and then after that, you get the “ecumenical spring”, and the ecumenical “instruments” start to emerge.

Ending the sectarian divide

I don’t usually use the word “ecumenical” now. Some people use “unity” - that’s fine. But ecumenical is the technical term for what was happening. It was a big part of what they were consciously doing. They knew how significant this was. In fact, when they first met and people recognised they were becoming friends, there were those who warned them, “Don’t do this joint witness. You don’t know what a can of worms this is. You are going to open up dangerous things.” At the time some thought Liverpool was close to becoming another Belfast. But they ignored that advice, of course, and just went ahead anyway.

Over time, their joint leadership - this dynamic of standing side by side - it really works, because if you’re standing side by side with someone with different interests, you can’t possibly be advocating for your own. And the city saw that. The city responded. They became objects of affection by ordinary people in the city. Taxi drivers would say, for example, “oh, yes, they were for us.” People didn’t perceive the church leaders as on a marketing exercise to try and get bums on seats into the church. They saw these church leaders acting for the city.

So we’re now in the mid 1980s, and we’re talking about the miners’ strike. We are seeing the beginning of deindustrialisation. There’s a lot of tension, and the bishops see the impact on miners’ families. They get involved with this, they advocate for the striking miners. But they try not to be explicitly partisan - they’re saying we care about the livelihoods of families.

And of course, now we’re getting into the territory of the report, Faith in the City, that’s now in the pipeline as well. My father had published the book Bias to the Poor in 1982, which had been a huge influence on the Church of England, leading to the Faith in the City research and report, which was published in 1985. This caused a rumpus, again involving Norman Tebbit, who had described it as “Marxist”, which gained it more publicity as a result. It contained lots of recommendations for government, and also recommendations for the church. It instigated a new energy in Christian social action.

There were other things going on alongside this. People may have had the impression, and certainly it was the case in the press, they were seen as the “red” bishops, or “left wing firebrands.” But what people didn’t realise was that behind the scenes, they were doing other things too.

Committed to communities, confounding left and right

In 1984, they started what they called the Michaelmas Group – a group they co-chaired involving the major employers of the region - 12 leaders who met privately under Chatham House Rule, every six weeks, for 13 years. Remember this is the time of capital flight – the deindustrialising period where investment is been pulled out and going to the Far East. It’s hard to prove a negative, but one can imagine perhaps the damage would have been a lot worse had they not been meeting. The opportunity to share privately, not only the pressures they were under, but also their shared commitment to safeguard jobs for families and communities, and to express their commitment to the city, to do everything they could to keep the investment there. So this group somewhat undermines the radical image of the bishops. The fact is they not only worked with business, they also marched with unions for jobs – a “both/and” approach.

During those Thatcher years, you might remember the Militant Tendency - that’s a bit like the hard progressive left or the Greens now. In 1985 they deliberately bankrupted the council. Their politics were very extreme. They expected the bishops to side with them. But the bishops wouldn’t do so. They upset both the right and the left.

They published a book together, Better Together, in 1988. They appeared on Wogan live together. They were often called “Fish and Chips - always together and always in the papers.” They were held in great affection.

In moments of terrible tragedy, in particular the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 - when the whole city was in terrible mourning after 94 people had been killed - the way they responded was to hold a civic mass. It was held in the Catholic Cathedral. It was packed to the doors, thousands of people turned up; David and Derek processed in together. They also held a service in Anfield for people to express their grief together. This was an era in Liverpool where church leaders were not only welcome – but were seen as part of the civic infrastructure.

Once we get into the 1990s, we see a consolidation of their partnership. They’re advocating for the city, making joint statements, doing joint talks, and a lot of community action. The city is no longer divided by sectarianism. They are awarded the joint “Freedom of the City of Liverpool” in 1994.

I think we would properly regard them as servant leaders. They tried not to be too top down, though we might see that slightly differently now. I think from a modern perspective there’s a certain patrician element to their approach that doesn’t land so easily today.

Derek died in 1996. My father retired in 1997 and died in 2005. And in 2008, they were honoured with a statue in Hope Street between the two cathedrals. And their motto was, “do everything together except the things which conscience forces us to do apart.” That has become a standard motto for ecumenical joint working.

A Historical Parallel: Manning and Booth in 1889

Let’s make a shift now. I want to give you another example of joint Christian leadership in a time of crisis. I’m going to take you back to 1889, in East London, and the Great Dock Strike. Here we find William Booth, the founder of Salvation Army. He had been an English Methodist preacher. He and his wife, Catherine, had gone to the East End, given up the settlement ministry of Methodism, disillusioned by the traditional limitations. They wanted to work among slum dwellers. They established a “soup, soap, and salvation” ministry to the poor. They knew their people very well.

At the same time, there was Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. He too, had changed denomination. He previously had been an ordained Anglican and had been married. He was widowed, tragically, after 24 years marriage. He then became disillusioned over matters of doctrine, left the Anglican Church and became a Catholic. He later became Archbishop of Westminster, and then a Cardinal. Manning and Booth knew each other. They both knew their people - they were close to families. They knew about poverty. They also understood what was happening at this critical point.

The Industrial Revolution is in full swing. They are seeing firsthand, on the docks, the effects of unrestrained capital on human beings. Every day, thousands of men turn up on the quay side, half would get work, and half wouldn’t - and their families starved. That was the reality. In 1889, there was a dispute over pay that led to a great strike. It spread to over 100,000 workers across the Port of London. Now Manning, it turns out, was the son of a banker. He had no illusions about how unrestrained capital can behave. He was invited to act as honest broker. He was trusted by both sides. He mediated and helped to settle the dispute. His intervention was known as the “Cardinal’s Peace.”

The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the human being

Interestingly, this leads us to the beginning of Catholic Social Teaching. What Manning is doing at this point is feeding back to the Vatican what he’s seeing happening on the ground - he’s telling them that he is seeing human beings being subordinated to the interests of big money. Because the Catholic Church is global, they’re getting this information from all over the world. They are seeing patterns emerge.

Leo XIII was the pope at the time. He ends up publishing a seminal historic document called Rerum Novarum - which means “Of New Things”. The new thing was of course industry. The document focused on the Industrial Revolution and its effects on the human being. That was the first of a series of documents that collectively is now known as Catholic Social Teaching. It examines in detail what happens to the human being from a deeply theological position. One of the things it does is to give a gospel interpretation of what the economic system is doing.

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The Catholic Social Teaching tradition

Since then, the Church has continued to respond directly to the great social changes of our times. Of course, 1891 isn’t the beginning of Catholic teaching – it is building on Augustine, Aquinas, and the wisdom of the ancient Fathers. This is the beginning of the modern era. In subsequent years, the documents that are published cover every aspect of human life: from the family, to just war, from conscience, to love of neighbour, from the natural world, to science and technology, missionary discipleship, political economy, euthanasia, the excesses of capitalism, the tyranny of communism, from social peace to civil rights, from local association to the dignity of work. Every aspect of human life is covered, in response to the issues of the day.

This year - the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum - we are expecting our new pope, Leo XIV, to be publishing a new Catholic Social Teaching document, which we call an encyclical, probably this May, probably on AI and the future of work. He has chosen the name Leo for a very particular reason – to link himself with Leo XIII’s focus on social justice and the impact of the economy on the human being.

We are now on the brink of a new Industrial Revolution. This is the new thing. It’s vitally important for those of us who are Christians who care about the human being - because we’re made in the image of God, and God cares about human beings – to recognise what this revolution is going to do to the human being.

Let’s look briefly at some of the principles and the themes that run through this tradition.

Human Dignity

What this tradition does is to train us to look at any system and what it does to human beings. It trains us to critique systems that dehumanise. It trains us to praise systems that rehumanise and enable the flourishing of the human being. Human Dignity is the key principle. From human dignity, we get the dignity of work, we get respect for life. These are the things that flow from it. We also get human equality. But we are not meant to be the same. We are designed to be complementary. We are equal in the eyes of God.

Solidarity and Subsidiarity

The principle of Solidarity trains us to think about whose side we’re on. We are to make a dedicated effort to recognise that we are each other’s brother’s keeper. We are to support each other.

This is partnered with the principle of Subsidiarity – an important principle which trains us to think about agency, the integrity of the person, about responsibility being taken at the appropriate level. Subsidiarity holds that decisions should be taken closest to those they affect, and that decisions should not be taken by a higher authority if they can be taken lower down. If you think for example, about the structure of a country, or a family, or a school, Subsidiarity helps us to think about how to prevent somebody losing agency, how to prevent deskilling, when someone may be doing too much for them.

Intermediary Institutions

One of the key concepts in Catholic Social Teaching is the “intermediary institution.” Within the tradition’s conception of social architecture – think of the state, the market, the human being, the family – in the middle, there’s this layer that we call intermediary institutions. By this I mean businesses, clubs, associations, charities, churches and so on - the human-sized institutions through which we learn how to live well together.

In a healthy society, in a healthy neighbourhood, you’ll have cafes, restaurants, boutiques, tenants’ associations, a fishing club, a book club, a social club - there’ll be a layer with a variety of institutions. But in a poor neighbourhood, you might just have a chicken shop and a betting shop. That is a very thin layer, and that means that life is too harsh, because there’s nothing between the person and the state. When life is too harsh, people have fewer opportunities to take responsibility, to be social, to interact. This layer of institutions is very important. We can recall examples like the Liverpool 8 Law Centre, the Eldonians Housing Association, Liverpool Hope University. These are intermediary institutions and they are important.

The Dignity of Work

The principle of the Dignity of Work is another key principle, and a theme running through everything so far tonight. It is so important because work is much more than a way of making a living. It is how we contribute to God’s great creative participation. Decent work, decent pay. This is going to become a major issue as the AI revolution takes hold. AI is going to change everything about work. It is hard for us to predict how. The danger is that we may end up in a dystopian future of Universal Basic Income where most people are on a subsistence level, and only the privileged have satisfying work. We must be careful to discern which elements of work can be outsourced to AI and robotics, and which elements should remain human.

The Option for the Poor

Then, of course, one of the biggest principles in Catholic Social Teaching is the Preferential Option for the Poor. Now, the reason this is here is - it’s not just because it’s nice to be nice to poor people, it’s not just because they lack material goods and need something - there’s something deeper going on here. Pope Francis and other Latin American bishops back in 2007 said that the poor have an awareness of each other, an awareness of the need for other people, an awareness of God that the affluent and the busy so often lose. The affluent and the busy tend to get sucked into an individualistic lifestyle, an indifference to others. People who are poor tend to have a greater sense of their need for the other.

That is part of the reason why it’s important to have people who are poor at the heart of the church. And it’s also why decisions should be taken with people who are poor at the heart of decision-making. If you don’t have that central focus on the option for the poor, you will come to the wrong decision. If you think of making decisions for the country, and you ignore the poor, you’re going to come to the wrong decision. Think of the “one body” image in First Corinthians. If you overlook the vulnerable part, you’re going to make a mistake, the whole body will become sick, and all will suffer.

The Common Good

Finally, let’s look at the principle of the Common Good, which is central in Catholic Social Teaching. This is often misunderstood. People think it’s a bit woolly. Like it’s a medicine you ought to take, or it has a vague meaning about social justice. It’s not really like that. Correctly understood, it’s about a shared life – it’s about how we live together. The Common Good happens when we all contribute voluntarily, without coercion; it’s that very precious moment between human beings.

For example, think of a choir. It could be a pretty ropey choir, but all the voices together make a beautiful sound, and everybody thrives through it. It’s about that precious connection between human beings, being together, that allows everyone to thrive.

We can see that the principles and themes – the same ones that in the late 1800s informed Manning and Booth’s response to the dock strike - the dignity of the person, the dignity of work, that capital must never subordinate labour, the importance of the family, solidarity with the poor – these same principles also informed the Sheppard-Worlock partnership in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. We can see that their focus was also on the dignity of work, solidarity with poor communities, the flourishing of family life, subsidiarity enabling the agency of local communities. For 22 years, their focus was like that. We could say they worked together for the common good, although they never actually used that phrase. We could describe this an example of civic friendship, indeed, a kind of spiritual partnership.

Those contexts are kind of familiar to us today, aren’t they? Dysfunctional government, polarised extremist politics, discontent, sectarianism. However, I don’t think we should inherit the Sheppard-Worlock legacy wholesale. This is a new time. Their partnership was of its time. If I was to critique them, I would say they were too trusting in the State as a solution. And although they refused to side with extremist politics, they were still partisan; they sided very much with the Labour Party; they didn’t understand the true nature of the neoliberal project – which was later to wreak such terrible damage on our country. I would also say there’s a certain patrician element, that sense of care for the poor. Tellingly, my father’s biography is called Batting for the Poor (you may know he was a cricketer before he was in the church). Not batting with but batting for. A different posture is appropriate for today.

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The Current Unravelling and Its Causes

So this brings us up to date. This is now – this is a new time.

I think it was Hemingway who said that change happens slowly, and then all at once. It certainly feels like that. Pope Francis said some years ago that “this is not just an era of change, but a change of era.” He said that we’re going through a process of being “stripped of false securities”, where it’s no longer possible to complacently enjoy the illusions of the old era.

It is not credible anymore, to continue with the assumption that governments can adequately represent us, nor that the socio-economic model we’ve been living with can underwrite a flourishing life for all.

So what do we see now?

We see extremes of inequality. We see estrangement between civic groups. We see commodification of creation. We see war, displacement of people. We see the hyper-liberalization of abortion, assisted suicide - a huge shift in the understanding about human dignity. We see the proliferation of social media exploiting the young. We see place – the local – being subordinated by the digital world. We see the acceleration of AI and the technocratic paradigm. We’re beginning to see the collapse of trust in institutions. There’s tribalism. We’re also seeing loneliness, especially among the young - statistics show that loneliness is much worse among the young than the old. We’re seeing a sense of nihilism and distress about meaninglessness.

When I was saying this ten years ago some thought I was exaggerating. Talk of unravelling was seen to be catastrophizing. But now, I think we can see what is happening. Notwithstanding the fact that healthy, normal life goes on, it depends where you live. It depends where you live, who you know, and what media you consume. We’ve become so fragmented now that our lives are in parallel.

I want to say something about why this has happened. What has happened over the last 40 years, that Sheppard and Worlock were only just beginning to sense?

Every era is shaped by an animating idea. The idea underpinning the era that’s in the process of breaking down comes from the philosophy of liberalism. A particularly extreme strain of liberalism, stemming from the idea of the “unencumbered self”, where freedom is understood as freedom from constraint. Freedom from the constraint of family, from freedom, from the constraint of borders, freedom from history, freedom from God, freedom from natural law.

This is where we are now. This is why you get to the point of people saying that it’s perfectly alright to have abortion up to birth. This is why you get people saying that it’s got nothing to do with you if I choose to kill myself, that it’s not going to affect you. I mean, obviously, this is nonsense, right? If someone takes an action, it’s going to have effects on everybody around them, everyone that cares for them, everyone they are in a relationship with. So this idea of the unencumbered self is actually denying reality. But this is where we’ve got to.

This ideology is inherently unstable because it relies on a false anthropology - a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being as an isolated individual. This generates a false idea of freedom and leads to a cult of self. You can see it in the “i” this, the “i” that. Everything is about “my personal preferences.” The culture has been dominated by the idea of “choice”. But it is not really choice. The false anthropology underneath this is so completely unlike Christian anthropology - where the person is a relational being made in the image of God. This philosophy goes against the grain of humanity.

Eventually, inevitably, it liberates society from truth and from mutual responsibility. Its spirit is anti-human: that is why the system is breaking down. That is why we see the unravelling. It is based on a relativistic and a materialistic logic that ultimately brings about its own destruction.

This is not just happening in this country. Every country in the world - mainly Western countries - that have adopted this particular philosophy is seeing the same effects. It took hold in 1979. It has roots going back in the Enlightenment, but it particularly went on steroids from 1979.

This misconception of the human being as an isolated, rights-bearing, competitive individual also led to the emergence of identitarian politics. This is why we get the distorted forms of victimhood and the culture wars. This has led to spiritual confusion and demoralisation.

It has also distorted the meaning of “social justice”. The conception of social justice now dominant is focussed upon identity and the “oppressor-oppressed” dynamic. This is not the definition of justice from a Christian point of view. Correctly understood, Christian justice is about relational justice. We can see this in the Old Testament: the rabbinical tradition of justice is about right relationship, not division. By contrast, the animating idea of the unencumbered self has eaten away at our shared values, has eroded our sense of citizenship; dissolved relationship, undermined the particularity of place.

Not least, we can see that it had a huge impact on the economy. It broke the tradition of vocational jobs. In the process of “deindustrialisation”, jobs were offshored to the Far East; investment went abroad. This was replaced by the knowledge economy and the service economy. The purpose of this profound change was to make a “frictionless” environment for investors. It worked very well for them, but it was devastating for many of our communities. It also sucked workers from poor countries, away from their families, to come and work for Western business models here, on very low wages.

And so we end up with a low wage economy. But many wages are too low to live on, which is why we now have 9 million people on Universal Credit. That is up from 7.5 million just last year. This is completely outrageous from a Christian point of view. It is an affront to human dignity, not only that so many people are poor, but also that so many are without work, which creates a culture of entitlement.

The breaking of relationship with place has been quite devastating. Earlier, we referred to the Norman Tebbit moment 40 years ago, where he was saying, “get on your bike”, which, back then, felt like a really right wing thing to say. But now, it’s seen as “freedom”. It’s been rebranded. The idea of movement to find decent work is now supposed to be a great freedom. But of course, the reason this is happening is that this globalisation system is serving the interests of big business.

You will begin to see now that what I’m saying is coming from a tradition. This Catholic Social Teaching tradition is saying, “What is happening to human beings? What’s happening to families? What’s happening to communities? Are they thriving?” Answer, no. “Why is that?” It’s because the economy is structured in this way.

I would describe this whole state of affairs as a breach of a common good. Because communities that suffered at the hands of this dogma have not just been left behind (and it is not a feeling, it is a fact). There’s also been no meaningful correction, no further investment, no retraining. It just hasn’t been done. On top of that, those communities were then framed as deficient and backward. So we shouldn’t be surprised to now see this politics of discontent emerging.

The impact on our common life has been quite devastating. We now have a breakdown of trust, and a huge problem that is now manifesting in our politics. This hyper liberal idea has infected both the left and the right. Both our main political parties have been completely colonised by it: the Conservatives stopped conserving, and Labour stopped advocating for the dignity of labour. They completely changed their priorities.

Indeed, there is a mutual blind spot going on which still persists: the right attribute the moral unravelling to excessive liberalism, but somehow the neoliberal economic system gets a free pass. Meanwhile, the left attributes poverty to the neoliberal economic system, but embraces the progressive ideas of unlimited self-actualisation (for example, the idea that I can remake my own body, as if I’m God). So both the left and the right – in different ways – are still captured by this doctrine.

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Impact on the Churches

We ought to broach the difficult subject of how forty years of this hyper-liberal system has impacted the churches. There are lots of angles we could take here, and we haven’t got time to go into all of them, but let’s particularly look at the relationship of the churches with poor communities.

What’s happened? We could formulate this into three “sins”.

The first sin we can identify is the disconnect between charity and justice. For example, continuing to hand out food parcels whilst not challenging the socio-economic philosophy that generates poverty in the first place. This sin is inadvertent, through great well-meaning and kindness, but it can mean that Christian charity can end up being part of the problem, propping up an unjust system. This happens when we fall for the wrong kind of justice, a welfarist, utilitarian model, as opposed to a justice based on the dignity of work. The pursuit of that welfarist model masks prophetic justice: the more efficient we become as a service provider, the less likely it is that people will see the root of the problem.

The second sin is about encouraging dependency - again, inadvertently. Sometimes the “service-client” dynamic in Christian charity encourages dependency and entitlement. It turns a person in need into a passive recipient, into a supplicant role. It also puts them in a transactional dynamic, where the benevolent giver is giving, and they are receiving. This is not a relationship of reciprocity, which is what we’re looking for if we want relational justice.

This sin also undermines solidarity, because what people who are poor really want is a job, the dignity of being able to support their own family. I know someone who puts it very crudely. He says, “the church has become a woke food bank. What we really need is decent work, so we can make a life.” Yes, decent conditions and a decent wage. Remember we have a low wage economy. That is something that international finance companies lobby governments to deliver. It is in their interests to keep wages low. This is one of the reasons for mass migration over recent years. We can all have different opinions about that. I do not take a racialized position on this. I think it’s actually an economic issue. Successive governments of all parties have perpetuated this to keep wages low. And it’s destroyed the social peace.

The third sin I wanted to draw attention to is secularisation - the disconnect with faith. Many Christian charities have become a little shy about being Christian. Perhaps worried they won’t get funding. Or perhaps they think it’s not cool anymore. Or they want to make the language on their website a bit more “inclusive”, so they dumb down the Christian side of it. Sometimes faith fades due to a lack of confidence, or for fear of what funders might do or think. Sometimes the original Christian charism that underpins a charity gets fossilised when its founding inspiration isn’t fostered, or when it’s neglected.

For example, a charity may have been founded on a genuine charism at the beginning, and then over time, the trustees change. The CEO is now very efficient and professional in the NGO world, but he or she is not a practising Christian, and so the values subtly change. This can happen imperceptibly over time. This can sometimes compromise Christian distinctiveness so that the visible elements of Christianity become indistinguishable from a secular NGO.

The system sometimes even affects the way the churches perceive themselves. Government voices may say, aren’t you wonderful? aren’t you useful. The transcendent meaning of Christianity is reduced to social usefulness. Local governments may offer us money and we are flattered, we think isn’t it great! But if we get too close to the system, we end up enabling the problem. I’m not saying we should stop doing charity. It’s essential. But we have to be prophetic, too. Christian charity must not become a handmaid to the state.

This same philosophy has also impacted the church in terms of moral leadership. For example, there is significant anger among some working class communities, with the C of E in particular, about the grooming gang scandal, that the church has said next to nothing about it. There is only one bishop, as far as I know, who has said anything. To his credit that was +Philip North, and he apologised for leaving it so late. There has been an abrogation of moral leadership which makes people angry. It actually drives people away from the church. Of course, the Catholic Church also has its faults; its history of child abuse has alienated those same communities from the church.

This is a new era. New things happening. We have serious geopolitical volatility - the end of the liberal world order, the Tony Blair project of exporting democratic liberalism around the world. Many other cultures just don’t want this, they never wanted it and they’re angry about it. The dynamics have changed. Meanwhile at home, domestically, we have a dysfunctional government. And we are facing a new industrial revolution.

Amidst all this we are seeing a spiritual confusion. We are seeing the signs of what some people call a “quiet revival” - and, what some are describing as a “dirty revival”. The picture is mixed. There seem to be movements of middle class people attracted to traditional forms of church - Orthodox, Catholic, Anglo Catholic. Many are fed up with being in a sea of meaninglessness, and are looking for something solid to attach to, and finding meaning through that.

Meanwhile there are widespread anecdotal reports of Christian movements among post-industrial working class communities. Having experienced great loss, there is a yearning for identity. Disillusioned with the churches that have not delivered on their responsibility for moral leadership, they are reaching for Christian morality from non-mainstream sources. It may look rough to a middle class sensibility, but something is happening.

Alongside this, we are seeing the political space becoming more religious, not less. We are seeing insurgent, Muslim political movements, Hindu movements, various different types of Christian flavoured politics pressing through, being expressed. It is becoming a contested landscape.

The Christian Response Today

So, how are we supposed to respond?

The reason I set out the Catholic Social Teaching principles at the beginning is because I think we need a strong conception of an integrated faith that doesn’t shy away from the realities of the world, an approach based on a solid theological tradition, a deep spirituality, and crucially, which is non-partisan.

The Catholic tradition is often described as both radical and conservative. It asserts the family, it asserts belonging to place, but it also asserts intervention in the economy - it doesn’t support the unrestricted freedom of movement of capital, for example – it recognises the danger that that can bring. It doesn’t map along the lines of the standard left-right axis. I believe we need a Christianity that embodies solidarity, subsidiarity, and common good, the kinds of church engagement that we’ve been talking about tonight.

We have to recognise that the cavalry is not coming over the hill. We can’t expect government anymore to adequately provide. Certainly not for a while, anyway. We’re in a very volatile period.

So, what do we do at the grassroots level? If we understand that the problem - which we diagnosed earlier in terms of hyper-liberalism - is effectively individualism, then how do we counter that? It’s hard work, but it’s not complicated.

It’s about building relationships - intentionally building local relationships. We can see, in the examples of Sheppard-Worlock, Manning and Booth, that it is possible to have church leaders determined to build civic relationships for the benefit of the city - for the people.

It’s also about refusing to be tribal. We must build broad-based alliances with our neighbours. This is the intermediary institution part of the framework. The church should be outward facing. We can start by asking “Who do we know? Do we know the pizza restaurant? that business? the Tenants Association? What relationships do we have?” We are called not just to build up our own community. Not just to be focussing inward, not just on this lovely space. We’re called to be an outward-facing people. To be a Jeremiah 29.7 “seek the peace of the city” type of people.

We should be resisting the identity politics that divides. We should be talking more about solidarity than diversity. “How can we work together? How do we find common cause with each other, even if we disagree on certain things?”

And we should be speaking the truth. Speaking the truth is very important in this new era. There’s too much self-censorship going on. We all know that sense, don’t we? Sometimes we’re like, “I can’t say that.” We may be afraid of what will happen. We resolve to keep quiet. Well, I’d suggest that next time you feel that, if you feel that prick in your conscience, you should speak - at least inject a note of doubt.

The antidote to this toxic individualism, finally, is relationship. There is something about building friendship in a proactive, conscious, intentional way. If you see a group that’s vibrant and alive, that’s a beautiful thing. The common good is what happens between people, where together they create a sense of mutual flourishing. If you see that, encourage it. Support it, enable it to grow, connect them with another group. Be a part of the reweaving.

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, a Christian charity dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal. Working with leaders, churches and schools, T4CG helps people read the signs of the times and play their part for the common good.

In this lecture given for the Dominican Seminar 2026, Jenny Sinclair examines Christian vocation amid today’s cultural unravelling. Using Catholic Social Teaching, she reads the signs of the times — from community breakdown and the “unencumbered self” to loneliness, polarisation, and a technocratic economy that fractures relationships. She presents vocation as outward-facing and relational, calling Christians to an everyday witness that rebuilds a shared life through civic friendship, subsidiarity, and solidarity. The common good, she argues, emerges only through reciprocal relationships - and offers a hopeful path for the Church to become part of the antidote at this hinge moment in our history.

Please note this is a transcript. A recording can be found here.

Good morning everyone, it’s an honour to be with you.

I’ve been asked to talk about Christian calling in the context of this historical moment. We’re going to look at what’s going on, read the signs of the times - look at what’s happened to our culture and try to name reality honestly. We’re going to use Catholic Social Teaching to do that and to show how this tradition can help us respond so we can be part of the antidote.

We’re also going to look at how God is calling each one of us to be more intentionally relational in order to participate in His mission. Not as some grand strategy, but as our everyday Christian witness. The title of this session is Christian Calling and the Relational Imperative. But before we get to the imperative, we’ve got to understand why the relational is imperative.

Vocational Responsibility

I want to start with the phrase vocational responsibility. Pope John Paul II often spoke about responsibility arising from one’s vocation. Obviously, that will be familiar to most of you here in this room, in terms of the priesthood and the religious life. And those who are married will understand that from the marriage vocation too. But of course, it goes wider than that. Everyone is called to participate in God’s great creative work.

And John Paul II spoke of vocation not just in terms of individuals, but also is realised in “intermediary” institutions1 — that means families, businesses, schools, churches, charities, associations — all have a vocation for the common good. We’ll look at that a bit more later on. But for now, the point is that vocation is not inward-looking; it’s outward-facing. And the responsibility arising from our vocation applies to all of us.

Nudge of the Holy Spirit

With vocational responsibility as our backdrop, let me tell you a little bit about myself so you know where I’m coming from. I had an Anglican upbringing. I am the only daughter of Bishop David Sheppard, who, with Archbishop Worlock, was involved in a groundbreaking partnership between the 1970s and 1990s. At a time of division, high unemployment, instability, and sectarianism, they embodied solidarity and were taken to the hearts of the people of Liverpool.

Their ministry bridged the sectarian divide. Theirs was an example of relational leadership and it led directly to the historic visit of John Paul II in 1982. Without that relationship, his visit probably wouldn’t have happened. It was the first visit of a reigning pope since the Reformation. It was a symbolic healing moment that came out of a unique relationship.2

But I wasn’t happy being a bishop’s daughter. I was actually quite a nightmare as a teen. If any of you are teachers here, I was the kind of student you’d have worried about. I was happier in the Liverpool music scene. I was estranged from the Church.

Years later, in my 20s, I had a conversion experience—a dark night of the soul, a very dramatic experience, an unexpected grace. I then was received as a Catholic under the guidance of Fr Michael Hollings. I developed a prayer life. I was working as a graphic designer, doing a bit of charity work. I got married. I had children. So for about 20 years, I lived a quite unremarkable, ordinary quiet life.

Then, in 2011, in my late 40s, I had what I would describe as a nudge of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t have the language to describe what was going on at that time, but I sensed something was happening. I was being drawn to see the beginnings of things going wrong in our society. It was 2011. You might remember the Tottenham riots and the beginnings of public discontent. What’s now very obvious to everyone was beginning then.

I was seeing that the politics of left and right was failing to meet real needs. I was particularly noticing that the churches were unable to respond adequately. At that point, as I was on this trail, somebody introduced me to Catholic Social Teaching. I’d been a Catholic since 1988, but no one had told me about it all that time. Still today, some still regard it as optional, not central.

At that point, I struggled to understand it. I’m not academic, and it’s quite dense. But I immediately realised it was dynamic and vitally important; though inaccessible, abstract, and dry in the way it was being communicated.

I continued following this trail of discernment and was introduced to people. Over about a year, I had conversations with about 100 people. Eventually, this emerged into Together for the Common Good, a small charity. We’re still very Spirit-led. Thousands have been involved over the years.

We help people build up confidence and discern how they are called to play their part for the common good, that they have a vocational responsibility. We engage with churches, charities, leaders, and schools. We produce online resources3, hold public talks on the big questions of our time4, produce a podcast5, and we run a schools’ programme.6

In all of this journey, I just try to follow what the Lord is asking of me. It wasn’t my idea! “You did not choose me. I chose you.”7 That’s very much how it feels.

Defining the Common Good

Let me just say what we mean by the common good before we go any further. Many of you are scholars, so you all have your intellectual idea of what the common good is. In wider society, people have an idea of what it is, but it can tend to mean something quite woolly.

People think it’s a bit vague. The classic definition from Gaudium et Spes8 is: “the sum total of social conditions that allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.” But for me, that’s a bit dry. It’s a bit abstract.

The common good is not an outcome that can be imposed from above. It’s not something that a government can create. It’s not utopian. It can’t be engineered technocratically. It emerges from people being together. There’s something of a mystery about it that comes from the transcendent nature of human beings. It comes through their free participation.

If you had to boil it down, you’d probably talk about a “shared life” - a life that is shared. It requires deliberation, listening, negotiation, forgiveness, and forbearance. Many of you in community will understand what that means, but it’s not easy. It’s not sentimental.

Sometimes, it requires us to negotiate hard. Think about building a common good between business and unions. You may have to negotiate the interests that are at play there. Think about negotiating a common good around immigration. You would have to take into account the interests of the host communities and the people who are travelling to a new country. You work out a balance of interests.

But also, we could think of the common good in a more joyful sense, like a choir - many different voices contributing, where everybody has a different role to play, but the collective experience is transforming and benefits everyone.

Why Is This Urgent Now?

So the question becomes: why is this so urgent now?

We need to read the signs of the times. I think it was Hemingway9 who said that change happens slowly and then all at once. It does feel like that kind of moment, doesn’t it? It’s been building for a number of years.

Pope Francis described this as a process of being “stripped of false securities”10. We’re no longer able to “complacently enjoy” the illusions of the old era. It’s not credible anymore to continue with the assumption that governments can adequately represent us or that the socioeconomic model we’ve been living with can underwrite a flourishing life for all. That feels deeply unsettling, but that is what’s going on.

We’re seeing many symptoms: extreme inequality, estrangement between different groups, the commodification of creation, war, displacement of people, extreme liberalization of abortion and assisted suicide, a profound shift in the idea of what human dignity means.

We’re seeing the young in particular manifesting symptoms of distress: depressi on, self- harm, yearning for meaning, addiction to social media, and profound loneliness—much worse among the young than the old11.

We’re seeing that the new digital revolution is really threatening what we understand to be our physical reality, our relationship with place, particularly in poor communities. If you’ve got very poor infrastructure, you can understand why it’s very tempting to go online where life is shiny and perfect. There’s a real threat to our engagement, our relationship with the local.

In addition, we have the acceleration of AI and robotics and the technocratic paradigm that both Pope Leo and Pope Francis have referred to. There’s this sense of an impending power that threatens our local, relational power.

And arising from the kind of politics we’ve been seeing, we have a collapse of trust in our political leaders. We’re seeing more tribalism and anger in our country.

There is a sense of meaninglessness too. Young people are hungry for meaning12 in a world that’s become a sea of relativism. It’s very difficult for them to find some kind of security, and so they are looking for tradition. This is often described as a mental health crisis, but actually, it’s an existential crisis. It has spiritual roots.

For some people, this might sound like exaggeration. It’s not really that bad, is it? You know, it’s nice and peaceful outside. The hedges are clipped. Buildings are still standing. People still go to work.

The thing is, it depends on where you live and who you know and what media you consume. Our media is now so fragmented that we can be living very close by physically and actually be in parallel worlds. The reality now is that we have a sectarianism emerging, and widespread polarization in the country. People really are very alienated from each other’s narratives.

The Roots of the Crisis

So I just want to talk a bit now about what’s behind this. The Catholic tradition helps us to read the signs of the times through the lens of political economy. This is the context in which we live, and it really affects human beings and our relationships.

We can see that the neoliberal political economy, which has been prevalent since 1979, has regarded human beings as units of labour, which must be cheap and mobile. Because of that, manufacturing got offshored to the Far East. Because it was cheaper, obviously, but this broke the tradition of vocational jobs and all the cultural tradition that went with that.

That’s much more profound than people think. It goes to the primal imagination. People who’ve lived with that inheritance for generations suddenly find it’s gone. We mustn’t underestimate the impact of that.

This economic model was also attracting workers from poorer countries to leave their families and take up low-paid jobs here that prop up Western business models. So actually, you’re breaking two lots of communities. You’re breaking our home communities, and you’re also breaking the communities from which the low-paid workers come.

This was all supposed to be creating a “frictionless” environment for investors. It worked very well for them. They made a lot of money. But it was devastating for millions of relationships, not just in our country but around the world.

I was in Doha recently and spoke to workers in the hotel and at the airport. They’d been away from home—for seven years, nine years, twelve years—lonely, missing their families, sending money home. That’s the new reality. Their families now rely on an economy that depends on somebody living in another continent. This is what our economy has become. It breaks relationships.

Pope Francis described it as “an economy that kills”13. If you remember, four decades ago, the idea that people should have to move to find work was regarded as right-wing. Do you remember Norman Tebbit’s “get on your bike”?14 It was an affront to have to leave your family and a settled life. But of course, this has now been rebranded as “freedom” - freedom to move.

Again, this breaking of relationship with place has led to civic degradation on a vast scale. While some people have profited, very large numbers have suffered. Then the shift to the knowledge economy and service economies caused further shame. Communities that had suffered from this globalization dogma were then framed as deficient and backward.

I would describe all of this as a breach of the common good. If we talk about the common good as a shared life, this is no longer a shared life. And, of course, in time, we’d see this politics of abandonment was a recipe for mass discontent. And that’s what we’re seeing, not only in this country but across the West.

The Unencumbered Self

So what’s going on here? How do we make sense of this? What connects all these disparate symptoms?

Every era is shaped by an animating idea. And the idea underpinning the era that’s in the process of breaking down comes from the philosophy of liberalism, from a particularly extreme strain of liberalism stemming from the idea of the “unencumbered self”15.

The unencumbered self is an idea where “freedom” is understood as freedom from constraint—freedom from the constraints of family, country, borders, history, God—and natural law.

This ideology is inherently unstable because it goes against the grain of humanity. It relies on a false anthropology, a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being. This generates a false idea of freedom and leads to a cult of self, quite unlike our Christian Catholic anthropology, where the person is a relational being made in the image of God.

Eventually, this idea liberates society from truth and from mutual responsibility. Its spirit is actually anti-human, which is why the system is now unravelling. Its relativistic and materialistic logic ultimately brings about its own destruction.

This misconception that human beings are somehow isolated, rights-bearing individuals has led to the emergence of identity politics—this identitarian focus on race and gender categories, the oppressor-oppressed forms of victimhood that we see, and the culture wars—all stem from this idea. Because it’s materialistic and against the nature of human beings, it has led to spiritual confusion and demoralisation. It has also led to a distorted meaning of “social justice”, which was originally a Catholic term, that has now been colonised by progressive ideology, which is focused on identity and the oppressor-oppressed dynamic.

All of this eats away at shared values and erodes our sense of citizenship. It dissolves relationships. It undermines the particularity of place. It commodifies what it means to be human. This all puts human beings and communities under great strain. It separates and divides. It promotes an overemphasis on rights and erodes our sense of mutual responsibility.

Sister Helen Alford pointed out to me that when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was released, originally it incorporated rights and duties, but they couldn’t agree on the duties, so they dropped them.16 That’s quite stunning, isn’t it? Think of the effect of that over the last several decades. We have a culture that’s dominated by rights without a concept of the balance of responsibility.

So we now end up with the “me culture,” the “I” this, and the “I” that. It sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it? But it’s actually true. This culture drives us to outsource more and more things that we used to do as families and communities and neighbours to the state, fostering a culture of dependency and entitlement, or to the market—”I don’t need anyone to get what I want. I can sit at home and order everything on Amazon. I don’t need anybody.” This weakens civil society. It is said that people won’t open their front door now unless it’s a delivery.

It’s a kind of slavery. We end up with this list of pseudo-freedoms. The system says, “On condition of your compliance, you can have mobility! You can have consumer choice! You can have rights! You can have self-determination!” This false story of freedom is endlessly promoted by the principalities and powers of our age—the over-centralised technocratic state, global finance, and big corporations, who stand to gain so much from this and accrue more and more power. Yet it promotes an individualism that separates and divides and provokes a profound yearning for meaning.

All our political parties have been colonised by this dogma. They’ve become disconnected from realities on the ground. They’ve lost touch with their founding purpose. The Conservatives stopped conserving. The Labour Party abandoned its purpose to represent human labour. The Greens are no longer green.

There’s a colonisation of this dogma going on across the piece. It’s really striking once you see it; you can’t unsee it. This is a kind of hegemony. A hyper-liberal hegemony of the politics of both right and left, although they express it in slightly different ways. There’s a sort of blind spot going on.

The right attribute moral unravelling to excessive liberalism, but somehow the neoliberal economic system gets a free pass. The left attributes poverty to the neoliberal economic system, but they embrace the progressive ideas of unlimited self-actualization—”I can remake my own body and basically become God.” Both the left and the right have absorbed this liberalism in slightly different ways. But they are two sides of the same coin.

This antihuman philosophy has led to gross mismanagement and provoked widespread discontent. We’re living with this political upheaval, and now potentially facing the greatest realignment for 100 years.

Efforts by the political overclass to fend off this revolt have just alienated the public further. As John Gray says, they “cannot comprehend that what they term populism is actually political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have produced.”17

In the last few days, we’ve seen the beginning of a new trend of insurgent populist politics, not only on the right but now also on the left—identitarian, sectarian—emerging along religious lines. Fragmentation is becoming the norm.

We can see how this hyper liberal philosophy has affected public opinion more broadly. There’s no mass outrage, for example, against the profound shift in human dignity that we mentioned earlier—the extreme of autonomy in terms of abortion up to full term and assisted suicide as a “healthcare option”. These things are now widely accepted. But actually, this is the logical conclusion of that animating idea. That’s exactly where it leads.

This idea of “choice” and “rights” has become hegemonic. The idea of mutual obligation - “I can make the choice to end my life—doesn’t matter. “It’s none of your business. It won’t affect you.” This is nonsense. We know that our decisions affect each other. We are related.

We are relational beings. It’s a big lie that’s being sold to us here.

A Hinge Moment in History

So we find ourselves at a hinge moment in history. The coming months and years are going to be volatile. It’s probably not going to settle down anytime soon, so we’ve got to get used to it. It remains to be seen if any political leadership can deliver a social peace.

Understanding this context is vital if we’re to discern our mission in this new era. The shape of the new era is turning out to be quite different from the old.

As Lord Glasman said in a recent lecture for us, “the emerging era is tragic. The previous era was procedural, legal, administrative. The new era is political, volatile, and democratic” (note that note of hope there), and he sees, (or perhaps hopes for), “a shift from individualism to institutions, from self-definition to the authority of tradition.” He’s sensing some of the things that we’re seeing in the Quiet Revival18, for example, and the importance of the local institutions we mentioned earlier.

The Antidote

So why should we focus on all of this when we want to talk about our calling? Because understanding context is vital if we’re to discern our mission in this era. Despite attempts by the modern state to subordinate the Church to the private realm19, what goes on in society is the location of our calling. It is of great spiritual importance that we engage.

I wanted you to get the sense of the causes of the unravelling so that you can see clearly what the antidote needs to be. I think you can see how severe the problem is and that its causes are deeply rooted in this false anthropology of the unencumbered self. Therefore, we can see that the antidote must be a relational anthropology.

This anthropology is embedded within our tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. This tradition is a gift that has often been too well hidden, ignored, or seen to be optional. It has always placed great emphasis on the relational. It is not meant just for Catholics; it’s meant to be a gift for all people of goodwill. So we shouldn’t be keeping it to ourselves.

At times it has become dry, theoretical and abstract, while at others oversimplified by being attached to specific campaigns. Its broader purpose as a worldview can be obscured, its practical framework for good judgment can be missed, and you could easily overlook its deeply embedded relational ethic that needs to be integrated within our Christian witness.

Catholic Social Teaching and Relational Anthropology

When we think about our recent popes, they’ve all emphasised the relational in the Catholic Social Teaching tradition. Pope Francis, of course, talked about the “culture of encounter”20.

But somehow, it just gets stuck as a sort of nice rhetorical piece of language. What does it actually mean on the ground? He also talked about “integral ecology,”21 echoing the concepts of his predecessors,22 but sometimes it has been received as a nice rhetorical idea that isn’t properly worked out on the ground. People tend to focus on the environmental to the exclusion of other considerations. People and planet are meant to be balanced.

Benedict XVI, borrowing from Newman, emphasised the connection between human beings: “Heart speaks unto heart”23 He focuses on the life giving relational connection between human beings. He says “Truth is received in relationship” and that “the human being is a listener before being a speaker”24. That is a profound way of thinking about the relational imperative—being in that listening posture, opens you up to the other person.

John Paul II insisted that “the human person is created from love and fulfilled in communion.” He said that “man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”25

They’re all pulling out this profoundly relational anthropology. Pope Leo XIV also said it’s through relationships that we grow: “only genuine relationships and stable connections can build good lives.”26 This fundamentally relational anthropology runs right throughout the Catholic Social Teaching tradition.

Themes of Catholic Social Teaching

The teaching includes a series of themes that together help us generate a vision of how human beings can thrive in relationship, both in a vocational and a metaphysical sense.

It starts with personhood—what it means to be a human being, a relational being with a transcendent nature. From this flows the dignity of the person, respect for life, and the dignity of work.

Then, of course, there’s the family, often called the fundamental cell of society or the school of love. In fact, the family is a relational form in which we learn who we are, and how to live with the unbidden. We don’t choose our family. This is very important. It’s really counter to the idea of “me being in charge” of the world. I’m not God. Within the family, I have to live with the people I’m given. That strengthens us as human beings. At the community and local level, the Catholic tradition talks about a layer of civil society institutions as particularly important. It calls them intermediate institutions, and each has a vocational responsibility. This is what John Paul II spoke about so much. It means clubs, associations, businesses, schools, charities, churches, religious orders, and other religious bodies.

Rather than an inward orientation serving its own interests, each institution is called to an outward-facing responsibility and to live up to its unique vocation for the common good— whether it’s serving great pizza or running a great fishing club. Each has its own calling, not only to deliver for itself but in relationship with its neighbouring institutions.

John Paul II talked about a lateral relationship—the building of friendships between institutions—and working together for the common good of the area. It’s a very local, grounded vision.

The local church has a special role here. It’s not just like any other institution. Part of its uniqueness is to unveil the sacred. But also, as an outward-facing body, its vocation is about proactively building relationships with other neighbouring institutions, being that leaven in society, encouraging relationship, infusing the wider community with its gifts.

But this is critical: it must also be open to receiving from its neighbours. The church actually needs to get over itself and not be so ecclesial, not so self-centred, recognising that it also has things to learn. That sense of reciprocity—being open, being able to receive as well as give—is at the heart of being relational.

The local church has a particularly important calling when the local life is thin. In a thriving small town, you might have lots of nice boutiques, cafes, and associations. But in a poor place, you might just have a chicken shop and a betting shop. In that setting, the church is particularly important as a place for enabling people to meet, and perform a civilising, humanising role.

Subsidiarity and Solidarity

What I’ve been talking about is really a reflection of the subsidiarity principle. This underpins the entire architecture, the way of understanding society through a Catholic Social Teaching lens. This principle holds that decisions should be taken closest to those they affect, that responsibility should be taken at the appropriate level, and that no central authority should do what can be done more locally.

Its purpose is to empower the person to participate according to their gifts and ability. Its meaning is to uphold the integrity of the human person. If you ever hear a government talking about having “a local consultation” or “including” local people, that’s a top-down interpretation. Subsidiarity arises from below. The whole point is to uphold and enable what arises from below, not just to benevolently “include” people from above.

The purpose of subsidiarity is to prevent domination, to prevent dependency, and to prevent the centralisation of power. It’s to enable agency among human beings—that precious moment between human beings that is the common good. It enables responsibility to be taken locally and for power to be relationally distributed.

In a church or a religious order or a congregation, clericalism as we know can a bit of a problem. The idea of shared leadership is also a reflection of subsidiarity—distributing leadership.

This understanding of subsidiarity also helps us to understand the purpose of the state, which is to create conditions that allow and enable—but not seek to control—families, persons, and intermediate institutions to flourish, within the law, to fulfil their vocational responsibilities together.

Alongside subsidiarity is solidarity. These two principles are always in partnership. Solidarity views human beings as social beings designed to be interconnected by relationships of mutual concern and support. Solidarity is a “determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual.”27 No one should be facing the struggles of life alone.

That’s unfortunately what we’re seeing a lot of now—a single mum stuck in a flat surrounded by unpaid bills, damp on the walls, curtains closed, probably suffering from depression. All she gets is a transfer of cash from the welfare state. She should be in relationship with someone. The churches should be right in that space, reaching out to and accompanying people who are isolated.

This is the reality of the modern state: it claims to be efficient but actually is really inefficient because it doesn’t reach people relationally where they are. We should be building relationships, particularly with people who are poor, honouring their concerns, and acting together.

At scale, it means joining people together to act on issues like damp housing or getting together to demand decent local jobs. That’s the sort of thing I understand solidarity to mean in practice.

Option for the Poor

Then, of course, there’s the option for the poor. Its relational element is not immediately obvious. Yes, of course, the option for the poor often refers to charity and almsgiving and justice. But there is another, deeper meaning that comes originally from the Bishops of South America in the Aparecida28 document.

If we’re not in relationship with people who are poor, we will get the wrong conclusions. It’s like the image in Corinthians, the image of the body29. If we ignore the weak and vulnerable parts, the whole body becomes sick. We have to pay very careful attention to the poor parts of the body.

The poor “often experience a deep sense of interdependence and solidarity, recognising their need for others”30 in a way that the affluent and the busy don’t have or have lost or forgotten. This is something that the Church needs. In fact, the Church needs to be “evangelised by the poor.”31

This means we shouldn’t be complacent. It’s not enough just to run a food bank based on a service provider model - this dynamic inadvertently encourages dependency, it alienates and creates an estrangement between poor people and the middle-class “benevolent giver.” Rather, we should be aiming for participatory models based on a reciprocity that generates a collective sense of common good—a shared life.

We can see how that hyper liberal animating idea has even affected our idea of charity. It’s turned it into a transactional dynamic.

Christian Witness in a New Era

I just want to pause for a moment and think about how the Catholic Social Teaching tradition is fundamentally relational. It becomes clearer to us why it’s the antidote for our time. Everyone will have different expectations and interpretations of what this might look like in practice. But let’s explore some possible approaches, especially if you’re thinking about developing formation for Christian witness.

What does this mean for our everyday lives? What does it mean to be a Christian now in this new context? It’s not good enough to think that we can just do things the way we’ve always done them. This is a new time. People call it a post-Christendom context. But it’s also the context of unravelling—individualism has dominated and wrecked our society. We’re in a new time.

We see evidence of some young people—numbers are small but significant—through the Quiet Revival research, turning to the Catholic Church, hungry for meaning, looking for tradition, perhaps to counter progressivism, searching for some discipline to give shape to their lives.

Some of them may be motivated by political reasons; others are distressed by nihilism or loneliness, looking for belonging. But if we’re to foster an authentic Christian discipleship, especially in the context of the emerging Christian nationalism32 —some of which is adopting Christianity for political reasons—then we have to think carefully about a Christian witness that is shaped around an authentic, relational Christian anthropology that incorporates a common good thinking approach.

There are many dimensions to this. Let me throw some ideas out, and we’ll have a discussion afterwards. Within your Dominican tradition, interiority is fundamental. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the newcomers to Catholicism or to Christianity have really got that yet. They might have come for political reasons or intellectual reasons.

And so teaching people to pray is fundamental—a daily practice, perhaps of the Examen. But I would inject here a question, “how can we make prayer more relational?” You might think about ways of making liturgy more communal, perhaps making adoration more communal, and also to inject into the mix the question: “what is God doing here among us?”

Beginning to raise a habit of attentiveness, a sense of His work, His movements among us. It is also vital to help people be aware of their gifts and skills, what they have to contribute. We need an outward-facing posture, oriented physically and metaphysically, grounded in our neighbourhoods. No longer is it viable for the Church to be inward-facing, serving its own people. We’re called to offer outwardly, but also to be in listening mode, attentive to the Holy Spirit, to find out what’s going on where we live, to be conscious of context.

Too often, Christians carry on as if it’s business as usual. To develop a new practice of noticing, we might perhaps do some walking in the area, mapping: and ask, “who do we know? Who don’t we know? What institutions are in our neighbourhood? Are we in relationship with them? If not, why not? Do we know someone in our congregation who knows them? How can we be proactively relational?” We might consider one-to-one conversations33 as a practice, getting used to having proactive conversations. This is the way we will learn what’s going on in the places where we live.

We can do small relational acts. Fr Sam mentioned “the London Tube problem” – where people avoid eye contact. But now we know that this is actually a much deeper problem.

We can make intentional eye contact as a countercultural act—a simple, friendly thing to do. We can say hello in the street. We can refuse to use the self-checkout. I do. It takes longer.

In terms of our Christian witness in conversation with people, we can assert a confidence about what how faith draws us to live. We can say, “Children are a gift, not a right.” We can say, “We are designed for relationship.” “We should care for our elderly and not kill them.”34 These are becoming strangely countercultural things to say, but this is part of what we need to be building up in terms of our confidence as Christians.

Not a triumphalist version of being a Christian, but a generous, capacious Christianity that has a clear understanding of what it means to be a human being. Bear in mind that in this society, we have been and are being evangelised by another belief system—to become consumers and rights-bearers. It’s not neutral. It’s not a neutral set of ideas that is being pushed: it comes from that animating idea. We have to decide to do things differently.

Part of that is about telling the truth. Truth speech is actually a really powerful device. Many of you will have felt a sense of self-censorship: “I can’t say that. That might be a bit awkward. What’s going to happen if I say that?” When that next happens to you, just take a little pause and think: could I just have the courage to say something that injects a note of doubt, that allows you to be in tune with your conscience?

Because the more we self-censor, the worse it gets. We may have to sacrifice some lack of safety in doing that. We will have to get used to being a bit uncomfortable.

Friendship and Civic Engagement

I also want to speak a bit about friendship—not just in terms of our mates, our friends, but social friendship, civic friendship. Being intentional about reaching out, building those connections with neighbouring institutions, perhaps with unlikely people that we wouldn’t normally come across.

We have the sense that governments may not be able to fix the problems that we face. So in the meantime—and in fact, anytime—and this is what subsidiarity teaches, our approach is to build civic friendship.35 It should be part of who we are. We are part of families, communities, local relationships, associations. We must build connections with our neighbours.

This actually has a cosmic purpose. There’s something profound about human connections in terms of our transcendent nature forming a resistance against the power of the overbearing state and the pervasive power of capital.

We need to be identifying relational forms. For example, you notice a little group in your area, and you think, “They’ve actually got a bit of energy about them.” If it is good, encourage it. Strengthen it. Help to expand its friendship. Connect them with other groups.

Trust in what good people are doing.

I mentioned earlier about charity and how it’s morphed. Consider the meaning of the word. Charity means love: but it’s become a service provider. That’s so different, isn’t it? So when we see the word caritas or charity, let’s try to remember what it’s really about. In the World Day of the Poor letters in recent years, there’s been a strong emphasis that charity is meant to be personal and relational, that we should stop outsourcing.36 We should be approaching this personally.

Giving our time—the gift of time—is so powerful. Our actions here in terms of Christian witness don’t need to be big. Don’t need to be a project. They don’t need to be grand. We don’t need funding. We can actually just start with one small step. In the new era of AI and robotics, this becomes even more important—that we hold on to what it means to be human—that we make things together, do things together. That we don’t just consume.

We can organise a dance. A night playing games. Create spaces for grace—in which people can come together and discover company. Things emerge through relationships. People learn what is going on and discover ways to act together. Associational forms may emerge; we can foster alliances based on relationships of civic friendship.

No one should go through life alone. But many are going through life like that. People are so touched by the opportunity to tell their story, to be heard, to be called by name. We have no idea how lonely many people are. I have a psychoanalyst friend who says the level of distress she sees is really profound.

I’m going to leave you with this passage from Jeremiah that everybody knows so well. I do think this is for our time: that we’re not to turn in; we are to turn out, to be outward facing.

There will be hard years are ahead. The cavalry is not coming over the hill. It’s actually up to us. Courage is required. With the friendship of Christ, we’re called to be pilgrims of peace.

But seek the peace of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the LORD on its behalf for in its peace you will find your peace. (Jeremiah 29.7)

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good (T4CG), a Christian charity dedicated

to spiritual and civic renewal. Working with leaders, churches and schools, T4CG helps people read the signs of

the times and play their part for the common good.

This article by Jenny Sinclair was first published as a chapter in Celebrating Forty Years of Faith in the City, a book of essays reflecting on the significance of the Faith in the City report. Edited by Joe Forde and Terry Drummond, the book was published by Sacristy Press in 2025. Jenny’s chapter is reproduced here in full (approx 9,000 words) with the kind permission of the editors and the publisher.

Introduction

The language-world of Faith in the City was the soundtrack of my teens. I left home in 1980, five years before it was published, but Urban Priority Areas, unemployment, jobs, investment, poverty, social justice, welfare, the poor, deprivation, the unions, the Labour Party, the Thatcher government - this was the currency of our kitchen table.

I preferred Liverpool’s music scene. As the daughter of Bishop David Sheppard, forging my own path was not straightforward. Earlier, in London in the early seventies, our home had been the focal point of conversations between those who would later be the key instigators of the report. As a little girl, I watched Eric James, Robert Runcie and others come and go.

As a young adult, estranged from the faith, I avoided everything church related. I found employment in local government. In my mid-twenties, a dark-night-of-the-soul conversion in 1988 led me to be received into the Catholic Church. I married and worked as a graphic artist and in various charities. While my father’s prominence in the Church of England grew, I chose a quiet life.

Things changed in 2011, after both my parents had died. I experienced a movement of the Spirit. This was just before the Tottenham riots, and I was sensing a social instability, the beginnings of the unravelling that is now evident to all. People were comparing the comparatively weak response from the churches with the partnership1 between my father and Archbishop Derek Worlock in the 1970s - 1990s. Their twenty-year friendship had played a pivotal role in Liverpool at a time of upheaval in the early 1980s. I was being prompted - against my own inclinations - to ask, “what happened to the Sheppard-Worlock spirit?”

Others soon joined me. Over a couple of years of researching the partnership, we found that it had two defining features. First, a joint servant leadership, encouraging an “outward-facing church” that engages with the life of the neighbourhood, and second, their focus on the dignity of the human person and solidarity with poor communities.

This Spirit-movement and historical reflection led to the creation of Together for the Common Good. But while we are inspired by their example, we recognise that this is a new time, with different challenges requiring new approaches. Independent of any denomination, and dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal, we are a small national charity working across the churches, helping leaders and young people discover and fulfil their vocation for the common good. Our understanding, rooted in the tradition of Catholic Social Thought, sees the common good not as a utopian ideal but as ‘the shared life of a society’ that is built ‘by working together across our differences, each taking responsibility, according to calling and ability.’2

Assumptions

For many Anglican clergy, Faith in the City has a special place in their hearts. For some, it inspired their calling to ministry. For significant parts of the Christian community, its engagement with the realities of British life remains a high watermark of social concern. Others, better equipped to do this than I, have assessed its legacy. But for me, its 40^th anniversary offers an opportunity to re-examine the vocation of the Church3 in our own time.

My father is regarded as one of the prime instigators of the report. It is therefore relevant to note the influence of Bias to the Poor.4 I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that this book was an inspiration for them.

What Catholics call the ‘preferential option for the poor’5, is more relevant than ever. But I believe that my father’s preferred way of showing that bias and preference is far too top-down to meet the situation we face today. Fundamentally, he believed that the Church and the State, rather than poor people themselves, should be the prime agents of change.

Bias to the Poor called for a government-led wealth redistribution and for a government-mandated social wage for the low paid and unemployed. Such moves now seem to rely too much on easily abused and often dehumanising centralised state power, and fail to address both the underlying economic causes and the extent of their impact. The book’s advocacy on behalf of poor communities also sounds patrician, overlooking the aspirations and autonomy of the people involved, and underestimating the problems caused by benefit-dependency.

First published on January 1^st, 1983, Bias to the Poor contained some of the key assumptions underpinning Faith in the City which was published just under two years later. Assumptions that were to shape the dynamic between the mainstream Christian denominations and poor communities for two generations.

Much has happened since these publications appeared. We see marked decline in attendance across most of the institutional churches, poverty has got worse, and we find ourselves in a moment of unprecedented geopolitical and cultural upheaval. In such a scenario, it is vital for Christians to read the signs of the times with care and attention.

READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

To begin this process, we need to understand the root causes of the malaise facing the West. If we do not dig deep, our responses are likely to be inadequate. Understanding context is vital. We may address symptoms but fail to comprehend the times. We may approach evangelisation without understanding political economy. If Christian leaders make the wrong call, we may inadvertently promote the injustices we wish to eliminate.

The rethinking needs to be profound, because many of our assumptions - political, social, cultural - are likely to be out of date. This is a new time that warrants an honest examination of conscience, a process that will help with the discernment around how God is calling the Church to play its part.

Catholic Social Thought

There is no such thing as a neutral worldview. So let me be clear about the position I am taking. I listen and learn across the Christian traditions and in particular draw on Catholic Social Thought (CST). My interpretation of this tradition is grounded in political reality by reading a wide range of journalism, and by consulting with political thinkers, philosophers and grassroots communities.

Rooted in the gospel, CST is a body of thinking intended as a gift for all people of goodwill, a deep theological tradition that draws on social and political expertise, data and lived experience from across the world to help us read the signs of the times.

Sometimes referred to as “the theology of the Holy Spirit in practice”, it began at the end of the 19th century as a response to the effects of the Industrial Revolution on working men and families. Now as then, it seeks to uphold the integrity of human beings and creation, and to interrogate structures of power that dehumanise. For many, it stands out as the most coherent theological framework for understanding the world.

At its heart is a notion of justice that demands that we look at what is happening to people, to families, relationships, communities, the natural world, in concrete terms right here, where we are. It identifies three sources of power: the two earthly powers of money and state, and the one relational, transcendent power of human beings in relationship with each other and with God.

It recognises the tension between capital and labour and argues for a balance between them, emphasising the priority of decent work and the dignity of labour.6 Within the Catholic tradition, work is seen as something that gives life meaning and through which we are called by God to help shape the world.

The tradition does recognise the importance of wealth creation and that businesses can and do achieve a great deal of social good. However, there is a realism about the damage that capital can do when it is over-concentrated and under-constrained. Its tendency to exploit and dehumanise workers, to commodify human beings and the natural world, must be kept in check.

It is significant that this tradition is nonpartisan. It has even-handedly condemned all dehumanising modern political-economic systems: communist, socialist and liberal as much as capitalist. All of them are judged to be deeply corrupted by the materialist, spiritually empty premises established by the narrow rationalism of the atheistic Enlightenment.  

What we see

When we read the signs of the times, first we say what we see.

We see that too many young people cannot afford a home. We see that social trust is breaking down. We see the symptoms of what Pope Francis calls a ‘malign’7 culture – consumerism, extreme inequality, indifference to the poor, the collapse of trust in institutions, and subordination of the local to the national, global, and digital. We see sclerotic health systems, the atrophy of local forms of human association. We see the disconnect between the managerial class and the population. We see massive public and private debt. We see the tragedy of displaced people. We see the catastrophic damage done to the natural world. We also see the ‘malign culture’ in the liberalising of abortion and assisted dying, in the industrialisation of human exploitation – the commercialising of surrogacy, gender medicine, the normalising of cosmetic surgery, organ harvesting, sexual exploitation, human trafficking.

We see people bravely trying to navigate these storms. We see extraordinary examples of resilience and humanity. But we are also seeing a steep rise in symptoms of human distress - growing loneliness (higher among the young than the old8), increases in addiction, self-harm, depression, nihilism, indifference, feelings of meaninglessness. We see the tyranny of a social media culture incentivising a false idea of freedom.9

Political economy

The CST tradition helps us to see what is going on in terms of political economy. From Rerum Novarum (1891), to Laborem Excercens (1981), Centesimus Annus (1991), to Caritas in Veritate (2009), Laudato Si (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020), (to name just a few), the great papal encyclicals of this tradition train our instincts to the effects of the economy on human beings and nature.

Looking through this lens, we see a system that has undermined the dignity of work, requiring units of labour to be cheap and mobile; that has offshored our manufacturing jobs to low wage economies; that encourages the importing of workers, away from their own families, to take up low paid jobs that prop up Western business models. This is a system described as “frictionless” by investors, but in human terms, it became a recipe for social unrest.

Four decades ago, the idea of moving to find work was regarded as right wing. This is now rebranded as “freedom”. This transactional freedom is what led to deindustrialisation. It broke parts of our country.

The loss of jobs and investment - with no meaningful replacement - led to civic degradation on a vast scale. Not only in “urban” settings in cities and outer estates, but especially in our coastal towns and former industrial heartlands. It led to the discarding of whole communities, who, to add insult to injury, were then framed as deficient and backward. On top of this, the knowledge economy and the service economies shamed manual labour, further exacerbating the class divide.10

What we have witnessed is effectively a politics of abandonment. There is a political and economic bias against the poor. In human terms, the impact of the new, post-industrial economy has been catastrophic, devastating to the common good.

Liberalism

In 2015, Pope Francis asserted that ‘we are not living in an epoch of change so much as an epochal change.’11 He was among those able to identify that the old era was breaking down. This is a time between eras, which can be described as an interregnum.

Every era is shaped by a particular philosophy. The animating idea of the era that is in the process of breaking down comes from the philosophy of liberalism.12 Liberal ideas have done much good, but today’s dominant form of liberalism, the ideology of neoliberalism, turns Enlightenment ideals of freedom into a tawdry and narrow economic logic, in which the free pursuit of profit maximisation becomes the highest good.

Constraints on finance capital have been removed, and transactional individualism has been promoted. The result is globalisation; a global financial system which largely serves the interests of supranational corporations. The optimal neoliberal arrangement has low wages, big governments that serve businesses, and large welfare states to keep away revolutionary discontent.13 In the neoliberal economic vision, there is nothing wrong with relying on increasingly precarious and meaningless jobs that pay wages too low to live on.

This model of political economy also reshaped our conception of welfare. With over 5.93m people in the UK currently in receipt of Universal Credit,14 we have shifted from a culture of community interdependence to the impersonal support of money transfers and the government provision of services.

The impacts of this system are not just economic. The reshaping of our conception of work has affected our personal relationships. A labour market dominated by low skill, low security jobs, on top of an inflated property market, has undermined family formation and weakened the confidence of the young in their adult prospects. The philosophy underpinning the neoliberal model has led to profound social and moral consequences too.

The Catholic economist Luigino Bruni says that this system ‘gives birth to and fosters its own sense of being human’; that ‘it engenders the promise of interpersonal relationships without the wound of the other.’15

Its amoral incentives to fragmentation eat away at shared values and erode our sense of citizenship; it dissolves the particularity of place; its commodification is undoing what it means to be human. Its individualism ferments multiple pathologies: relationship breakdown, loneliness, mental health disorders, crime, the breakdown of social trust, spiritual, cultural and moral confusion. It results in a de-moralisation.

This is why we see the emergence, on both the progressive left and the extreme right, of identitarian politics, distorted forms of victimhood, authoritarian tendencies, the battle of rights and the culture wars.

In this paradigm we are pitted against each other on the basis of identity and opinion, a polarisation that alienates us from each other. The result is a distraction from the fundamental problem, which is a dysfunctional political economy generating poverty in all its forms - economic, relational and spiritual. It is very important to understand this distraction.

Within this system there is a denial of the transcendent and a dominance of the material. This denial subverts natural law and generates an anti-human system that some call ‘the machine’16. Our eyes may be trained to the so-called “cost of living crisis”, but this is just one symptom of a deeper dysfunction.

Anthropology

The type of operating system that this philosophy generates is inherently unstable because it is founded upon a false anthropology - a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being which generates a false idea of freedom. At the core of this is freedom from constraint – including from country, from history, from religion, from God, and now even from human nature itself.

In its extreme form, this cult of freedom sees family as a constraint, and tradition and accountability as obstacles to “progress”; even relationship to place is reframed as old fashioned. Ultimately, its relativism “liberates” society from truth and from mutual responsibility.17

Its view of the human being incorporates the idea of “the unencumbered self”, emphasising rights over responsibilities, corroding our sense of mutual obligation. It is effectively an assault on relationship.

This philosophy denies the primacy of God and creates a cult of self. This is quite different from a Christian anthropology where human beings are understood to be transcendent, relational beings, made in the image of God.

This individualism drives a political economy where we outsource more and more of the things we used to do as communities to the state or to the market: childcare, care for our civic environment, entertainment, care of the elderly. The results include family breakdown, isolation, the fragmentation of communities, corruption and spiritual confusion.

The motivation of this spirit is anti-human, which is why the system is now unravelling. Every country that follows this system is seeing the same effects. Beneath its shiny veneer, we are faced with a disintegration. With a relativistic and materialist logic – no truth and no beauty – its worldview ultimately brings about its own destruction, and in the meantime, ‘as the old is dying, and the new cannot yet be born…a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’18

Our modern pharaohs

CST has long warned about the centralisation of power, whether of capital or the state, because it undermines human relationships, weakens social bonds and undermines local agency and democracy. The principalities and powers of our time can be conceptualised as our modern pharaohs.

Whenever finance capital dominates, it has the tendency to dehumanise and exploit. It presents with a friendly face, but its business is the commodification of creation and the financialisation of everything: land, water, homes, human beings.

We see for example, venture capital offering to pay huge sums to farming families for their land.19 At the same time, we see the state making increasing financial demands on family farms and family businesses.

Governments are becoming more authoritarian, with more decisions taken outside of the democratic process. Around the world post-Covid, we have seen government overreach, with increasing surveillance, censorship and the cultivation of self-censorship, and growing interest in digital social credit systems to control behaviour. The results are sure to be disastrous. As John Paul II said, ‘collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it.’20

While some find it hard to believe that totalitarianism - even the soft ‘dictatorship of relativism’ that the then-Cardinal Ratzinger warned about - is a real threat in our time,21 these developments, together with artificial intelligence, foreshadow a dreadful future. Pope Francis too, has repeatedly warned about the rise of ‘the technocratic paradigm’22 in which “human nature” is seen as a problem to be managed and corrected. He insists that: ‘We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives.’23

And now we see a collusion between our modern pharaohs, where governments act in the interests of big corporations, insulating them from democratic accountability. This modern Egypt, a corrupt merger of corporate and state power, operates a different kind of slavery, hidden behind a list of pseudo-freedoms. The malign spirit says, “you can have mobility, consumer choice, rights and self-determination! You only have to obey a few sensible rules, and not dream about higher things.”

DISCONTENT

The liberal consensus is supported across almost the entire British political class. The founding values of both major parties were abandoned as the ideology of neoliberalism became dominant,.24 Over forty years, the Conservatives forgot their calling to conserve, and Labour lost touch with those who actually labour. Their expressions were different, but both parties were colonised by the same hyper-liberal dogma, in effect becoming a “uni-party,”25 disconnected from reality on the ground.

This philosophy shows up on the right as neoliberal economics, and on the left as hyper-liberal social norms. Both versions are driven by the same logic; they regard limits and borders as unjust and regressive. Each has a blind spot: the right attributes moral unravelling to excessive liberalism, but somehow the neoliberal economic system gets a free pass; the left attributes poverty to neoliberal economics, but accepts unlimited self-actualisation, which is seen as progressive.

This misadventure, whether intentional or through naivety or neglect, can be regarded as a liberal hegemony. It led to gross mismanagement by successive governments and has been provoking increasing discontent.

The so-called “left behind” had enough. After four decades of devastation, they had nothing left to lose. In previous eras their actions might have been understood as a peasants’ revolt.26

Opposition has extended to the truckers in Canada; Dutch, German and British farmers; the Gilet Jaunes in France; the multi-country disquiet around mass immigration, net zero policies, and the gender industry; to poor employment conditions, wage stagnation and high inflation. Although labelled “populist”, and despite bad actors harming their credibility, these movements have broad support. This is the resistance of the excluded majority. The hyper liberal project is being rejected.27

While the “legacy” (mainstream) media have ignored or downplayed these developments, a courageous field of independent journalists and commentators has served an audience hungry for authenticity. Growing dissent has fuelled disarray among many established parties, as in the UK and most of Europe, and a political realignment in the United States.

Objections have been framed as extremist in the most derogatory terms by an elite, liberal, managerial ‘overclass’28 in an attempt to retain control of the narrative. They could not accept - or even understand - that what they termed “populism” was actually ‘political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have created.’29

In the UK, the mainstream political class has become almost entirely disconnected from the basic things that most people – not just the most left-behind – care about. It is as if politicians are saying, ‘we don’t have any ideas, any viable policies to give you dignified and meaningful work, to sort out your housing issues; we don’t know how to get the younger generation on the housing ladder.’ This is how Anna Rowlands puts it. She adds, ‘this is the disgrace and the dishonesty of the politics that we live with.’ 30

The 2024 American Presidential Election produced a decisive rejection of globalisation and progressivism. It is yet to become clear how this will play out in practice. The new political divide is now31 between the transhumanist oligarchs and the interests of a broad multi-racial, multi-faith working class. What matters to most people is family, place, decent work, stability, security, economic justice, truth and common sense.

The question now is who can deliver a common good political economy that can underpin a social peace32, defend our liberties, meet the needs of families and develop a new orthodoxy capable of taking our society into the future. Populist parties may be asking some of the right questions, but they do not have the answers. In this change of era, volatility will continue until a new settlement is reached. Meanwhile, we can be sure, even if globalisation is over, that neoliberal interests will use whatever means and disguises they can to ensure that their economic model continues uninterrupted.

Christian Justice

It is imperative that the way we think about justice is consistent with our faith. Christianity is not libertarian, neither is it welfarist or utilitarian. Rather, rooted in the ancient rabbinical tradition, the Christian model of justice is concerned with right relationship, with God and with each other.

For example, the Torah’s laws on helping someone in debt33 involve detailed relational elements. The lender is obliged to accompany the borrower, providing support and advice, and, must ‘exact no interest from them’ (Exodus 22:24).

This points us in a radically different direction from the way poverty is addressed by our current welfare state arrangements, where help is likely to mean the digital transfer of cash, leaving the person alone in their flat. This utilitarian, welfarist method, following the individualistic paradigm, aims for efficiency and cost effectiveness. But its systems are neither efficient nor cost effective. They are hugely expensive, and, minimising human connection, they generate unnecessary suffering.

Campaigns that simply call for more benefits perpetuate this utilitarian, rights-based model of justice. The relational imperative ought to be at the heart of Christian campaigns.

Failure to understand the neoliberal political economy has allowed identitarian politics to dominate our conception of justice. For example, treating issues of inequality predominantly in terms of cultural, rights-based intersectionality categories undermines social solidarity and displaces economic justice. This divisive model suits our modern pharaohs, because it splinters opposition and keeps wages low.

A model of justice based on Christian anthropology does not pit low paid or poor people against each other according to identity. Rather, Christian justice starts with the assumption that human beings thrive in relationship, not on their own. It takes the form of listening to the concerns of all workers34 and then building relationships between them. From this solidarity alliances are forged, as with the best trades unions, capable of negotiating with the powers.

In God’s economy, if you’re having a hard time, I’m to walk in relationship with you and accompany you until you get back on your feet, for as long as it takes. It may involve some money or helping you get a job, but primarily it is about accompaniment. Not just give you cash and leave you alone. The Christian justice tradition is anchored in God’s economy of mutual obligation and right relationship.

Every year Pope Francis publishes a letter for the World Day of the Poor. He insists that our response is personal, that we are to stop outsourcing, that solutions are not to be found in activism or welfarism.35 We are not to use the welfare system or charitable agencies as a way of keeping poor people at arm’s length. This is consistent with the Personalism tradition favoured by John Paul II, Dorothy Day, and the Catholic Worker Movement.36

Our primary relationships as human beings should be with each other rather than with state agencies, the market and impersonal institutions. At a time of increasing global instability, these right relationships with our neighbours - local, embedded, embodied, grounded, across ethnicity, sex, age, background and opinion - will become more and more important.

WHOSE SIDE IS THE CHURCH ON?

Reflecting on the last forty years, we can see that in the mid-1980s the neoliberal system was just beginning. Its impact since then has been immense. If Faith in the City had appreciated the true nature of that era, its recommendations might have been different.

Since then, many communities with proud civic histories have been abandoned and even demonised. Some churches have offered sympathy, but very few leaders have so far demonstrated an understanding of the political economy underlying this civic degradation. These communities have been as let down by the Church as they have by the political class.

To discern our way forward, we should begin by exploring what we can learn from Jesus in His time. There are parallels between our modern Egypt and the Roman economy in Galilee,37 where Jesus was the son of a carpenter. The Roman system privileged the elites who controlled the storehouses and kept down the wages of the workers.

Jesus resisted the excesses of this political economy by promoting the kingdom of heaven. His centre of gravity was with the poor, the meek and the lowly: people who had been humiliated, those who suffered, were despised, who had been abandoned. Like the prophets before him, he judged harshly those who were indifferent to the poor.

His instinct was not to start a factional campaign group, but to bring people together in solidarity, across class, ethnicity and educational background, to build a common life. Jesus promoted a non-violent sacrificial resistance characterised by love and just relationship.

From the gospels, CST derives a framework for good judgement. Among its key principles are solidarity, subsidiarity, the dignity of work, participation, stewardship and the preferential option for the poor. This integrated framework, underpinned by discernment of the Holy Spirit, centres around upholding the integrity and dignity of the human being and the natural world.

These principles call us, just as our Lord called the people he met in Galilee, to be the embodiment of love in a desecrated world. To build the common good with God and neighbour in the places where we live. To accompany each other in solidarity, to offer some resistance to the domination of the principalities and powers. To hold a sacred space in which human beings can be together to encounter the transcendent. To create places to be loved and heard, to share and build bonds, a sense of family.

Much of the work of the Church Urban Fund, the Together Network, and the numerous other networks that have developed over the last forty years embody this relational spirit. There is much to be proud of.

However, serious questions hang over the Christian social action landscape. Volunteer burnout is widespread, many churches are vulnerable, funding is under huge pressure, need is greater, social problems are more complex, and poverty is getting worse. Perhaps most concerning is the increasingly estranged dynamic between many Christians and poor communities.

How the Church responds in this period of unprecedented change is of great importance. To discern this response, we can start by looking honestly at some of the problems around this estrangement.

The question of language

The language world that has developed in Christian social action circles is revealing. Terms like “client”, “outreach” and “service delivery” - even “social action” itself - do not reflect a culture of friendship and mutual respect. Likewise, professional class terminology like “community development”, “projects” and “facilitators” betrays a mindset common to government and NGO culture. One way to explore this is to check which words can be said in front of someone who is poor.

This is challenging for those used to thinking of themselves as activists or service providers. Clearly there are distinctions between charitable organisations and individual Christians. But such managerial approaches can risk engineering out the possibility of hearing the Holy Spirit and make vital, smaller, more informal activity look trivial.

By contrast, a covenantal or synodal38 spirituality of listening and dwelling with our neighbours39 is more suitable for our time. Such a posture involves a shift from “host” to “neighbour.” This demands some unlearning, patience and availability. Funding is secondary.

The term “marginalised” may sound appropriate from a church activist position, but it depends where you stand. In God’s worldview, poor people are not marginal. The number of people classified as poor in the UK alone is currently around 14 million.40 That includes those who are working, unemployed and destitute. That is a lot of people. It doesn’t feel “marginal” to me, even by worldly political standards. We are now post-Christendom and the dynamics have changed: it is now the Church which is marginalised.

The food bank paradox

The food bank paradox41 is well-known: while they are vital, we wish they didn’t exist. But there is a bigger problem. The more efficient emergency food aid becomes, the less urgent economic reform appears. This helps to mask the need for the prophetic. Tragically, the food bank network is now baked into a toxic political economy that props up big corporations.

From the perspective of the CST tradition, any activity around food poverty must be situated within well-articulated demands for economic reform, for decent jobs, retraining, for place-based investment – ‘to restore the places long devastated’ (Isaiah 61). CST is also insistent that the dignity of decent, fulfilling work should be central to a politics of the common good. We must not capitulate to a combination of low wage precarious jobs, worklessness, and welfare.

Food banks and associated support services, along with other forms of social action are often sources of pride among churches wanting to serve the community and to demonstrate their usefulness, especially in an increasingly secularised culture. There is of course a vital role for charity, but the Church is not called to be a handmaid to the state: it has a sacred vocation to be transformational, not to be useful.

Churches may be providing vital services, but the service-client dynamic can inadvertently alienate the very people it aims to help, and, can lead to burnout among those who volunteer. The more visionary leaders have responded by integrating relational elements into their work, such as cafes and conversation.

But Pope Francis goes much further: he says that Christians must stop seeing charity in a service provider mindset and instead look to living a shared life. He says we ‘must commit to a mutual sharing of life that does not allow proxies’.42

Church-based food activity has this potential, to be a place of communion at the heart of congregational life, where people in need are no longer peripheral, passive recipients but active companions. This can look like a place to meet and talk, to be known and to be blessed - a place of nourishment in the broadest sense. And more: to be a place of mutuality and reciprocity, with opportunities to help, to create and produce.

Churches must learn to receive as well as give: to become communities of place, where being relational is less of a project and more of a disposition. In this way charity acquires a constructive, restorative role that addresses the breakdown of trust, loneliness, the loss of agency, the atrophy of local institutions, and other consequences of neoliberalism.

(Dis)empowerment

In writing about Faith in the City, Greg Smith43 observed the need to move on from the Temple tradition and the condescending ‘effortless superiority’ of the established Church. These power dynamics are not restricted to the Anglican Church: they have roots in the wider culture. It can be helpful to unpack certain elements.

Many Christian charities and volunteering models, just as in mainstream society, have been infected by the culture of individualism, falling into patterns of transactional exchange between the active deliverer or rescuer and the passive recipient, of whom nothing is asked.

It is also true that many Christians say they feel safer in a service-provider posture, or in fundraising for charity, than in getting to know their neighbours. Often there is fear of getting too involved with troubled families. There are issues of confidence and tensions around class.

The scale of class estrangement must not be underestimated. Questions of class and the churches go beyond the wellbeing and recruitment of clergy and barriers to belonging, as important as these issues are. There is a wider problem that needs to be understood. Much of the Church over the last forty years – just like the Labour Party44 and many of our other institutions – has been captured by a middle-class culture and has lost connection with poor communities.

An army veteran I know (who goes to church) said, ‘The church has become a woke foodbank. Handouts are soul destroying. People need dignified work so they can maintain some self-respect.’

There are many examples that challenge this perception, and the Church has been truly heroic in the quiet determination of thousands of volunteers in meeting overwhelming need. But it must be said that the inability to comprehend the underlying cultural trends has been a significant factor in class estrangement. If Faith in the City had had a more robust theology of political economy, it might have sown the seeds of a better story.

Just as then, many Christians now also fail to recognise the philosophy that lies behind the neoliberal system. Rather than addressing the root causes, there is a tendency to see issues of hunger and poverty in the context of welfare solutions.

Advocacy campaigns to “end poverty” and calls for adjustments to benefits reduce the causes of poverty to government austerity measures. Supposed solutions are then found in monetary redistribution through the tax system. The fundamental problems of the malign culture are ignored.

This kind of piecemeal approach, often claiming to be “prophetic”, barely addresses the causes, and gives the principalities and powers a free pass. Despite all the good work taking place, the Church is then perceived to be an enabler of the system. More insidious still, this posture feeds a politics of low expectations.

The service-client dynamic can deprive a person of their agency, and over time de-skill and entrench dependency and entitlement. By contrast, a relational approach, as Jon Kuhrt has said45, can be more effective in terms of building up a person’s confidence. Quoting a formerly homeless woman who said, ‘It’s alright all these agencies giving people things, but you have to want to help yourself…’, Jon emphasises the importance of enabling personal responsibility and ‘the balance between grace and truth’.

The issues around this dynamic reflect the creative tension in CST between solidarity - standing alongside those affected by poverty and advocating for economic justice - and subsidiarity, the principle encouraging responsibility to be taken at the appropriate level, empowering people to help themselves, according to their ability.

As Pope Benedict XVI said: ‘Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person [which] respects personal dignity by recognising in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others.’46 This is not only significant for people finding themselves in debt, destitution, unemployment, or with chronic health conditions. It is particularly important in relation to struggling families. Parents desperately need help to withstand the effects of the malign culture on family life. Helping a family in difficulty to reach a place of strength and independence is a gift of inestimable value.

Christian activists have consistently asserted their role as “a voice for the voiceless”. There is much vital advocacy going on here, from raising awareness of modern slavery to housing problems. However, sometimes the issues can be limited to the perspective of the advocate (and their funders), rather than reflecting the actual concerns of poor communities. Despite platforms in charity campaign videos and poverty truth commissions, a middle class presumption persists that the poor don’t truly understand their own interests.

Democratic events since 2016 have shown that people from poor communities do have a voice. Their interpretation of the times, however, was different from that of most Christian leaders and activists whose position aligned with that of the establishment and big corporates.47 It should not then be a surprise that so many poor and working class communities have become estranged from the Church.

A NEW STORY: COMMUNION

The coming years in the UK may be hard. These times may call for a kind of tragic realism,48 but they also demand a new language deeper and more resonant than that of the urban church era. We are invited into a story of civic and spiritual renewal, of truth, beauty and goodness.

The language of CST can not only help us to read the signs of the times and call out structures of sin. It can also to inspire us to build structures of grace.

Without being prescriptive or theocratic, the tradition helps us discern a holistic, constructive response that bridges the false dichotomy between evangelisation and social concerns. Pope John Paul II puts it in these terms: ‘God is entrusting to you the task, at once difficult and uplifting, of working with Him in the building of the civilisation of love.’49

This is humble but hugely ambitious. Our response to the culture of individualism and the threat of a technocratic future begins, in humility, with listening, to God and to our fellow citizens. But given that so many churches have become disconnected from their local communities, the place to start is not so much with projects, programmes, and funding applications, but by spending time with our neighbours.

Congregations can develop a practice of listening in the neighbourhood, through the art of the one-to-one conversation.50 Always anchored in practices of prayer, such as lectio divina51, the aim is not to recruit for a project or a campaign, but simply to have the honour of hearing a person’s story. From this listening, relationships will develop, and what matters to people will become clear. Then, all manner of meaningful things will happen.

These times require speaking truth. Intimidation by political correctness has been a scourge and the Church should refuse it. Without open deliberation, the common good is impossible. Indeed, ‘truth speech connects us. It is the truth that restores the ties between people.’52 To be truly countercultural, churches ought to be convening social spaces where people are free to speak, where there is respect for diversity of opinion and disagreement is possible without fear.

People need company and are yearning for meaning. The loneliness, isolation and spiritual hunger of our times derive from the individualistic and nihilistic philosophy underpinning our culture. To assist people in the unveiling of the sacred, there is a distinctive role for churches in this work of repair, using liturgy both inside and outside church in communal acts of celebration, pilgrimage and solidarity. Our spiritual practices, across the Christian traditions, are rich in both depth and diversity. From fasting to the Eucharist, a new confidence is called for.

Each of us can enable a better story, by living out what it means to love and to care, to suffer with and to trust, to forgive, to be sacrificial and to show what it means to be a companion, a friend, a good neighbour. These things are fast becoming elusive, especially among the young. It is necessary to be intentional.

Pope Francis warns that young people are the most vulnerable to the effects of the malign culture, which he says, ‘makes them feel like losers, introduces illusions about the meaning of life, promotes a transactional paradigm, and the idolatry of physical perfection.’53

The Church can tell a better story through accompaniment - unmediated by digital platforms - in the ups and downs of life, the natural experiences of birth and death; where people can share what it means to be human and what it means to be a person with a soul.

Pope Francis has urged world leaders to recognise the imminent threat to humanity from artificial intelligence and the new transhumanist industries. He stresses the importance of ‘politics’, of strengthening democratic processes, to uphold human agency.54 The new industrial revolution is not all negative, but it opens the way to the exploitation of the human being on an unprecedented scale, and it has the potential to shame the physical, eclipsing reality.

In this context, the theology of place55 and local relationships become especially significant. The writings of John Inge56, Andrew Rumsey57, Alison Milbank58 and Martin Robinson59 are helpful here. They can help develop what is most needed: a covenantal model of church and parish, committed to the local, which lives and breathes, celebrates and grieves with the people of the neighbourhood.

These times also call for a better literacy about what a common good political economy involves. The fundamental cultural change required cannot be achieved only by government. A common good story of renewal requires both solidarity – commitment to the good of all – and subsidiarity – where responsibility is taken, whenever possible, by the smallest, lowest, or least centralised competent authority rather than by a higher and more distant one. We can begin to imagine a new vision in which everyone is called to play their part:

In this new settlement at the national level, governments will balance different interests, for example, across class and educational background, between business and unions, young and old, urban and rural, migrants and host communities60, capital and labour. Governments support the conditions that prioritise communities and families; they deconcentrate the power of capital by permitting regional banks and energy providers, and by fostering shorter food supply chains.

State power is distributed, where appropriate, by resourcing autonomy at local and regional levels. Welfare is delivered through national mutuals61 based on the contributory principle. A national industrial strategy centred around the dignity of work, implemented locally, incentivises place-based investment, job creation and retraining – balancing environmental measures with livelihoods. At the heart of this new settlement is a unifying narrative, and a restoration project to correct the damage done to the most abandoned places.

At the regional level, there is intentional collaboration between businesses, employers, investors, educational bodies, regional associations, religious and other networks working together for the renewal of their region, attracting investment to create a robust economy with decent jobs for local people.

At the local level, local government creates conditions that enable a civil economy and the autonomy of local people to run their own organisations. Relationships grow between local businesses, schools, sports clubs, charities, local associations, churches and other religious bodies; each meeting local needs, working together for the good of the community, enabling local people to find fulfilment.62 This local ecosystem, centred around the recognition that the family is the fundamental building block of society, is geared to cultivate family life, encouraging families to support each other and their neighbours, and to teach young people civic responsibility and the importance of good local relationships.63

At the personal level there is a culture of civic friendship64, of mutuality, of borrowing and lending, a reciprocal gift economy. There is more interdependence and less reliance on market and state.

Each Christian has a particular vocational responsibility to fulfil. Despite determined attempts to undermine and privatise Christianity, and intense pressure to conform to secular ideologies, the faithful are called not to hide away but to play our part to bring about this common good vision.

Amidst all the brokenness, we must live with the expectation that God is at work. Our calling is to become attuned to the movements of the Spirit in the mundane, in conversations at the bus stop, in the taxi, in the local shop. Moments of mutual acknowledgement, acts of loving kindness, intentional acts of listening, truth telling, making eye contact, putting down the smartphone – all of these can rehumanise, restore and uphold the human space. We need holy, unmediated time together.

When we listen to the Spirit in this way, we invite a new imagination to stir among us. New forms of local association may emerge. Forms that make ‘provision for each person to have a hand in shaping and benefiting from the material and social conditions under which they live and work.’ This is how Luke Bretherton describes the Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain’s vision of Christian humanism. Maritain saw local democratic forms of association ‘as a vital means through which humans can realise their true natures as those created in the image of God.’65

Whether around local mutual aid, sport, entertainment, care of the vulnerable, energy, land or housing, such grassroots collaborations can develop into forms of economy that, embedded in local relationships, have greater resilience.

As Wendell Berry puts it: ‘an economy genuinely local and neighbourly offers to localities a measure of security that they cannot derive from a national or a global economy controlled by people who, by principle, have no local commitment.’66

Small and local forms of Christian social action offer possibilities too. Food banks, community hubs, pantries and social supermarkets, night shelters, Places of Welcome, credit unions and churches of all shapes and sizes, when connected, hold the promise of an interconnected energy greater than the sum of their parts. But to be truly transformational, models of ownership need to change.

Churches are well-placed, to help poor and working class communities forge mutually beneficial relationships between, for example, charitable food provision and farming communities. The challenge is to discover ways that extend beyond charity to local production; to nurture the latent potential of a truly participatory grassroots economy that is owned and run by the people themselves.

This era calls for a relational church.67 For local Christian communities to be constructive partners, living a shared life with neighbours on low incomes. Sharing each other’s joys, hopes and tragedies, acting together to build a place where our children can make a life. We are all missionary disciples now,68 called to join in the restorative work of the Holy Spirit in our neighbourhoods. The times call for a new formation and an ancient discipleship: to seek the welfare of the city.

But there is a deeper reason why Christians are called to live in solidarity with people trapped in poverty. Pope Francis says the Church needs to be evangelised by the poor.69 Why does he say this? He says that people who are poor tend to have retained a common sense, a sense of their need for others that the affluent and the busy so easily lose. Without them, Christians will misread the signs of the times. Recognising the cost of mission drift, Francis sees that relationships of mutuality and reciprocity with poor communities will keep the Church grounded in truth and close to God.

My conclusion is simple yet challenging. This time of interregnum could be an inflection point for the churches. I want to honour the energy that Faith in the City generated, its many fruits and its legacy. But I sense that another such report may not deliver what is hoped for. What is needed now is an examination of conscience, and then a quiet but determined revolution.

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, a charity dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal. Drawing on Catholic Social Thought, T4CG resources Christian leaders and churches across all denominations, as well as schools and charities, to read the signs of the times and play their part for the common good. She writes and speaks about the vocation of the church in society, and is co-host of Leaving Egypt, a transatlantic podcast exploring what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling. Daughter of the late David Sheppard, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, Jenny was received into the Catholic Church in 1988. 

This article was first published in Celebrating Forty Years of Faith in the City published by Sacristy Press (2025). Edited by Terry Drummond and Joseph Forde. Contributors: Terry Drummond, Joseph Forde, Angus Ritchie, Jenny Sinclair, David Walker, Averil Pooten Watan, Alan Billings, Andrew Bradstock, Sophie Valentine Cowan, Ian K Duffield, Susan Lucas, John Perambalath. The Paperback is available for £9.99 here.

Footnotes

Jenny Sinclair diagnoses the roots of our fractured age, revealing how hyper-individualism and consumerism have fuelled today’s social and spiritual crisis. She turns to Catholic schools, proposing that by forming students in the common good—shaped by Catholic Social Teaching, rooted in Christian anthropology, and guided by relational spirituality—they can become part of the antidote to the malaise, and, in relationship with their local communities, participate in God’s mission to transform the world.

Signs of the Times: Catholic Schools and the Common Good

Are our Catholic schools fit for the world of today? Views are polarised. Some think that our schools are not doing what they were set up to do and should be closed – while others take the view that things are going well and there is no need to change.

The current system was set up in a different era, when religion played a larger part in national life, when the country and its leaders were more unified about how schools should educate their students. Of course, Catholic schools have evolved, but in this essay I will argue that they need to re-find a mission that has often been misplaced, and then to pursue that mission in a world in which the old older is unravelling.

Diagnosis

Change of era: the unravelling

Before even talking about schools, it is important to study the world they are set in and preparing students to enter. To do that, Catholics should follow the counsel of our social encyclicals, and read the signs of the times.

We are witnessing a period of great upheaval. As Ernest Hemingway famously said, ‘change happens slowly then all at once.’

And it was the late Pope Francis who articulated this long before most, saying that we are living through ‘not just an era of change, but a change of era.’

This period has been described as a process of being stripped of ‘false securities.’ It is no longer possible to ‘complacently enjoy’[1] the illusions of the old era, nor credible to continue with the assumption that governments have adequately represented us, or that the socio-economic model we’ve been living with can underwrite a flourishing life for all.

The unravelling of the old era is described by some as a meta crisis. Understanding its features will help us navigate the new as it emerges. The Catholic Social Thought tradition trains us to see how systems of political economy affect human life.

So, what do we see?

We see young people struggling to afford a home, massive public and private debt, failing health and social care systems, extremes of inequality and deep estrangements between affluent and poor communities.

We see the tragedy of war, refugees and displaced people, human trafficking, the commodification of creation and climate change.

We see the cheapening of the human being in the liberalizing of abortion, assisted suicide, commercial surrogacy and extreme body modification - exploitation on an industrial scale, fuelled by exploitative social media platforms – to which our young are the most vulnerable.

We’ve seen the subordination of the local by the digital, the atrophy of local forms of human association, the exponential growth of big data and the acceleration of the technological paradigm.

We see collapsing trust in institutions, identity groups living separate lives, falling social trust, growing tribalism and polarisation and rising levels of anger among working class communities.

And we see people bravely trying to navigate these storms. We see great resilience and humanity.

But we are also seeing a steep rise in symptoms of human distress - loneliness, addiction, self-harm, depression, nihilism and feelings of meaninglessness.

Of course this is only part of the picture. There are many positive things happening too. But our tradition trains us to pay attention to poverty in all its forms, so we must be attentive. In our fragmenting country, what you see depends on where you live, who you know, and what media you consume.

Political Economy

The Catholic Social Thought tradition also calls us to pay attention to political economy. This framework reveals features of the old era - big corporations requiring units of labour to be cheap and mobile, manufacturing being offshored to empower low wage economies with no workers’ rights, as well as the importing of workers away from their own families, to take up low paid jobs to prop up Western business models. The idea was to provide a “frictionless” environment for investors. But this loss of skills and capacity to make things weakened our national security, and in human terms, became a recipe for social unrest.

Four decades ago, the idea that people should have to move to find work was regarded as right wing. This is now rebranded as “freedom”. This loss of jobs and investment - with no meaningful replacement - led to civic degradation on a vast scale. The shift to the knowledge economy and the service economies then shamed manual labour. [2] To add insult to injury, communities which suffered that loss were then framed as deficient and backward. I would describe this as a politics of abandonment. It has been a breach of the common good.

Liberalism, anthropology and false freedom

So what’s going on? How do we make sense of this? What connects all these disparate symptoms? If we are to discern the way forward for our schools, we must understand the underlying drivers of our current context.

Every era is shaped by a particular philosophy. The theological tradition of Catholic Social Thought helps us to see that the animating idea of the era that is in the process of breaking down comes from the philosophy of liberalism,[3] in particular, an extreme strain known as neoliberalism.

It is inherently unstable, because the ideology relies on a false anthropology – a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being which generates a false idea of freedom and leads to a cult of self - quite unlike a Christian, Catholic anthropology where the person is a relational being made in the image of God.

This philosophy is built upon the idea of “the unencumbered self” where “freedom” is understood as freedom from constraint - including from the constraints of family, country, borders, history, from God, and from natural law.

It seeks to relegate faith to a lifestyle choice, where Christianity is seen merely as a personal preference. It regards tradition and accountability as obstacles to “progress,” and relationship to place as old-fashioned.

Ultimately, it “liberates” society from truth and from mutual responsibility. The motivation of this spirit is anti-human, which is why the system is now unravelling. Its relativistic and materialist logic ultimately brings about its own destruction.

It has led to a spiritual confusion, a de-moralization and the emergence of identitarian politics, distorted forms of victimhood and the culture wars. The result is a distraction from the fundamental problem, a dysfunctional political economy generating poverty in all its forms - economic, relational, moral and spiritual.

Its amoral approach eats away at shared values and erodes our sense of citizenship. It dissolves the particularity of place and commodifies what it means to be human. All of this puts our communities and schools and churches under strain.

Its individualism separates and divides. It promotes an over emphasis on rights and an atrophy of mutual obligation. It drives us to outsource more and more of the things that we used to do as communities to the state or the market, yielding them more power and weakening civil society.

It is in fact a kind of slavery – it offers a list of pseudo-freedoms. It says, “on condition of your compliance, you can have mobility, consumer choice, rights and self-determination!” This false story of freedom is endlessly promoted by the principalities and powers of our time: the over-centralised technocratic state, global finance and corporations.

Discontent

This pervasive ideology has captured many of our institutions for at least 45 years. Our political parties were colonised by its dogma and became disconnected from realities on the ground. The Conservatives stopped conserving and Labour abandoned its purpose to represent human labour.

This hyper-liberal hegemony corrupted the politics of both the Right and the Left. Both became driven by the same logic, both regarding limits and borders as regressive.

There has been a kind of mutual blindspot going on: the Right attributed moral unravelling to excessive liberalism, but somehow the neoliberal economic system got a free pass – while the Left attributed poverty to the neoliberal economic system, but embraced unlimited self-actualisation, which was seen as progressive.

Gross mismanagement by successive governments provoked such discontent that we are now facing the greatest political realignment for a hundred years.

But this is not just a domestic phenomenon. It is part of a global trend. Opposition to the hyper liberal project of globalisation and progressivism extends across the West, characterised by objections to its extreme migration and net zero policies, its wage stagnation, deindustrialisation, its identitarian and sexual dogma and its authoritarian attempts to silence dissent.

Efforts by a politically empty ‘overclass’[4] to fend off this revolt have alienated the public further. As John Gray says, they cannot comprehend that what they termed “populism” is actually ‘political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have created.’[5]

A hinge moment

We find ourselves at a hinge moment. We will see who, if anyone, amidst the struggle for power, can provide the leadership and design a political economy that can deliver social peace.[6]

Why should we focus on all of this when we want to talk about education? Because understanding context is vital if we are to discern the mission of our schools in the new era. Despite attempts by the modern state to subordinate the Church to the private realm, what goes on in our neighbourhoods, workplaces, in our parliament and online, is the context of our embodied reality and the location of our calling.

As the prophet Jeremiah reminds us, we are to ‘Seek the welfare of the city and pray for it on the LORD’s behalf, for in its welfare we will find our welfare.’ It is therefore of great spiritual importance that we engage.

Amidst the unravelling, we can see that people are yearning for truth and meaning.

A recent study, On Edge showed the young are especially distressed by meaninglessness. The Age of Alienation by the UK thinktank Onward tracked the dramatic collapse of social trust and social attachment in the young.

Lonely Nation, by the Centre for Social Justice, shows dramatically higher rates of loneliness among the young than the old. Such metrics tend to be perceived in psychological terms as mental health issues but are probably better understood in terms of existential crisis.

This yearning for meaning has translated into an upturn in church going among Gen Z. The frequently quoted Quiet Revival research reveals an increase among 18–24-year-olds in monthly church attendance from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2025, especially among young men. Gen Z is showing interest particularly in Catholicism and Pentecostalism. The data highlights an increase in Catholic participation compared to other denominations (112% growth; from a low base, partially due to the effects of migration) and also shows that 47% of 18-34 Black young people are attending church at least monthly.

While we shouldn’t get over-excited by these small indications, anecdotal reports confirm a surge of interest in Catholicism and researchers believe that “full fat” Christianity seems to be attracting Gen Z in ways that liberal forms do not. Seemingly because the more conservative traditions provide a sense of truth and solidity that people are so desperate for in a sea of meaninglessness and relativism.

The shape of the new era

The shape of the new era is quite different from the old. As Lord Glasman said in a recent lecture for us, ‘the old era was progressive, and the emerging era is tragic; the previous era was procedural, legal and administrative; the new era will be political, democratic and volatile…an era of industrial production.. of war..of artificial intelligence…of borders.. of restoration.. of courage.’ He also senses ‘a shift from Protestant to Catholic, from individualism to institutions, from self-definition to the authority of tradition.’ He adds that, ‘We must attend to the emancipatory as well as the tyrannical consequences of AI and draw upon our tradition to strengthen the sacred, the uniquely human.’[7]

Jon Cruddas, the Catholic former MP for Dagenham, also in a recent lecture for us, said that the Catholic tradition ‘will be vital in this sense of national renewal.’ He believes that ‘a vision of secularised liberalism’ and our ‘modern social democracy are too under-powered’ to deliver a solution to our predicament. He questions whether if ‘as a country we are consumed by a sense of crisis of meaning and purpose, how can we confront this without a belief system to guide us?’ Essentially, he is saying that ‘to build a new statecraft….a spiritual renewal will be necessary’.[8]

He also notes the growing religiosity in politics generally and is alarmed by the emergence of Christian nationalist groups and ethno-nationalist stirrings, and equally by the sectarian interests of other religions. He is concerned, for example, that these may ‘foreshadow the likely emergence of a discreet UK Muslim political movement.’

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Our response

So given this context, how should Catholic schools respond?

This diagnosis of our context – in particular the flawed anthropology underpinning the failing system - gives us a greater recognition that the deeper issues we are facing as a country require spiritual resources not just technical and policy solutions. The country needs a Christian approach that combines the spiritual integrated with political economy. Given that Gen Z is increasingly thinking about these things, this is a huge opportunity that Catholic education is well-placed to fulfil.

I wanted you to see the causes of the unravelling so that you can see clearly what the antidote needs to be.

The relational imperative

The antidote to this hyper liberalism is the relational imperative. This antidote is anchored within the Catholic conception and practice of the common good. This should be, if it isn’t already, the underpinning ethos of every Catholic school.

The Catholic tradition, taught properly, equips young people with a common good worldview. It should address the hunger for meaning through a formation in an integrated vision of supernatural reality – through our relationship with the Holy Spirit, practices of prayer, truth, virtue, relationality, community, responsibility. It should ground identity in God, within the moral order and natural law.

Formation in Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is essential, but not through cold abstraction. Principles must be grounded, experienced and practiced in local, durable, reciprocal relationships. CST should shape how we see and interact with each other in the public realm.

From this flows a basic understanding of Catholic political economy, helping young people see their place in the world in both a vocational and a metaphysical sense. To do this they need to be familiar with a Catholic conception of how a healthy society is structured.

From the person – what it means to be a human being with a relational, transcendent nature – to the family, as the fundamental cell of society – to the importance of intermediary institutions – to the role of the state – to what a healthy market should look like – and the significance of the dignity of work. This kind of vision will foster an integrated sense of mission.

Our schools as intermediary institutions

The Catholic Social Teaching tradition regards every school as an intermediary institution with a unique vocational responsibility. Rather than an inward orientation, serving its own “school community” a Catholic school is to engage relationally and reciprocally with the neighbourhood - and to promote an integrated faith.

Mission requires Catholic schools to offer a counter-cultural formation that strengthens young people to understand the significance of building relationships, to discover the meaning and fulfilment that comes through holiness, to appreciate the importance of trust and responsibility.

Our schools should be outwardly oriented, physically and metaphysically situated in their neighbourhoods, forming young people in the faith integrated with a common good relational ethic from an early age to prepare them for resilience in a digital, virtual, dopamine-flooded world.

Educators must recognise that young people are currently being evangelized as consumers and as rights bearers. Our Christian response should be distinctive and in a sense be a form of resistance: “We do things differently here.”

Vocation

Our countercultural offer is a powerful formation in the discernment of vocation starting at a young age and continuing throughout school life. The Catholic conception of vocation extends to the laity and should guide us here: holistic formation, unity of head, heart and hands, universal and inclusive mission, personhood, and Christian vocation. It is spiritual, local, practical, relational.

The school’s vocation is to cultivate an integrated discipleship among young people, incorporating a prayerful spirituality, the relational ethic, and the basics of a “common good” political economy, underpinned by a robust Christian anthropology.

Subsidiarity

This vocation is both spiritual and place-based, shaped by Subsidiarity—this very Catholic principle involves taking responsibility at the appropriate level – from the person, within the family, at community level, in the local, and at the regional, national, and international levels.

Subsidiarity is also expressed in a rich tapestry of intermediate institutions—clubs, associations, businesses, schools, charities, and religious bodies—each fulfilling its unique vocation and working together with its neighbours.

For Catholic schools, Subsidiarity involves every school discerning its authentic charism and forging its own unique local relationships – to form communities of hope. Forming relationships that are reciprocal not transactional, not competitive.

This means not just transacting with the local mechanic, but inviting him into lunch in the school canteen, learning his story, and building trust. It also means finding ways to collaborate. Every school is an intermediate institution with responsibilities to its neighbours, acting as an engine of CST principles in the local community.

Solidarity

Catholic education should promote an understanding of true Solidarity. Schools are well placed to foster intergenerational opportunities to bridge old and young. To build trusting relationships across class, both in the classroom and among parents. To emphasise the complementarity between men and women. To forge friendship between employer and employee. Between the educated and uneducated. To foster cooperation between business and unions, between faith and secular and so on. And not least to teach the importance of balance between capital and labour – the dignity of work should never be subordinated to financial interests.

The common good

The common good is often misunderstood, as “social justice” or as “fairness” - abstract, utopian ideals. In truth, the Catholic conception of the common good is relational and practical, and grounded. It’s about building a shared life, acting together to create the conditions in which everyone can flourish. We do this by working across differences, each taking responsibility according to their calling and ability.[9] The common good vision involves a distinctive, constructive story in which everyone has a part to play.

It acknowledges people’s realities and calls us to bridge differences—class, background, ethnicity, sex, age, ability, experience, education, and opinion. It invites true diversity. This tradition is far more inclusive than the divisive identity ideologies so dominant in our time.[10]

It cannot be built in insulated “safe spaces.” It requires diversity of opinion, deliberation, negotiation, listening, mutual respect, forbearance, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption. Its purpose is fundamentally relational.

It is non-partisan, non-tribal, and non-ideological, balancing rights and responsibilities, it is realistic about human fallibility and encourages virtue. It is not utopian or imposed; it arises from free participation and true freedom in God, not the false freedoms of consumerism or collectivist ideologies.

Formation

The stated purpose of Catholic Social Teaching is ‘for a civilization of love.’[11] God calls His people to join in the work of repair and restoration. Formation should therefore offer every young person a coherent, constructive, and meaningful vision in which to find their purpose.

As Isaiah 58:12 says: ‘Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.’

There has never been a greater need for the Church as the leading moral force in the restoration of our country. That means all of us, in every part of the Church: we are all called to play our part. We have a vital role to fulfil especially at this time of political instability and cultural confusion.

We must prepare young people for an uncertain future. With the voting age being reduced to 16 and our society now home to so many different belief systems, this is absolutely the right moment for Catholic education to draw on the deep theological tradition of CST and share it.

Interpreted in down to earth ways, CST is far more than a set of principles or a shallow activism. It is a tradition that can equip young people with a common good worldview anchored in a true anthropology that can equip them with a healthy way of reading the world. The task of formation may be challenging. It may be sacrificial. It may be rejected. Nevertheless, this is the time to sow the seeds.

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Fit for Mission?

If the cultural diagnosis outlined above holds, even partially, then Catholic education faces an unavoidable question: is it fit for mission?

Catholic schools have not been exempt from the flawed anthropology that has shaped liberal society. The individualism, the progressivism, the secular assumptions of the age have influenced public institutions and our own internal habits. Mission drift rarely takes dramatic form. It appears gradually, through emphasis, omission and imbalance.

Let’s look at some examples of mission drift through this lens.

Many staff have absorbed the dominant progressive paradigm without recognising its underlying assumptions. At times, this alternative moral vision displaces authentic Christian anthropology. In some schools there may be an evangelising narrative promoting what is effectively an alternative religion in the classroom.

There is no place for complacency here: being a practising Catholic is no guarantee of a good formation in terms of human anthropology, natural law or moral order. The social teaching of the Church is still too often seen as optional among Catholics. Despite the new CSI requirements in schools, CST is still not always regarded as a primary component of faith formation. Formation among staff, including among RE specialists, remains uneven.

Even when it is integrated, Catholic Social Teaching is too often conflated with social action, reducing this sophisticated moral worldview to a form of activism. Detached from the depth of its theological tradition, CST can become a campaigning toolkit rather than a framework for good judgement. And taught abstractly, without being embedded in the realities of everyday life, it can rarely get to the root of what’s actually going on.

The result can be fragmentation: evangelisation gets separated from social teaching; prayer practises are upheld while public life is interpreted through secular frameworks; “charity” gets reduced to fundraising or the service provider dynamic; schools become inwardly focused on serving their own families while insufficiently embedded in reciprocal neighbourhood relationships. Managerial culture can displace the relational imperative, as compliance and process become dominant.

It is not surprising that so many leaders fail to understand context. We are living through an extraordinary time of profound change. People reach conclusions limited by where they live, who they know and where they source their news. Few have the time or inclination to look beyond familiar sources. It is not always easy to understand what has happened in our political economy, socially, economically, and spiritually. Many inadvertently go along with a mainstream progressive procedural frame.

None of this stems from bad faith. It reflects the intellectual climate in which we all operate and the daily pressures schools experience. But if Catholic education is to contribute meaningfully to national renewal, it must reconnect with its own foundations.

Mission for a new era

A Catholic school is not simply a provider of academic outcomes with a religious ethos attached. As an intermediary institution it has a vocational responsibility within the architecture of the common good.

Subsidiarity is not only a principle to be taught in the curriculum, nor just a guide for internal decision making; it describes how society is meant to function. As intermediary institutions, schools sit between the family and the state. Their mission is both inward, forming the young, and outward, participating constructively in the civic and economic life of their locality. That outward orientation must be intentional. Mission cannot be confined to sustaining the Catholic community, essential though that is. It includes forming young people capable of strengthening the places to which they belong.

The relational imperative should therefore shape governance, curriculum and partnerships alike, implemented throughout school life. Charity must shift beyond transactional fundraising and service providing towards local, durable relationships of reciprocity. Engagement with local businesses, associations, clubs, voluntary groups and parishes should be rooted in mutual responsibility and shared concern for the locality.

Formation must deepen correspondingly. Children should leave Catholic schools not simply informed, but spiritually formed: able to pray, to discern, to understand vocation as calling rather than careerism. Staff formation requires serious engagement with Christian anthropology, what it means to be human, to be a person created and ordered toward truth and virtue.

Within this integrated framework, Catholic Social Teaching can assume its proper place. Not as activism. Not in abstraction. But as a non-partisan framework for good judgement, grounded in lived experience. The common good must be encountered as practice, not as a woolly slogan. Young people must learn the principles both in the classroom and in the context of the neighbourhood, through taking responsibility, by listening, and by building enduring local relationships of reciprocity.

Mission is bigger than upholding the Catholic community, greater than institutional survival. Yes, we are called to strengthen the life of the Church, but our calling is also an outward-facing one, to participate in God’s mission to redeem society.

Cultural pressures are real. Regulatory burdens and staffing challenges are not trivial. Yet, Catholic tradition possesses an inheritance uniquely equipped to respond to this age of fragmentation: a coherent anthropology, a relational conception of freedom, and a constructive account of political economy grounded in the common good.

Jeremiah’s call to ‘seek the welfare of the city’ remains prophetic. Engagement, not withdrawal, is the faithful posture.

So are Catholic schools fit for mission? If they recover a proper confidence in a distinctly Christian anthropology, then yes, they can be - if that confidence is held together with truth, freedom and responsibility; where evangelisation and social teaching are no longer treated as separate tracks but as one integrated formation; they will be fit for mission where the relational imperative is valued above procedural dominance; where young people are formed not as consumers or claimants of rights, but as citizens, disciples and good neighbours in the long, patient work of renewal.

This is a new era. We must engage, not vacate, the space. The young people of our country need to be prepared for an uncertain future. Empowered by the gift of an authentic Catholic education, they can be equipped to be as ‘leaven’ in the world.[12]

Living out the Catholic tradition in its authentic form will require institutional courage and theological clarity. It also calls each of us to embody a generous, capacious vision of Christian identity, neither triumphalist nor separatist, anchored in generosity, love and truth.

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, a Christian charity dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal. Drawing on Catholic Social Thought, T4CG is home to the Common Good Schools programme, and resources Christian leaders across all traditions to read the signs of the times and play their part for the common good. Jenny convenes lecture discussion events, writes and speaks about the vocation of the church in society, and is co-host of Leaving Egypt, a transatlantic podcast exploring what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling.

This essay is adapted from a talk originally given at the Communio, Catholic Education and Communities of Hope Conference at the Diocese of Lancaster in September 2025.

NOTES

[1] Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, #11

[2] David Goodhart, Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century (Allen Lane, 2020)

[3] Adrian Pabst, How Christian is Post-liberalism?

[4] Jonathan Rutherford, The New Class War (interview with Michael Lind, 2023)

[5] John Gray, On The Dusk Of Western Liberalism (2023)

[6] Sr Helen Alford OP, ‘Just Peace: On Social Peace and the Causes of Division

[7] Maurice Glasman, Staying Human: From Tragedy to Restoration - Shaping the New Era

[8] Jon Cruddas, From Crisis to Meaning – Renewal and the Spirit of Justice

[9] https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/about/common-good-thinking

[10] Pope Francis: Man-Woman: Image of God. Towards an Anthropology of Vocations (2024)

[11] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

[12] Pope Paul VI, Lumen Gentium, #31

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Header image thanks to our friends at The Gaudete Trust.

Jenny Sinclair usually sits on the other side of the microphone as co-host of Leaving Egypt. But in a special episode, the tables turn as her fellow co-host, Al Roxburgh, interviews Jenny herself in a deeply personal conversation that traces the roots of T4CG.

“When I thought about it, the word that came to mind was authenticity,” Jenny reflects.

It’s a word that runs through her entire journey - from rebellion to awakening, growing up as the daughter of Anglican Bishop David Sheppard, navigating a dark night of the soul, and finding her home in the Catholic Church. But this isn’t just a personal testimony. It’s the story of how one person’s response to the Holy Spirit’s prompting became something bigger.

Years ago, sensing signs of coming social instability, Jenny began following a trail. Her driving question was: “How can I help the churches rediscover their own authenticity in order that they can live up to their vocation at this time of crisis in our country?”

That curiosity, animated by the Spirit, led to the founding of Together for the Common Good in 2011. And the work continues to challenge and inspire:

“We need to shift from service provision to solidarity,” Jenny explains. “And what does that look like? It looks like living with, it looks like a shared life, it looks like reciprocity, it looks relational.”

At its heart, this conversation explores what it means to participate in the common good - not as a political strategy, but as the very heart of God’s work of reweaving a broken world. It’s about cultivating an “outward-facing” posture that listens to both God and neighbour, and discovering our vocations for spiritual and civic renewal in these disconcerting times.

If you’ve ever wondered about the story behind Together for the Common Good, or if you’re seeking encouragement in your own journey of faithful witness, this episode offers both insight and hope.

Listen to this episode on Leaving Egypt’s Substack page or find it wherever you normally listen to your podcasts.

Download a pdf of this talk here and listen to a recording here

INTRODUCTION

June 19th has a particular resonance. It is my parents’ wedding anniversary. Their ashes are buried under the floor in this great cathedral building. My father David and my mother Grace each had a distinctive ministry. His passion for justice was obviously better known, but her passion was for a spirituality of relationship. Both loved Liverpool and were shaped by the city, as of course, was I.

But I didn’t like being the bishop’s daughter. I preferred Liverpool’s music scene. And I was estranged from the faith until a conversion experience led me to be received into the Catholic Church in my mid-twenties. After that, I avoided church related work until 2011.

I was then in my late forties and both my parents had died. I experienced a movement of the Spirit, which led to the creation of Together for the Common Good. It wasn’t my idea. As our Lord says, “you did not choose me, I chose you” (John 15:16).

Our work explores how we - the people of the church – are called to contribute to the renewal of our country in this time of great change. Tonight, I’ve been asked to focus on the church’s role in terms of charity and social justice. We’ll look at justice, power and class, Christian distinctiveness and mission drift, and explore what kind of response is needed now.

The 40th anniversary of Faith in the City1 is the prompt for this evening but not the focus. The report inspired many, through its ground-breaking engagement with the realities of British life, but too much has changed since then for it to remain a guide to policy. Rather than looking back at what has changed, Christians must read the signs of the today’s times, with care and attention.

READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

To understand the great malaise facing the West, we must question our political, social, and cultural assumptions.

Catholic Social Thought

Catholic Social Thought (CST) offers a valuable framework for this process. Rooted in the gospel, CST draws on social and political expertise, data, and lived experience from across the world.

Sometimes referred to as “the theology of the Holy Spirit in practice,” CST seeks to uphold the integrity of human beings and creation and to interrogate structures of power that dehumanize. It recognizes the tension between capital and labour, emphasizing the priority of dignified work. It acknowledges the importance of wealth creation and the social good that businesses can achieve, while remaining realistic about the damage that unconstrained capital can do.

CST is nonpartisan. Both conservative and radical, it has even-handedly condemned all dehumanising modern political-economic systems: communist, socialist and liberal as well as capitalist. All of them are judged to be deeply corrupted by the materialist, spiritually empty premises established by the narrow rationalism of the atheistic Enlightenment.  

What we see

So first, we diagnose what we see. Looking through the lens of CST, we see what some describe as a meta crisis. We may disagree about which problems are most serious, but there are many to choose from.

We see young people struggling to afford a home, massive public and private debt, failing health and social care systems, extremes of inequality and deep estrangements between affluent and poor communities.

We see the collapse of trust in institutions and the fragmenting of society with communities living separate lives.

We see the tragedy of war, refugees and displaced people, human trafficking, the commodification of creation and climate change.

We see the cheapening of the human being in the liberalizing of abortion, assisted suicide, commercial surrogacy and body modification - exploitation on an industrial scale, fuelled by exploitative social media platforms.

We see a steep rise in symptoms of human distress, growing loneliness, addiction, self-harm, depression, nihilism and feelings of meaninglessness.

You may think this diagnosis is harsh, and of course there are many positive things happening as well as these realities. But what you see depends on where you live, who you know, and what media you consume.

Political Economy

But the great encyclicals of the CST tradition train us to see how systems of political economy affect our common life.

And so today we see a system that, while enriching big corporations, has undermined the dignity of work. Requiring units of labour to be cheap and mobile it offshored our manufacturing to low wage economies with no workers’ rights - and encouraged the importing of workers, away from their own families, to take up low paid jobs that prop up Western business models. This is a system described as “frictionless” by investors, but this loss of skills and capacity to make things has weakened our national security, and in human terms, has become a recipe for social unrest.

Four decades ago, the idea that people should have to move to find work was regarded as right wing. This is now rebranded as “freedom”.

The loss of jobs and investment - with no meaningful replacement - led to civic degradation on a vast scale. Not only in “urban” settings in cities and outer estates, but especially in our coastal towns and former industrial heartlands. The shift to the knowledge economy and the service economies then shamed manual labour.2 To add insult to injury, these communities were then framed as deficient and backward.

What we’ve witnessed is effectively a politics of abandonment. The impact of the new, post-industrial economy has been catastrophic, devastating to the common good.

Liberalism

In 2015, Pope Francis asserted that “we are not living in an era of change so much as a change of era.”3 Every era is shaped by a particular philosophy. The animating idea of the era that is in the process of breaking down comes from the philosophy of liberalism,4 in particular, a strain known as neoliberalism.

The optimal neoliberal arrangement features low wages, big governments that serve businesses - and large welfare states that keep away revolutionary discontent.5 The neoliberal conception of welfare does not rely on a culture of interdependence that we might recognise as Christian. Rather, it emphasises impersonal support, through money transfers and the government or non-governmental provision of services.

The impacts of this operating system are not just economic but also social and moral. Its amoral approach eats away at shared values and erodes our sense of citizenship. It dissolves the particularity of place and commodifies what it means to be human.

It is inherently unstable, because the ideology relies on a false anthropology – a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being which generates a false idea of freedom and leads to a cult of self. This is quite unlike Christian anthropology where the person is a relational being made in the image of God.

Neoliberal freedom is freedom from constraint, including from the constraints of family, country, borders, history, God, and natural law. It sees tradition and accountability as obstacles to “progress,” and relationship to place as old-fashioned. It drives us to outsource more and more of the things that we used to do as communities to the state or the market.

Ultimately, it “liberates” society from truth and from mutual responsibility. The motivation of this spirit is anti-human, which is why the system is now unravelling.

This has resulted in a de-moralization and the emergence of identitarian politics, distorted forms of victimhood and the culture wars. The result is a distraction from the fundamental problem, which is a dysfunctional political economy generating poverty in all its forms - economic, relational and spiritual. It is very important to understand this distraction.

Discontent

Neoliberalism has been in control of British politics for 45 years. Both main parties have been captured, creating a “uni-party” disconnected from reality on the ground. Gross mismanagement by successive governments has been provoking increasing discontent.

But this is a global trend. Every country that follows this system is seeing the same effects. With a relativistic and materialist logic, its worldview ultimately brings about its own destruction.

Opposition has extended across the West, manifesting in opposition to its mismanaged migration and net zero policies, and its progressive social and sexual dogma. Despite a few bad actors, these grassroots protest movements for the most part reflect the frustration of the excluded majority. They are rejecting the hyper liberal project of globalisation and progressivism.

Efforts by a politically progressive “overclass”6 to control the media narrative are alienating the public further. As John Gray says, they cannot comprehend that what they termed “populism” is actually ‘political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have created.’7

In the UK, we find ourselves in a period of real upheaval. The question is who can deliver a common good political economy that can underpin a social peace8. Establishment parties have discredited themselves and though a populist insurgency is asking some of the right questions, they do not have all the answers. Good statecraft requires not only vision and competence but a framework of ethical principles. It is a hopeful sign that serious thinkers increasingly recognise this as a “hinge moment”. The political space is therefore wide open – there is a real opportunity to shape what comes next.

THE RESPONSE

So now we have the context we can begin to think about how to respond. To start, we should check our assumptions about justice.

Forms of Justice

We all have an idea what justice means. But it is not good enough to quote Amos, “let justice roll down like waters.” We must interrogate how justice is delivered to see if it aligns with our faith.

Currently shaping our political economy there are two secular visions of justice:

• the utilitarian tradition, focusing on welfare, and efficiency,

and

• the libertarian tradition, focusing on rights and freedom from constraint

This utilitarian-libertarian “welfarist” combination is what underpins our current operating system. It is based on that false anthropology and that false idea of freedom. As a method of how to achieve justice, this approach is utterly different from the Christian justice tradition.9

Jesus was a common worker in a Roman economy that kept down the wages of the poor.10 His resistance to that injustice was rooted in the ancient rabbinical tradition, a transcendent vision of justice, where human beings are in right relationship - with each other and with God.

His justice took spiritual as well as civic form. He introduced the kingdom, a whole new way of living, bringing people together – rich and poor, across ethnicity, age and sex, educational background and across class – we could say to build a common good.

In God's economy, if you're having a hard time, I'm to walk in relationship with you - accompany you until you get back on your feet. Not just a cash transfer. Not create a system that rationalizes out opportunities for human connection. Not abandon our neighbour in their flat, surrounded by unpaid bills. Our primary relationships should be with each other, not with the bureaucratic state.

So we can start to see what an authentically Christian response would look like.

Quite different from the method adopted by successive governments - characterized by that toxic utilitarian-libertarian combination, where the state colludes with big business by subsidizing wages that are too low to live on.

But what about the church, how has it interpreted justice?

The service provider dynamic

Foodbanks and other ways of serving are often sources of pride in churches wanting to serve poor communities, and I want to honour the extraordinary Christian social action movements. However, growing need, together with the rising tide of secularism, can sometimes prove a temptation to justify usefulness by leaning into the service provider role. But the Church is called not to be useful. It is called to be the embodiment of love.

The word charity, of course actually means love, but somehow it acquired a meaning more associated with delivery of welfare and emergency food parcels – its meaning became stripped of relationship. At the very least, churches providing services should be places of conviviality with the opportunity to talk and to pray and be prayed for.

Pope Francis repeatedly called for our charity – our love - to be personal. He said solutions to poverty are not to be found in activism or welfarism.11 He said we are not to keep poor people at arm's length. (Of course, he was not arguing for there to be no welfare state or no charity, and of course he supports welfare support for those in need).

His point was the same as the founder of the Catholic Worker tradition12, Dorothy Day’s, that if we institutionalise love and care then we risk losing what it means to be human. We are not like the state. The church is not meant to be an efficient delivery system.

But the uncomfortable truth is that too much of Christian social action has involved activities focussed on giving out resources rather than offering forms of help which build mutuality.

This unequal power dynamic is revealed in professionalised terms such as “outreach” and “client” or even “guest”, which do not reflect friendship and mutual respect. Likewise “community development”, “projects” and “facilitators” betray a managerial mindset – well-intentioned but unintentionally alienating the people it aims to help. The same dynamic can also – even if inadvertently – play into a culture of dependency.

From Dependency to Agency

To move away from the contractual and towards the covenantal, we need to focus on ways of helping which have empowerment and reciprocity at their heart, shift to approaches that enable people trapped in poverty to have agency.

The CST principle of subsidiarity is instructive here – that responsibility is taken at the appropriate level, empowering people to help themselves. As Benedict XVI said: ‘Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person..[which]..respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others.’

A relational, rather than transactional, approach is fundamental. Relationships must be two-way – inviting people into a dynamic where their contribution is a vital ingredient in the change that is happening. In food poverty initiatives, this means that beneficiaries will pay something towards the food provision they are receiving and have the opportunity to help out. In homelessness services, this means empowering people to pay their rent and contribute to their own recovery from the challenges they face.

Christian charity should aim to welcome people into participating in community rather than keeping them in receiving mode. People are not transformed simply through what they receive but through what they participate in and contribute to. This is why the 12-Step movement of addiction recovery has been so effective and sustainable, because everyone who truly benefits commits to helping others. Thus, one person’s recovery is always bound up with another’s in a community-based form of help.13

A practical way of expressing this is the contributory principle: all forms of social action should empower beneficiaries to contribute to their own welfare and to the welfare of others. We should reject atomising, transactional approaches which can deepen dependency, and instead create structures that enable people to realize their own capacity to act.

Solidarity

The paradox14 is that while essential, and despite being very well run by lovely people, many church-based so called “social justice” services have fallen into a trap. They have become a component propping up a toxic economy. And the risk is that the more efficient and vital their aid becomes, the less urgent economic reform appears.

The CST diagnosis of the economy shows us that any activity around material poverty must also be situated within a robust demand for economic reform.15 Without this, good intentions mask the prophetic. True Christian justice is not only about the mitigation of poverty, but “to restore the places long devastated” as we read in Isaiah 61. That means decent jobs and investment.

This is not to say that economics are the only driver of poverty: we have seen how the current system drives moral, relational and spiritual poverty too.

But this opens a challenge for the church. There needs to be a shift from charity to solidarity with and within poor communities. The church must not collude in a future of welfare and worklessness. The service-provider approach can create estrangement between a middle class church and alienate the very people it wishes to help.

My friend Dave doesn’t mince his words: ‘The church has become a woke foodbank. Handouts are soul destroying. People need dignified work so they can maintain some self-respect.’

We need to understand what solidarity looks like. When Christian charities engage in campaigns focusing on welfare, they inadvertently fail the solidarity test.

For most working-class people, their desire is to support their families through decent work – as Frank Field once said, “this is at the very heart of their moral code.”

There was a time when churches were known for their covenantal relationship with poor families. The story of the 1889 dock strike16 comes to mind - William Booth and Cardinal Manning knew their people, and understood the impact of capital and recognised it had to be constrained. They supported their communities in negotiating better pay and work conditions. They knew what solidarity looked like.

I can also recall my father and Archbishop Worlock convening the Michaelmas Group17 of Liverpool business leaders which met every 6 weeks for over 13 years and arguably acted as a brake on the withdrawal of jobs and investment.

In our own time the challenges are different. Each church leader must discern how they step up.

One area with potential is to explore ways in which church-based food aid infrastructure could be the catalyst for the development of local economies.

Building on the contributory principle, it should be our longer term ambition to help build robust forms of local economy and co-ownership structures that safeguard people from hardship. As Andrew Forsey, National Director of Feeding Britain says, there are already examples of initiatives that suggest potential in that direction:

‘Churches up and down the country, through pantries, food clubs and co-ops, are expanding working-class purchasing power and reducing the need for food banks and remedying the inadequacies of both state and market provision. These institutions, built upon the contributory principle, seem adept at combining individual self-interest with the common good.’.

This kind of solidarity necessarily should start small. It begins with a new imagination.

Christian distinctiveness

This imagination comes from a reacquaintance with our Christian distinctiveness. It is vital that we are clear about our identity in God and get our priorities straight.

Perhaps the drift to managerialism and transactionalism can partially be traced to the desire to satisfy funding criteria. Perhaps it is time to move on from the “funded project” culture turbocharged by Faith in the City and the Church Urban Fund.

The focus on KPIs and scale puts pressure on dioceses, churches and Christian charities to behave like businesses. Responsible governance is essential of course, but if strategic outcomes are prioritised over spiritual discernment, then this can compromise Christian distinctiveness. It can act as a distraction from who we are meant to be, who God is calling us to be – neighbours and friends who unveil the sacred in our communities.

Christian funders may want to reflect on the cultural origins of the service provider culture they are helping to perpetuate. If we’re not careful, over-programming can inadvertently engineer-out the workings of the Holy Spirit.

There is a well-worn path of secularization that many Christian organisations have ventured down and in doing so have cut themselves off from their own roots.

But in fact, the times may be ripe for a new confidence. Recent research18 shows a resurgence of interest in Christianity and that the so-called “new atheism” has passed its sell-by date. Young people especially are attracted to tradition, wanting what the historian Tom Holland calls “the weird stuff”19, the mystery of the Christ who was crucified and rose from the dead. This is a new time and we should not be shy about who we are and why we do what we do.

In the public square, we must articulate the vision of a political economy for the common good. In our charitable work, we must seek mutuality, change our language and introduce the contributory principle. At parish level, we must become a relational church and join with our neighbours in solidarity.

To reflect the grace and truth of Christ, we want our lives to draw people and society into this distinctive story, to life-giving energy that offers a constructive response to the socio-economic, cultural and spiritual malaise that has plagued our country for too long.

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COMMUNION

So far tonight, we have explored what’s been going on, the discontent and how neoliberalism has destabilised settled forms of life, how governments and the church has responded. We’ve looked at ways to correct mission drift – relational justice, power dynamics and language, agency, Christian distinctiveness and solidarity.

What other shifts need to happen? How are we called to act in these uncertain times, and what story is the church called to tell?

My sense is that we are called to offer - and to embody - an antidote to the culture of individualism. And that antidote we could ultimately conceptualise as communion.

There are many ways to make the journey in that direction. But let me make some suggestions.

Reconciliation

The first is Reconciliation.

In Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, at the other end of Hope Street, there is the chapel of Reconciliation, a side chapel dedicated to Saint Pope John Paul II. There is a triptych20 centred on a carving of Christ crucified looking down over Liverpool, with the following inscriptions:

“Lord, restore your church on earth with the gifts of penance and reconciliation”

and

“No evil is greater than the infinite mercy of God”

He is addressing the truth that the church itself has become estranged from God – that penance and reconciliation are necessary.

This is a familiar theme that continues through the CST tradition. Pope Francis, who said the Church needed to be evangelised by the poor21, is echoed in turn by the new Pope, Leo XIV, who says that “the poor are a treasure both of the Church and of humanity because they offer crucial perspectives for seeing the world through God’s eyes.”22

They are both saying that in this sea of liberalism, reconciliation will come through relationships of solidarity with poor communities. This is at the heart of God’s mission.

Jesus invites us to practice reciprocity – “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Connecting with someone in need opens us up to a closer connection with God. This is the great mystery at the heart of God’s special love for people who are poor. The church needs to learn to receive as well as give.

Personal

Next, charity must be personal.

The Good Samaritan story has always struck me, not so much in terms of where the stranger came from, but for the fact that he stayed over to the next morning. He didn’t just pay the innkeeper and leave. A relationship was being formed.

I know that the Network of Kindness here in Liverpool is attempting to foster this spirit. Inspired by chesed – “lovingkindness” in Hebrew – this network is fostering local learning communities and practices of discernment. This kind of pathway is helpful because not only might it lead to concrete solutions, but it also cultivates listening, relationship, reciprocity, redemption and reconciliation.

Discernment

And so, discernment. Each of us is called to a unique vocational responsibility. God calls each of us in surprising ways. And to engage meaningfully in the neighbourhood, we must develop a dialogue with the Holy Spirit. This requires practices of discernment. Both individually and together as a congregation or a team.

Our Christian traditions are rich in these practices. Whether it is a daily Lectio or Examen, or the ancient practice of the Conversation in the Spirit, we can begin by asking: “how is God calling us in this place?”

Instead of beginning with strategy, begin with a period of discernment to sense what God is already doing. Blessing a preordained project with a bit of theology is not the way. The early monastics prayed and discerned for 30 days before acting, and then, set to work in an organised way. We must do both seriously: pray and be organised.

Some of you might be familiar with the practice of missional listening, a counterintuitive way of connecting in a neighbourhood. Experienced leaders must unlearn their instincts to control and are not allowed to initiate anything for a year. It requires great patience and humility. Success is measured not by the number of people in the pews, but by how many local invitations they receive.

The kind of leadership we need now is to enable life to emerge. Not a manager, a therapist, a celebrity, or running a professional services team, the enabling church leader leads people on a journey, and practices the subtle “art of social choreography” – knowing the spirit works among the people, he or she creates spaces for connection, and attentive to these movements, enables their leadership.

Listening

Then, there is listening. We need a church that adopts an intentional posture of listening in our neighbourhoods. This could begin with one-to-one conversations23 within our congregations, and then extend to the neighbourhood. A practice of listening - for the honour of hearing someone’s story.

When we really listen, we will find out what’s going on - and it may not be easy listening. As Michael Merrick wrote for us recently when remembering last year’s riots after the Southport massacre, and I quote:

“I felt a profound sadness. These were my people, the folk I grew up with, who I was proud to grow up with. I could not help but feel that we, the Church, have failed in our duty toward them. We have not been there for them. The affiliation between the working class and the churches used to be rock solid. They would have been in church, in our social clubs, calling their priest in times of crisis, putting their kids in our schools, playing for our sports teams, going through all the rites of passage. I don’t think we are that same Church anymore.

We made a space for the stranger in our churches – and all to the good – but we were no longer familiar with the reality of our own people. They became invisible to us. Worse, it appears that the Church not only dismisses their concerns but has no sympathy. They have become our Lazarus at the gate. Stepped over, day after day by people in his own neighbourhood, Lazarus challenges us because he demands an ongoing act of love for someone we know. Having been overlooked for so long, these communities are in a bad way. They have been abandoned and are feeling increasingly mutinous. We have been guilty partners in that abandonment, and that has been a disaster.24

We could equally speak about the grooming gang scandal – the biggest scandal of our generation. But where has the voice of the churches been all this time? Too squeamish? Too afraid of the consequences of speaking the truth? There has to be a reckoning about the abandonment of these communities who have been so wronged. Until then the cover up will fester like a sickness at the heart of the body politic.

The church has language that could help – of penance and reconciliation. And of the truth that sets us free.

Do our congregations know what it looks like to live in solidarity with the poorest in our communities? Not as service providers, not as rescuers helping victims, but as neighbours and friends who share in each other’s local concerns, joys, hopes and fears – and who feel each other’s anger and pain - and act together to build a place where our children can make a life.

This solidarity also involves casting a vision of what life could be like.

A Better Story

We must tell a better story – a story of distributed power and vocational responsibility.

This is a story that our country needs to hear. A story of spiritual and civic renewal, of truth, beauty and goodness. Of what it means to be human, to love, to trust, what friendship means, what it means to be a good neighbour.

It is a story that must not only call out structures of sin, but also build a common good that can offer resistance to the powers that atomise and separate.

But not only resisting and defending. Most importantly, it is a story that can uphold that vital space – the commons – where the Holy Spirit among us generates that imaginal energy, that living water so essential to our transcendent nature.

A story that requires responsibility to be taken at all levels and power to be distributed, not concentrated: responsibility to be taken at international, national, regional, local, personal levels - in line with the principle of Subsidiarity, everyone has a part to play.

Let’s briefly name what this common good vision of renewal could look like:

At the national level it would involve government policies that prioritise families and communities and respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.

It would promote a balance between rights and responsibilities. It would incentivise a balance of interests and harmony between those who have become opponents, such as employers and unions, young and old, urban and rural, black and white, men and women, faith and secular, migrants and host communities, the interests of capital and those of labour.

It would deconcentrate capital by enabling regional banks and energy providers and by shortening food supply chains. It would constrain the excesses of capital through a national industrial strategy incentivising job creation and retraining – balancing environmental measures with the dignity of work - that corrects the abandonment of the forgotten places.

At the regional level, it would promote institutional collaboration between educational bodies, employers, businesses, investors, religious and other networks – all working together for the renewal of their region.

At the local level, local governments would create conditions that enable people to run their own local organizations – to build back that lost agency - to foster a diverse interconnected layer of local associations - clubs, businesses, schools, charities, and religious bodies - each living out their own vocational responsibility, each enabling local people to find fulfilment, each meeting local needs, working together for the common good.

This local ecosystem would, at community level, cultivate family life - in all its variety – helping families help each other and their neighbours, teaching young people local civic responsibility and the importance of good relationships.25

At the personal level we’d understand that as Saint John Henry Newman said, each of us is a link in a chain, with a unique purpose. We’d borrow and lend more, buy less and contribute to a reciprocal gift economy rather than weakening our common life by outsourcing everything to the market and to the state.

The people of the churches have a distinctive calling. To hear that, we must resist the determined attempts to discredit and privatise our faith, and the pressure to conform to secular ideologies. When we can discern clearly, we will recognise our responsibility to be authentic, according to our distinctive Christian charisms, to share our vision of Christian justice at every level. We are called to be a light in the darkness. As the new era unfolds it is our job to stay human.

Language matters

Finally, the language we use really matters. This journey to communion will be paved with the words we speak.

We must speak the language of covenant rather than contract, of solidarity rather than division, of making rather than consuming, of mutuality rather than individualism, of relationships rather than self, of trust not estrangement, of meaning rather than personal preference, of neighbourliness and friendship rather than service delivery. A language of balance, of partnerships, of collaboration across difference, of diversity of opinion.

At a time when many people in our country feel dislocated, our churches and centres are called to be places where people feel at home, where they can speak freely, and feel heard. We are called to create structures of grace - where the Spirit is at work, where we regard everything we do as an occasion for communion.

WE ARE ALL CALLED

So, to conclude. I suppose people will say I’m a chip off the old block. Well, despite my efforts to prove otherwise, that of course is true. I guess my parents and I each embrace the vocation of what my mother called “the friendship of Christ”. In all our brokenness, with David’s passion for justice, Grace’s for relationship, and mine to help the church play its part in the world, we seem to have converged tonight.

People who know me know I ask awkward questions; I don’t mind being that person. But the coming months and years are likely to be hard, so there is a serious reason for doing so. This is no time for complacency. As our Lord challenged us “if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional?” (Matthew 5: 43-48).

We are called to be distinctive and to sacrifice the comfort of safety.

I do believe that everyone is called to be exceptional - and to play a unique part in the renewal of our country. That doesn’t mean grand projects. Small is good. If each of us here made one small step after tonight, that would be 100 steps.

This could be an inflection point for those churches willing to commit to solidarity in a meaningful way. What we need now is a new confidence and a renewed Christian imagination for our time.

Jenny Sinclair

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good (T4CG), a Christian charity dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal.  Jenny writes and speaks about the vocation of the church in society, and is co-host of Leaving Egypt, a podcast exploring what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling. Daughter of the late David Sheppard, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, Jenny was received into the Catholic Church in 1988. 

NOTES

Jon Kuhrt, CEO of Hope into Action, and Jenny Sinclair, Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, report on The Advent Retreat, a gathering of leaders who met to reflect on the future of Christian social action in November 2024.

You can download the Full Report as a PDF here.

‘Stand at the crossroads and look;

ask for ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

and you will find rest for your souls.’

Jeremiah 6:16

Poverty is getting worse

Christian social action plays a significant role in alleviating the symptoms of poverty, as illustrated by the significant growth of church-based food banks, warm hubs, debt centres, and homeless shelters in the last 15-20 years.

However, the overall picture of UK poverty is deteriorating. In 2025, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports that over 21% of the UK population are living in poverty, of which 8.1 million are working-age adults, 4.3 million are children, and 1.9 million are pensioners.¹ Over the past 25 years the number of people in very deep poverty has grown by around two-thirds.² In-work poverty has also increased over the last two decades: in 2022/23, 63% of children and working-age adults in poverty lived in families where at least one adult was working part-time or more, up from 56% in 2012/13 and 44% in 1996/97.³

Despite the heroic efforts of volunteers, the dedication of a huge range of charities, and despite the stream of advocacy campaigns to “end poverty”, there are no signs of improvement and if anything, the trends indicate a further deterioration.

Therefore, we believe that the church’s social witness stands at a crossroads. We should not simply celebrate the growth of social action because it proves the church is useful. Instead, we should be self-critical, ask hard questions and carefully consider the right road to take in the next 20 years. Now is the time to grapple boldly and faithfully with the challenges our country faces and to ask: where is the “good way” for Christian social action?

The background to this paper

In March 2023, Jon Kuhrt, CEO of Hope into Action and Jenny Sinclair, Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, began a correspondence following Jon’s response to a talk Jenny had given for Churches Together England, Poverty: How Should the Church Respond?

In December 2023, Jon published an extended article on his Grace + Truth blog titled Justice, Empowerment & Faith: the future direction for Christian Social Action. This was re-published by Christianity Magazine in their March print edition as The sins of social action.

In July 2024, Jenny invited Jon to give a lecture titled Grace, Truth and the Common Good: the Future of Christian Social Action as part of a series of public talks organized by Together for the Common Good. The lecture was given in-person to an invited group of 70 leaders from across the Christian traditions and was livestreamed for an online audience. To follow Jon’s lecture, a roundtable discussion took place, involving 30+ leaders of the leading charities and social action organizations, across denominations and sectors, including Christians Against Poverty, Trussell, Housing Justice, St Vincent de Paul Society, Caritas Social Action Network, Caritas Westminster, Salvation Army, ChurchWorks, Feeding Britain, Church Urban Fund (CUF), the Message Trust and more.

Due to the enthusiasm and interest created, Jenny and Jon conceived a one day ‘Advent Retreat’. Held in late November 2024 in central London, the retreat was convened by Together for the Common Good, and recruited a unique cross-section of church, charity and social action leaders representing many of the major Christian charities and denominations.

Rather than a conventional conference format with keynotes, we sensed that the times called for a more dialogical, distinctively Christian discernment approach, and so we used the Conversations in the Spirit framework with its emphasis on listening to God and to each other. Outcomes of small group work were captured, and whilst this is not a joint statement from that meeting, this paper draws on the key themes.

‘The sins of social action’

Throughout this journey, three “sins” or “disconnections” have developed as the key challenges which we believe the church needs to grapple with:

1. The disconnect between charity and justice

The growth of social action should lead to a questioning of the underlying social and economic systems which generate such need in the first place. Homelessness and food poverty are good examples: recent years have seen a host of new church-based initiatives to address both these issues but there is more homelessness and more food insecurity than ever before. The underlying causes that generate these problems cannot be cured by voluntary efforts or by social security. Social action and welfare are not the same as social justice.

Charitable kindness and personal generosity should be accompanied by a questioning of the power arrangements underpinning the political and economic status quo. Given its prophetic role, the church cannot be content to be the handmaid of the state, running around filling in gaps that government either neglects or cannot fill. It must not be seduced by the lure of feeling useful, nor be comfortable being placed in the invidious position of, effectively, propping up a dysfunctional system.

2. Dependency: the disconnect with empowerment

The hard truth is that not all responses to poverty are effective. A huge amount has been learnt in the last few decades about what helps Majority World countries overcome poverty. The book Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo argued powerfully that “aid” given from richer countries actually served to disempower economies and deepen poverty. We have to grapple with similar challenges in our response to UK domestic poverty.

US Christian community developer Rob Lupton argues in his books Toxic Charity and Charity Detox that too often churches and charities worsen poverty by deepening dependency and destroying personal initiative: ‘When we do for those in need what they have the capacity to do for themselves, we disempower them.’⁴ He argues that our approaches are often wrong because we tend to mis-diagnose problems as crisis issues when they are actually chronic in nature. Social action needs to shift its emphasis to more empowering approaches that build the personal agency of those who are needing help.

3. Secularization: the disconnect with faith

A consistent challenge for Christian social action charities and projects is to maintain an active connection with the faith that birthed them. Sometimes faith fades due to a lack of confidence. Sometimes it is due to fear about what funders might think. Sometimes it becomes fossilised when a charity’s founding inspiration is neglected.

Rather than something dynamic and creative, faith often becomes just a slightly embarrassing footnote in the history of an organisation. And the fruit becomes separated from the roots from which it has grown. This tendency diminishes both the charity and the beneficiary: most importantly, it limits the ability to respond to the spiritual needs of those affected by poverty.

A Common Good response to these challenges

The scale of Christian charitable engagement is a testimony to the power and conviction of the Christian faith. The UK’s history has been deeply enriched by generations of Christian charitable activity: parish-based welfare, alms-houses, orphanages, countless small charities, Religious Orders, Wesley and the Methodist revival, the New Ecclesial Movements, Shaftesbury’s Ragged Schools, the City Mission movement, Barnardo’s, the Salvation Army, Church Army and YMCA movement, to name just a few.

But this growth and the dynamism of faith are not just something for the history books. The last 20 years have seen a significant rise in church-based charity and social action initiatives: food banks, night shelters, pantries, community supermarkets, larders, debt centres, Street Pastors, warm hubs and community meals have all expanded at significant rates. The number of new homeless charities and church-based night shelters has rapidly expanded, and more generally, there has been a boom in a wide range of Christian-led social franchise initiatives helping struggling families.

However, poverty is getting worse. This brings Christian social action organisations to a crossroads.

‘The great disrupter’

We need to discern the times we are living in, examine our aims and what we do.

We face a context where there is a tangible absence of hope for people trapped in poverty. Geopolitical volatility signals an unstable future, and a new Labour government has so far disappointed rather than inspired. Despite the change in management, there are few signs of the political will required to change the neoliberal market-state arrangement of the last 40 years. There is still a lack of a unifying and hopeful story to place ourselves within. Given the level of public debt, indications are that conditions are likely to get worse⁵ and that government is likely to look to faith-based social action to step up even further.

Much of the mainstream charity sector has adopted the ways and means of the market. Led by executives on six-figure salaries, and an ambition to measure effectiveness by size of turnover, rather than to demand economic reform, the sector’s default is to lobby government for more state funding and to chase contracts. The radical founders of these charities would be dismayed to see how they have been co-opted as arms of the state, as the economy fails to create conditions that allow people to lead fulfilling lives.

Christian social action is not immune to this tendency, but it also contains the antidote. In the words of Jacob Dimitriou, Director of England at Housing Justice:

‘Christian social action should once again become the great disrupter.’

Of course, Christian social action has much to learn from secular charities, but we must never lose the distinctive emphasis of the gospel which makes our approach different. We must resist being co-opted into the state-funded ‘voluntary sector’ and losing our authentic Christian character.

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The inspiration of Frank Field

This lack of hope is exemplified in the way that the contemporary, state-funded charity sector is unable to have a proper debate. Imprisoned by self-protection, ‘groupthink’ and political correctness, it cannot find the courage to ask difficult questions. As Jacob Dimitriou continued:

‘Conferences in the charity sector are no longer places for ideas to be debated, but where the same mantras are trotted out and organizational egos swell. This stifles the energy of the movement-based responses to social injustices.’

We want to uphold the memory of the late Labour MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field. His deep faith and life-long commitment to tackle the causes of poverty led him to challenge both the left and the right of British politics. He did not please everyone but inspired many because of his willingness to challenge political tribalism and his courage to speak his mind. We believe his passion, bravery and moral vision is deeply relevant to us today.

To be faithful disciples we need to be willing to challenge across the accepted boundaries of theological and political tribalism. We need to talk about both structural change and personal responsibility. We need to talk about the political economy and family life. We need to talk about justice and Jesus.

We need radical solutions which speak to the root of the problems we face and not settle for the shallow waters of sticking plaster solutions and contemporary acceptability. This is the inspiration that Frank Field can provide.

Three themes

From our discernment in November 2024, these three themes emerged as critical for the future direction of Christian social action:

1. Challenging power: class, justice and the political economy

2. Changing practice: empowerment and the contributory principle

3. Deepening spirituality: confidence in our Christian distinctiveness

Below, we share a summary of the key themes raised within each of these areas.

1. Challenging power: class, justice and the political economy

Christian social action should not ignore the role of political, social and economic power – and the underlying drivers which trap people in poverty and create the needs that charity aims to meet.

Rather than simply acting as “benefactors”, which exacerbates class division, we should stand in solidarity with those trapped in poverty and together demand an economy less reliant on welfare and which instead generates decent, dignified employment.

Across our combined networks, our grassroots knowledge reveals the realities of poverty. Our experience exposes a malaise that is at times overwhelming. Our interventions are vital, but we must face the hard reality that poverty cannot be ended while a low wage, high welfare economy remains in place. It is time we asked awkward questions. This does not require us to be party political.

Both the state and the market need to be challenged about how human beings are treated. The powers of capital and state act like the modern Pharaohs of our time. As in Genesis 47, they seek to achieve control through economic methods of centralisation, exploitation, division and domination.

We know this is not a new problem. For the past four decades, big corporations have benefited from globalisation, subordinating weak governments of all stripes to insulate financial interests from democratic decision-making. This collusion between capital and state has undermined the common good and is provoking increasing discontent. The leadership class has not been able to comprehend that the resulting “populism” is the blowback caused by their own policies.

The unaffordability of housing and the off shoring of jobs are key issues to be addressed for the common good. The status of many jobs has changed, with work too often now failing to deliver the dignity that employment should provide. Instead, people are reduced to units of labour, manipulated for profit. The underlying philosophy driving this market dominance has been a disaster for stable community and for family life – it has in effect been an assault on relationship.

Furthermore, our current welfare state arrangements have not incentivized work and have often imprisoned people in a benefit trap where they have been better off out of paid work. These are signs of a broken and de-humanizing political economy.

Many campaigners call for an “end” to poverty by arguing for rises in benefits. But despite the undeniable imperative of meeting essential need, such welfarist approaches can only offer a sticking plaster, leaving root causes unchallenged. By contrast, a justice approach in-keeping with the Christian tradition would demand a political economy that fosters decent jobs that enable people to earn well and thrive.

The inequality gap in the UK continues to grow, with the top fifth owning two thirds of the wealth, and the bottom fifth only 0.5%.⁶ Given this injustice, we lament the fact that in recent years, “social justice” came to be more associated with identity politics than with economic justice. This distraction from its original meaning enabled large corporations to claim that their brands were ethical while the pay and conditions of those at the bottom went unnoticed. This cheap, shallow and performative approach disguised the true state of the economy.

To be true to the Christian justice tradition, like its ancestor, the rabbinical, biblical tradition, we want to stand in solidarity with poor communities and demand an economy based on right relationship. We recognize that meaningful justice is achieved in relational ways, such as through the negotiation of decent wages and working conditions, by acting as a community to support a family in trouble, or by forming alliances of solidarity to achieve better housing conditions. Whilst the safety net is vital, our primary relationships should be with each other, not with the bureaucratic state.

Too often, well-meaning churches and Christian charities fail to call for economic reform and instead prioritize the “welfarist” or “identitarian” interpretations of justice, not realising that these can act as a distraction from more fundamental questions of economic justice and, that they can inadvertently undermine social relationships.

2. Changing practice: empowerment and the contributory principle

As well as looking to systems of economic and political power, we must also be concerned with our own practice. Is the approach we are taking to social action effective? Good intentions are not enough. We need to face questions about whether some forms of social action are counterproductive. Does our charity sometimes unintentionally trap people deeper in poverty?

As well as the principle of solidarity, the principle of subsidiarity is vital – that responsibility is taken at the appropriate level, empowering people to help themselves. As Benedict XVI said: ‘Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person.. [which].. respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others.’⁷

The uncomfortable truth is that too much of the growth of social action has been in activities focussed on giving out resources to people affected by poverty rather than forms of help which build mutuality. We are concerned that this growth is simply digging a bigger hole for the people it is seeking to serve.

We are also troubled that this approach can accentuate class estrangement between the church and the people it aims to help. The professionalised language common in social action circles often communicates a middle-class, managerial, “service-client” dynamic rather than a meaningful, reciprocal encounter. This can inadvertently rob people of their agency.

We need to take seriously the message of books such as Toxic Charity or When Helping Hurts because they have exposed the complexities of compassion. We need to develop models of help which have empowerment and reciprocity at their heart, and approaches that enable people trapped in poverty to have agency. We need to enable people to discover the kingdom of God within themselves (Luke 17:21), to find the faith which heals them – not just to be passive recipients of hand-outs.

Again, a relational, rather than transactional, approach is fundamental. Relationships must be two-way – inviting people into environments where their contribution is a vital ingredient in the change that is happening. In food poverty initiatives, this means that beneficiaries will pay something towards the food provision they are receiving and have the opportunity to help out. In homelessness services, this means empowering people to pay their rent and contribute to their own recovery from the challenges they face.

A critical aspect of this is appreciating the difference between crisis problems which require an immediate, material response and chronic problems which require longer-term, relational approaches. As Robert Lupton argues, a crisis form of response to chronic issues is not helpful:

‘We respond generously to stories of people in crisis, but in fact most of our charity goes to people who face predictable, solvable problems of chronic poverty. An emergency response to chronic need is at best counterproductive and, over time, is actually harmful.’⁸

Christian social action should aim to welcome people into participating in community rather than keeping them in receiving mode. People are not transformed simply through what they receive but through what they participate in and contribute to. This is why the 12-Step movement of addiction recovery has been so effective and sustainable, because everyone who truly benefits commits to helping others. Thus, one person’s recovery is always bound up with another in a community-shaped form of help.

A neat way of expressing this is the contributory principle: all forms of social action should empower beneficiaries to contribute to their own welfare and to the welfare of others. We should reject atomising, transactional approaches which can deepen dependency, and instead create structures that enable people to realize their own capacity to act.

Building on this principle, it should be our longer term ambition to help build robust forms of local economy and co-ownership structures that safeguard people from hardship. As Andrew Forsey, National Director of Feeding Britain says, there are already examples of initiatives that suggest potential in that direction:

‘Churches up and down the country, through pantries, food clubs and co-ops, are expanding working-class purchasing power and reducing the need for food banks and remedying the inadequacies of both state and market provision. These institutions, built upon the contributory principle, seem adept at combining individual self-interest with the common good.’

3. Deepening spirituality: confidence in our Christian distinctiveness

Finally, we believe that now is the time for confidence in the distinctive nature of Christian social action. There is a well-worn path of secularization that many Christian charities have ventured down and in doing so have cut themselves off from the roots from which they grew. We call for a new emphasis on integration of faith alongside charitable activity. We must resist the tendency to dilute our distinctiveness until we are left with a legacy faith: a footnote in a charity’s history rather than something dynamic and life-giving.

Our distinctive character is built on foundational beliefs about what it means to be human. We are relational beings made in the image of the Almighty God. Relationships are at the heart of what it means to be human because relationships are at the core of a Trinitarian God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This truth can and must infuse all we do.

The biblical narrative has both relational justice and empowering mercy running right through it. The liberation from slavery in the Exodus, the social and economic justice enshrined in the Torah, the social concern of the prophets railing against idolatry and injustice, the compassion and transforming power of Jesus and his radical call to discipleship and the way the early church lived as a counter-cultural community. These stories continue to inspire countless people drawn into God’s work of restoration and repair.

We want our lives and our work to reflect this grace and truth of Jesus not reject it. We want to call people and society into a radical way of living, into a movement which embodies this life-giving energy, that offers a constructive response to the socio-economic, cultural and spiritual malaise that has plagued our country for too long.

Every Christian church and charity is called to be more than a service provider, more than a think tank, and has a vocation deeper than activism or volunteering. In the words of Pope Francis, our calling ‘begins where we live…by bearing witness every day to the beauty of the Love that has looked upon us and lifted us up.’⁹

This crossroads calls us to ask ourselves honestly what it means to be a Christian. Indeed, the very idea of a separate “social action” sector calls us to take a new look at discipleship formation. In a culture plagued by individualism, it is not only our charitable bodies that need reminding about the relational imperative – it should be integral to the vocation of every Christian. As Stanley Hauerwas reminds us, ‘The church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic’.¹⁰ And, as Benedict XVI says, charity (love) is not to be reserved to an activist class: it is ‘not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others.’¹¹

Practices of discernment – listening to God in the local – are vital. These practices enable faith to become far more than a “starter motor” for a social action project – it can become the engine of a whole new way of being. We must remember that the gospel is the source of hope in addressing the crises of our time, giving purpose, meaning, depth of insight and a route for forgiveness and fullness of life.

Our charitable activities and local relationships can offer so much more than the bleak “allocation of resources” world and the managerial mindset can supply. We can provide an answer to the poverty of relationships and identity.

The Christian tradition must not fail to offer a response to the deep spiritual needs among our brothers and sisters affected by poverty. The scale of loneliness and despair is often hidden from view. We know that people in financial trouble are most likely to be living alone, and many have considered or attempted suicide as a way out.¹² We also know that spiritual accompaniment, as part of a respectful offer of support, is often welcomed by people in need.¹³

We recognise that many charities and initiatives operate in a mixed-zone with volunteers who may not always be committed Christians. This is a good thing, and there are lots of ways that a vibrant spirituality can be integrated sensitively alongside inclusive practice. The times call not for shyness but for what Lesslie Newbigin described as ‘proper confidence in the gospel’¹⁴ and a conviction that ensures our Christian distinctiveness is integral to what we do and how we live. This does not mean a return to crude forms of proselytising: rather, as Pope Francis has said, the church ‘grows by attracting others. And what attracts is our witness.’¹⁵

We must listen to God in prayer and boldly seek the grace and truth revealed in Jesus Christ. We must not be embarrassed by the distinctive roots that drive our motivation, nor should we allow social action to secularize the church and mute its ability to share the good news.

Proposed directions for action

At the Advent retreat, a number of practical proposals and ideas emerged from our collective discernment process.

1. Build our capacity to address the systemic drivers of poverty

a) Develop a shared theological language that enables churches and Christian charities to understand political economy, power, class and justice, and learn ‘how to do justice’ in grassroots and tangible ways

b) Learn from community organizing methods and work with marginalized communities to build upon co-operative movements like food co-ops, social supermarkets, credit unions

c) Develop new strategies for political and policy engagement appropriate for the new era

2. Reimagine discipleship and formation for the common good

a) Develop a discipleship formation addressing what it means to be a Christian in the neighbourhood today (incorporating the relational imperative; an understanding of power, class and justice; reflective practice; gifts from different theologies and organizations)

b) Explore models of dissemination including mentoring for both new and established Christians, aiming for a wide engagement beyond the limitations of activist groups

3. Develop the network of Christian social action leaders

a) Hold another “prophetic imagination” event, focused on two or three of the practical proposals, incorporating more young leaders and those with “lived experience”

b) Develop a mechanism to continue the links between these leaders (and others):

i. fostering relationships across agencies and denominational boundaries

ii. sharing resources and stories of best practice

iii. building a collective voice, while enhancing the voices and collective impact of smaller local initiatives, to balance out the dominance of the bigger organizations and national charities

4. Research the real impact of Christian social action

a) Assess different ways of measuring the distinctive impact of Christian social action (how do we measure God’s blessing)

b) Assemble multiple impact reports around specific needs (eg. a prison leaver) to speak into the public sphere in a new, non-competitive, collective Christian voice

c) Develop training to improve impact measurement and evaluation

5. Address the impact of funders on outcomes

a) Meet with strategic funders to present these issues and identify ways to empower distinctively Christian social action strategically appropriate for the times

b) Develop a theory of change, addressing the critical impact of funders on outcomes (incorporating the public perception of poverty) in relation to individual giving, family offices, philanthropic trusts, fundraising professionals, major denominations, central and local government), in consultation with faith-aligned experts in large scale change, eg. Nurture Development.

Next steps

Of course, any of the above would require energy and resources. We can see the value in holding another gathering in 2026, involving a bigger number of participants, nourished perhaps by the fruits of working groups that have focused for a while on two or three of the above proposals. We recognise the energy here and offer this paper to share these developments to test the water to see what kinds of next steps might resonate.

Closing words

We cannot do justice to the depth of conversation at the retreat. The sense of being as one united family in Jesus Christ was profound despite our many differences. We intentionally convened a group of leaders across denomination, politics, class, education, experience, expertise, ethnicity and opinion. It was a joy to have Pentecostal, Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical, Salvation Army, and Presbyterian traditions all represented. There is also a spectrum of theological tendencies from liberal to conservative, which of course cuts across all denominations, and their distinctive emphases, practices, terminology, worship styles, forms of discipleship.

It was a unique gathering and a moving experience that affected all involved. Rather than try to convey every detail of what was said, we have tried in the very limited time available, in between our day jobs, to convey the spirit of the discussions and bring out the key themes. We ask forgiveness for any omissions. We sense there is more to be done here, and we look forward to seeing where this may lead us next.

It may look hopeless, and we may feel powerless. But grace is working. We can look for signs of the Holy Spirit in our neighbourhoods and our local economies – signs of trust, forbearance, forgiveness, covenantal relationships of reciprocity and mutuality. We can join in with this divine energy and build the common good together. This is what keeps us human, and our God-given humanity must be defended. This is a time to speak the truth with courage, to accompany each other, refuse tribalism and build unlikely alliances of mutual respect and loving friendship.

Jon Kuhrt and Jenny Sinclair

• Jon Kuhrt is CEO of the Christian homeless charity Hope into Action and for the last 14 years has written the blog Grace+Truth.

• Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of the charity Together for the Common Good and co-host of the Leaving Egypt podcast.

If you’d like to stay in touch about this work on the future of Christian Social Action, please register your email HERE

Jenny Sinclair explores how Catholic Social Teaching can help school leaders read the signs of the times, enable their school and young people to play their part for the common good, and in doing so, contribute to civic and spiritual renewal. This talk was given for Head Teachers at the EducareM School of National Formation, in March 2025.

In this session, we’re going to look at why the common good is so important now, what it looks like in practical terms, what it looks like in terms of political economy in the Catholic tradition, how we are called to take responsibility, and how the common good is linked with our calling as Christians at this time.

Introduction

Let me just give you a very brief sketch of who I am and where I'm coming from. I grew up in an Anglican clergy family in London and then in Liverpool. My father was David Sheppard, the Bishop of Liverpool, who had a famous relationship with Archbishop Worlock for twenty-two years back in the 1970s to the 1990s.

But I was a rebel in my teens. I spent most of my time in the Liverpool music scene. I was the sort of teenager you as head teachers would be a bit concerned about.

I wasn't happy being the daughter of a bishop and I became estranged from the church.

But in my mid-twenties, I had a conversion experience, much to everyone's surprise and my own, and I was called into the Catholic Church, and I converted.

After that, I lived a quiet life, working in graphic design and in charities.

But then in 2011 - so that's what, 14 years ago - I felt the nudging of the Holy Spirit, and the first idea for the work that I'm now doing came to me.

I was seeing that things were going wrong in our society. You might remember the Tottenham riots; it was three years after the 2008 financial crash - and I realised the church was struggling to respond. Others joined me, and we felt that we were being called, initially, to explore that partnership between my late father and Archbishop Worlock. What we wanted to learn, from their twenty-two year joint leadership, was what was it about their partnership that made it so resonant? What would be useful for the church now in terms of the church's contribution to spiritual and civic renewal?

We saw that they played a critical role in Liverpool at a time of division, instability, unemployment and low confidence. To have church leaders so visibly working together not only ended a long history of sectarianism in Liverpool, but their solidarity made a lasting impact on the fortunes of a troubled city.

From them, we learned that when it comes to the civic vocation of the church, certain things stand out:

1. Christ centred, joint servant leadership across difference.

2. An outward-facing posture in relation to the neighbourhood, standing in solidarity, in particular with people who are poor. And of course,

3. Catholic Social Teaching - to discern a coherent response to the signs of the times.

So that was how we started.

But since that time, Together for the Common Good has developed. This is a new time, and it warrants new approaches. We draw on Catholic Social Teaching to enable people across the Christian denominations to play their part for the common good.

We do this through public lectures, consultancy, bespoke training for leaders, we create online resources, we produce a podcast, Leaving Egypt, which explores what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling. We also have a 10-week schools programme for KS3 and 4, and soon we will have a resource for children in KS2.

Together for the Common Good has become an organic project with multiple strands, and many thousands of people have been involved.

Catholic Social Teaching and Common Good Thinking

As we developed early on, it was clear to us that Catholic Social Teaching stood out as the most coherent theological framework to understand the world. We felt that it ought to be better known much more widely. For too long it had been kept as this well-guarded secret in the Catholic Church, but especially across other church traditions and beyond, it needed to be known. And not only in a global development sense, as in the way that CAFOD frames it, but also here in our own country, in our domestic setting. And also, not only in terms of charity and social action, but also in terms of how we live it out in a holistic evangelisation.

Different people teach it in different ways. Mine is not typical. I'm not a theologian, I'm not an academic. My approach has been shaped through my work with grassroots communities, churches and schools. I read a wide range of journalism, I consult with political thinkers and philosophers, and my hope is to interpret the tradition in a way that's grounded in the political and cultural reality that we live in.

We sense that God is calling us to draw on the wisdom of this tradition for a particular purpose - to equip people to play their part in spiritual and civic renewal. And so, we ground it in political, cultural and social reality, and we don’t try and teach the whole spectrum of Catholic Social Teaching - that’s the job of the Church. We focus on the renewal of society, and we want to make it accessible to all, not just to Catholics, and so we call this "common good thinking".

The Catholic Schools Inspection Framework1 now requires pupils to be actively engaged, and to take on leadership roles, in response to the demands of Catholic Social Teaching, locally, nationally and globally. Catholic Social Teaching can provide a story that involves everyone. And that story centres around the principle of the common good.

Why Catholic Social Teaching is important now

We sensed that God was calling us to draw on this wisdom for this particular purpose, to equip people to play their part - at a time of crisis across the West.

It was Ernest Hemingway who famously said, "change happens slowly then all at once." We are undergoing, as Pope Francis has said – he said this about eight years ago – he said we are living through “not just an epoch of change, but a change of epoch.”

He describes this change as a process of being stripped of “false securities.” It is no longer possible to “complacently enjoy” the illusions of the old era. It is no longer credible to continue with the assumption that governments have adequately represented us, or that the socio-economic model we've been living with can underwrite a flourishing life for all.

The upheaval we are now seeing was foreseen by those who understood the inherent logic of the dying system – and that includes our popes, they foresaw this. Of course, the devastating consequences of this dying system for the human being, for families and communities is its assault on relationship. They understood the disconnect it generated between ordinary working people and an arrogant governing class that presided over the corruption of our moral, social and economic life – probably over the past forty years, arguably longer. As a new geopolitical order emerges from the wreckage, most of that class still clings to the assumptions of that failed system.

What comes next is uncertain. Things are very chaotic at the moment. But the speed of events affects our capacity to discern wisely. Things are not obvious, and they may turn out to be the opposite of what they seem. We should want to proceed carefully. This isn’t easy when there is so much social pressure to take a position. We may hesitate for fear of provoking disagreement.

But it is important to understand the context we are operating in. Pope Francis has called this culture malign – and he says that its impact is most devastating on the young.

There is great uncertainty about the future. But as the people of God, we are not gloomy. These are great and wonderful days to be alive. Because we know that amidst this crisis, God is at work. This is a time when we find ourselves in increasing opposition to the world and yet called to live abundantly within it. We have a better story.

The common good is the antidote to individualism and collectivism. It provides a vision for renewal, in which everyone has a part to play. Responsibility for the common good must be taken at all levels - international, national, regional, local, personal.

Subsidiarity - responsibility at all levels

This is where the principle of Subsidiarity becomes so important. Subsidiarity as you know is one of the key principles in Catholic Social Teaching and it helps us to see how responsibility is to be taken at the appropriate level. It holds that decisions must be taken closest to those they affect, and a central authority should not do what can be done at a lower level so that all fulfil their unique roles. Its purpose is to uphold human agency.

Let’s look at what this might mean in practical terms. We can look out for signs of this as we play our part, as this new era unfolds. We think of this like a hierarchy of responsibility – this is the way that subsidiarity works.

First – there are responsibilities to be taken at international level – and that would look like solidarity between countries and institutions. Internationally it does not look like a central government, it does not look like centralised, globalised power.

At national level, it looks like building relationship between labour and capital, between employer and employee, between business and unions. It involves place-based investment, retraining, apprenticeships in the forgotten places; local banking and energy providers that are closer to people and more accountable. It involves a distribution of power.

At regional level, we would see institutional collaboration between employers, investors, unions, religious networks, dioceses, community networks and educational institutions, commercial organisations, and businesses, all working together for the renewal of their region.

This is how the vision of the common good in a Catholic Social teaching political economy emerges.

And then in the local, and this is particularly important, this vision is centred around a thick layer of civil society institutions where human beings can find fulfilment.

This might mean local associations, businesses and the links between them - it’s what Catholic Social Teaching calls intermediary institutions, between the person and the state, a humanising layer.

As Pope John Paul II described them, these institutions, “exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric.” (CA #49)2

In certain parts of the country where there are very few local institutions - where all you’ve got is a chicken shop, a betting shop and a pawn shop – there isn’t this thick humanising layer, and that means life is harsh between the person and the state. The person is more vulnerable to the manipulations of the market.

Pope John Paul II added that “the social nature of man is not completely fulfilled in the State, but is realized in intermediary groups…which stem from human nature itself and have their own autonomy, always with a view to the common good.” (CA #13)3

We might think of someone who has been long term unemployed but finds perhaps a voluntary role in a local club and through that gradually finds his way back to a sense of pride, a sense of self determination. Without that, he is at the mercy of the state - it’s too impersonal. We’re looking for something that is personal.

We’d be looking to build a rich tapestry of clubs, businesses, schools, charities, and religious bodies – working together - while each fulfilling, what Pope John Paul II calls, our vocational responsibility.

The local school is especially well placed to enable different groups to work together, to act together. And it’s particularly important, when thinking of Multi Academy Trusts, that each school has its own authentic character. This is not a top down vision. So each school discerns its own particular set of relationships in its neighbourhood.

Then further down the hierarchy, we get to the family, the building block of society, absolutely fundamental to Catholic Social Teaching. We need to find more and more creative ways of strengthening families – which have been so weakened in this failed system – and we need to be finding ways to build bonds between families so that they can support each other.

And then at the personal level – you and me - this means building back relationship where it's been stripped out. Less of the auto checkout and more making eye contact at the checkout. Saying hello to people in the street, not capitulating to this isolationist, separating type of culture that we’ve been in.

We need to become awkward customers: this is something I’ve taken from a wonderful Italian economist, Luigino Bruni. Bruni says that the market wants to create us into compliant consumers. As you’ll recall during pandemic, we all were sitting at home ordering on Amazon, so it’s no surprise that Jeff Bezos becomes the person who made the most money out of Covid. So we need to become awkward customers - borrow more, lend more, stop buying so much, stop looking up things on Google rather than asking a friend.

It’s all about staying human. It is about what we’d call a moral economy – to intentionally build a moral economy between us, as a counterweight to the dominating powers of market and state.

This calling to build common good belongs within an integrated evangelisation in its holistic sense.4 Pope Francis said that the church grows by attraction – it’s about how we live. That’s how people notice. It is about both our relational identity in God and about how we live.

The Common Good

What do we mean by the common good?

Now, I want to clarify what we mean by the common good - because it's often misunderstood. People tend to project onto it anything they want – such as “social justice”, “fairness”, “solidarity”, “equality” or some kind of utopia idea. It's not those things. The common good is not the same as social action either. It needs to be reciprocal, it enables, it empowers, it involves. So the kind of service provider posture of social action or “doing good to” is not common good.

The common good is about building a shared life, and this is how we describe it:

“The common good is the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal enabled by the social conditions that mean everyone can participate.

We create those conditions and pursue that goal, working together across our differences, each of us taking responsibility according to our calling and ability.”

So you notice that the common good is not something that the government can just create. We have to participate, through all those levels. This is why subsidiarity is so important, this concept of taking responsibility.

Class

It's important to say that the common good recognises the reality of class. We must be honest about the consequences of globalisation and the dominance of a middle class culture that has pertained, particularly for the last forty years.

Too many of our communities in our post-industrial towns, not only in our country but across the West, have been dispossessed. Every country that has adopted this system has ended up with communities dishonoured, in fact abandoned, as we off-shored jobs and investment to the Far East. This is how Catholic Social Teaching helps us read what has gone on.

We have large parts of our own country that are completely disconnected. I would describe this as a breach of the common good. Reconciliation is possible, but not through class warfare – that is not consistent with Catholic Social Teaching. Catholic Social Teaching shows us that rebuilding can be achieved – but through negotiating just relationships, and of course through statecraft.

A civilisation of love: the purpose of Catholic Social Teaching

Now at this point I’d just like to connect up the common good here with the stated purpose of Catholic Social Teaching as is stated in the social doctrine. It’s stated purpose is to build “the civilisation of love”. It actually says that. This means we really need to pay attention to the Catholic Social Teaching tradition in terms of its political economy.

Of course, it starts with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (Of New Things) where we see the Church making a serious critique of the Industrial Revolution and its effects on human beings and families. Drawing in fact on the experience in East London – our own country - of Cardinal Manning and his intervention in the Great Dock Strike of 1889.5 In so doing, this was a profound recognition of the importance of defending the common good in the face of unconstrained capital. It just happened he was the son of a banker, so he knew what he was doing.

This is so important because it shows the need to understand the dynamic between labour (that is, human agency) and capital. This is one of the key tensions within Catholic Social Teaching, that they must be kept in balance. The point of this is to protect the humanity of the dockers, in that case, and their families. Think about it - you’ve got ten thousand dockers waiting on the quayside, half of them get work and half of them don’t. Cardinal Manning has seen this first hand and is reporting it back to the Vatican. That is how the first encyclical gets written.

Now I’m not going to go through every encyclical, but there are a few that are particularly key in this respect.

If we look at Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris, (Peace on Earth) which is particularly relevant now, because we have a situation where we really don’t have social peace in this country. We really have quite volatile conditions. He’s looking at justice, and we see again this attentiveness to upholding the agency of the human being – the agency. He’s also looking at the role of the market, the role of the state, the common good, he talks about solidarity, worker’s rights and so on. He emphasises in particular the importance of the moral order and natural law for social peace.

This civilisation of love is a vision of society built on love, justice and respect for human dignity with the common good as its foundation.

Then we come to Pope John Paul II - who himself introduced this phrase, the civilisation of love. He was of course a towering figure who brought us I think the greatest insights into a political economy that allows people to thrive. In his Laborem Excercens (On Human Work) and Centesimus Annus (The Hundredth Year), we look at the role of the state, the dignity of work in particular, the critical role of countervailing institutions – like unions, like local institutions - that ensure distributed power - to ensure that power does not become overcentralised.

Again, this theme is so important now as we see the tendencies of governments to become more technocratic, more authoritarian, and we see in the rise of oligarchs the concentration of capital, alongside the concentration of state power.

Pope John Paul II of course was an extraordinary man, who lived through both Nazi occupied Poland and was instrumental later – centrally featured - in defeating communism. This was a man who had faced evil in both these political forms. He was acutely aware of the dangers of the overcentralised power of the state.

Then later we get to Pope Benedict XVI, who in Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), makes a sophisticated critique of relativism which he says effectively becomes a dictatorship. If everyone gets to do what they want without a sense of mutual obligation, it means the state ends up having to step in to mediate between competing rights, so the state becomes bigger. His analysis is so relevant for today – we have this chaos now with so many different interests without a common story. He emphasises the importance of truth – the shared understanding of truth - and he talks about the tyranny of individual desires.

Then after the financial crash of 2008 his concern turns to the economy of course. Again, this theme of concern about concentrated power. This time the concentrated power of capital in Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), which is published in 2009. This time we are really talking about the inherent dangers of unfettered capital. His analysis of the neoliberal economy builds on John Paul’s political economy, and Benedict sets out the ethics of a common good economics which critically includes constraint on capital.

And then of course Pope Francis. He built on this inheritance, on the teaching of his predecessors, building on the teaching of his predecessors, bringing his own powerful sensibility for the natural world and the poor working class of the world in Laudato Si (Praise be to you, my Lord), a holistic vision. His instincts were to counter what he described as the “malign” culture of hyper-liberalism. And he did that by proposing the common good and civic friendship, and he did so with such beautiful language, his language of encounter and fraternity in Fratelli tutti (Brothers All). And crucially he was pushing for an integrated spirituality, a deeper spirituality, of listening, of discernment and accompaniment, that is integrated in this understanding of political economy. He did this in particular in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) and his last encyclical, Dilexit Nos (He Loved Us).

This is such a rich and powerful resource for us to draw on in this time of crisis. You tend to find people who pick their favourite pope, but really we shouldn’t be doing that, we should be looking at the body of thinking in its entirety. We tend to get a pope for our times – isn’t that an amazing thing? We tend to get a pope for our times.

Repairers of the breach

As we saw earlier there has been a breach of the common good, which is really what has led to the great upheaval that we face. We as God’s people are called to join with Him in His work of repair, to restore and rebuild.

I’d love to share with you this beautiful passage in Isaiah:

“Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt.

You shall raise up the foundations of many generations.

You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

Isaiah 58.12

As Christians, to build the civilisation of love, we are called to stand in the breach.

We need to be there and give recognition to that divide, and in the face of the dehumanising philosophies that we’ve been living with, we're called not only to challenge structures of sin but to build structures of grace. We must work together in the local to create conditions that enable people to feel they can build a life.

As Christians we know that our anthropology is relational. We weren’t created as isolated individuals. We were created in the image of God. God is a relational being. We are geared that way. When we’ve been in a system that has been geared the other way, for an individualistic system, it is no wonder that everything’s gone so wrong. And so our role here is to stand in the breach, to build relationships that will begin to build a shared life.

The common good: what it is, and what it is not

The common good is not woolly: it is not a vague idea where all values are equal, not a "you do you, and I’ll do me and we’ll get along" kind of liberalism, which as we’ve seen leads to a battle of rights. The common good emphasises a balance between rights and responsibilities. It is place-based, it’s embodied, it’s not abstract. It is non-partisan, non-tribal, non-party political.

The tradition places trust in ordinary people and it rests on the principle of Solidarity, and it is strengthened when we join together across our differences. Across old and young – so we should be looking for intergenerational opportunities; men and women, employer and employee, educated and uneducated, business and unions, faith and secular and so on. We must notice these divides and create spaces and places where people can bridge them.

The common good is undermined when we're isolated, separated, or divided by identity categories. It is quite different from identity politics ideology. The common good cannot be built in a "safe space" insulated from dissent. It requires deliberation. It requires negotiation. It requires diversity of opinion, listening, mutual respect, forbearance, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption. Because its purpose is fundamentally relational.

It is based on the recognition of natural law, acknowledging people’s realities and calls us to work together across our differences – whether of class, socio-economic background, ethnicity, sex, age, ability, experience, and education. It’s realistic about human fallibility and yet it encourages virtue.

Emphatically it is not utopian: it is not some kind of medicine that's good for you, that justifies some kind of top-down imposition. It’s invitational and cannot be imposed or delivered. It arises from people’s free participation. It insists on the human agency that comes from true freedom in God, not the false freedoms of “choice” promised by consumerism, nor the totalitarian utopias of collectivist ideologies.

It is for everyone. But as the People of God, we are called into a special role, a kind of reweaving – especially in the local – to a building of our civic relationships that is covenantal not contractual. We are here for the long term, not like some sort of NGO, dependent on funding that might disappear. The church and therefore the church school has a covenantal relationship with place. Our commitment to this kind of solidarity means we are called to build a shared life.

Let me take you down a couple of side roads for a moment.

Catholic Social Teaching is not the same as Catholic social action

There’s a common misunderstanding around the difference between Catholic Social Teaching as a tradition, and Catholic social action. Some people talk about these things in the same breath, but they are not the same thing.

Catholic Social Teaching is commonly understood as a set of principles, to be focused on charity, social action and campaigning for justice, especially for global issues. Yes, but it’s not only those things. As we saw earlier, it is also a worldview. It is a framework for good judgment. As we saw earlier, it’s realised by the taking of responsibility at multiple levels, beginning with the person, then the family, the local institution, the regional, the national and the international. It’s grounded in reality but is also prophetic. It’s sometimes referred to as the Holy Spirit in practice.

It’s too easy to think that we’ve done that Catholic Social Teaching thing - perhaps by campaigning or fundraising for a charity, or by delivering a social action project - and to tick that box. Let’s just think for a moment.

Let’s consider the meaning of almsgiving. In the Catechism, giving alms is described as “a witness to fraternal charity”[3] – it’s actually more than giving money or services. It’s more about the gift of time and personal connection. Because charity in that quotation means love. It means a witness to fraternal love. It’s those moments of personal connection and the gift of time – that’s how we build the bonds of fraternity.

Pope Francis repeatedly called for a culture of encounter, and not to allow charity to become a means of keeping poor people at arm’s length.[4] In a busy school, “almsgiving” can easily become reductive and conflated with fundraising, for example.

But what might this mean for a child in the classroom who is poor? His ability to contribute is compromised, his family’s situation can become a source of shame. He is faced with the confusion of being invisible in his own classroom.

We can so easily allow charity and social action to fall into this service provider dynamic and create a false division between the giver and receiver. In this way we risk removing agency of someone who is poor and remove the possibilities of reciprocity.

This idea of love and charity (or almsgiving) must be reciprocal.

A proper understanding shows us that social action is only one aspect of Catholic Social Teaching. If we understand the challenge of this hyper-liberal culture, that has done so much damage, then we can see that the emphasis now must be on building relationships. Building the common good is the antidote to individualism.

This is the significance of Fratelli Tutti6. This is why Pope Francis so often spoke about the culture of encounter.

Shifting to a culture of encounter

This rhetoric of “culture of encounter” can be a bit abstract – it can float off in a nice fluffy sentence. But in all his encyclicals, and especially in his World Day of the Poor letters, Pope Francis warned us to stop “outsourcing”. He warned against keeping people who are poor at arm’s length – whether it is through fundraising, activism or welfarism. This doesn’t just apply to charities; it applies to all Catholic institutions. It’s a key aspect of Catholic identity.

Again and again, he warned against this “us” and “them” dynamic that is often prevalent in social action and charitable activity. Instead, he said we need to adopt a side-by-side posture of neighbour, to take personal responsibility and build relationships of reciprocity.

Grounded in a school context

What needs to happen to make this possible?

At a time when so many of our young people feel dislocated, our schools must be places where we learn to take responsibility and build local relationships. To rebalance the over emphasis on rights and entitlements, to bring back a sense of a culture of mutual obligation.

We can ask in our schools, are we joining with our neighbours who are poor, and demanding investment and decent jobs, or are we just giving them charity?

Let’s think about solidarity.

Do our young people know what it looks like to stand in solidarity with the poorest in our communities? Not as service providers, not as rescuers helping victims, but as neighbours and friends who share in each other’s local concerns, joys, hopes and fears?

What would it look like for an independent school? Does an independent school partner with local schools in the area, on a really genuinely reciprocal basis, creating relationship?

What if the poorest in our communities are under our own roof? What if our young people are part of families trapped in poverty? Having an awareness of a Catholic Social Teaching political economy can help us here.

As I mentioned earlier, Catholic Social Teaching began as a response to the Industrial Revolution inspired by Cardinal Manning but today we face a new industrial revolution, driven by technological change on a scale we’ve never seen before. From the precarity of the dockside labour market, we now have the gig economy, we have Artificial Intelligence, large language models, implants and body modification. We are seeing not only opportunities of course, but also very real threats to human agency in all kinds of new ways.

As Catholics we are fortunate to have this architecture to help us think through these challenges, and we have a calling to defend humanity against the powers – against the dominance of technocrats, oligarchs, big corporations and the over centralised surveillance state.

Just as an aside, think about TikTok. Most of our young people are addicted to TikTok and they even say they wish it didn’t exist. It could be regarded as a form of enclosure. If you think about our history of the commons and the enclosures. Our young people’s relationships are captured by a business model. What would their relationships look like if they weren’t mediated by the likes of TikTok.

But there’s no point in being angry about it, we need to actually act and help our young people to see how this is an exploitative business model. This is just one example.

We don’t know what’s coming - but Pope Francis’s insistence on discernment of the Holy Spirit is key here. Because we are in a new time, we can’t use necessarily old methods to navigate this new time, so we really must lean on God.

Our calling

In this malign culture, we’re called to be non-tribal, to live out our countercultural story. It’s a better story. It’s a story in which everyone can play their part – where people are not subordinated, where people find their agency.

And as the new era unfolds it’s our job to find ways of staying human. This involves speaking truth to each other, we find connection when we are authentic. It involves accompanying people, not being shy about our God-given identity and our calling, and to understand and learn to discern our individual vocational responsibility – and indeed our vocational responsibility as an institution. Who are we as a people at this time in this place? How is God calling us? What is our unique role in this work of repair? What are our particular gifts and abilities?

We can enable our young people to begin to shape the world by the language they use – the language of solidarity not division, of responsibilities in balance with rights, of the dignity of decent work not only welfare entitlement, of creating, making and producing as opposed to consuming, of mutuality not individualism, of covenant not contract, of relationship, rather than self-actualisation.

Our young people are pressured to sell themselves as a product in a marketplace. It’s creating an unhealthy way of seeing the person, of seeing themselves. Pope Francis emphasised that young people are the most vulnerable in our society because of this. They don’t have a memory, as we do, of the time before, when we related normally. So they need help.

We can consider how we are helping our young people discern how God is calling them to build the common good. This connection between our spirituality, our method of discernment and the common good – I think it’s so important to bridge these two wings of the church, if you like. There is one side where the evangelistic stuff happens and the other side where it’s the social – we need a bridge between them. I think the bridge is our calling – our vocational responsibility. God is calling me: what for? In the local, in practical terms.

In terms of their gifts and skills, are we talking about their calling for their individual leadership prospects – say, speaking truth to power or becoming campaigners or leaders? Or is it a bit more about their calling as a good neighbour, as a friend, to be alert to how the market and the state have this tendency to separate and dominate? To see the importance of the relational in the local.

This is what we need to encourage our young people to do. Because as the digital revolution takes hold, life online may start looking preferable to real life, especially if you live in a poor, degraded area where the infrastructure is crumbling. You could not blame people for wanting to spend time online in that context. And we know how addictive it is designed to be. We need to encourage and create opportunities for our young people to meet together in embodied form in place, and to cultivate a relationship with place.

Catholic Social Teaching equips us to consider what it means to be intentional - about becoming repairers of the breach – both personally and in terms of political economy. So, considering how we are called, both inside school and in the neighbourhood, I would like to leave you with a beautiful phrase, a phrase that Pope Francis liked very much – and that is to regard everything we do as an occasion for communion.7

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good.

For more content like this, visit https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

Learn more about our Common Good Schools programme: https://commongoodschools.co.uk

FOOTNOTES

This talk by Jenny Sinclair is an introduction to the Catholic social teaching tradition and its purpose. It was delivered to East Brighton Parish on 9 March 2025. The audio of Jenny delivering the session is available here and slides she used can be downloaded here. A PDF version of this article can be downloaded here.

Introduction

I’ve been asked to give you an introduction to the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching from the point of view of what it's for. I'm going to invite you to consider that its purpose is actually to build the Civilisation of Love.

Over the next two hours, we’ll have plenty of time for discussion, and

• We’re going to look at Catholic Social Teaching - what it is, what it's not, and we'll look at its basic principles and components.

• Then we'll consider what it's for and why it's so important at this point in our history, and we'll be reading the signs of the times.

• We'll also be exploring how God is calling each of us to participate in the common good and what this means as we live it out in our everyday lives.

My story

But before we move on, let me just give you a very brief sketch of who I am and where I'm coming from. I grew up in an Anglican clergy household in London and then in Liverpool. My father was David Sheppard, the Bishop of Liverpool, who had a famous relationship with Archbishop Worlock for twenty-two years back in the 1970s to the 1990s.

But I was a rebel in my teens. I was a difficult child. I wasn't happy being the daughter of a bishop and I became estranged from the church. But in my mid-twenties, I had a conversion experience, and much to everyone's surprise and mine, I was called into the Catholic Church, and I converted.

After that, I lived a quiet life, raising my children, working in graphic design and in charities. But then in 2011 - so that's what, 14 years ago - in my late forties - I felt the nudging of the Holy Spirit, and the first idea for the work that I'm now doing came to me.

I was seeing that things were going wrong in our society, in our culture, and I realised the church was struggling to respond. Others joined me, and we felt that we were being called, initially, to explore that partnership between my late father and Archbishop Worlock. What we wanted to learn, from their twenty-two year joint leadership, was what was it about their partnership that made it so resonant? What would be useful for the church now in terms of the church's contribution to spiritual and civic renewal?

We saw that they played a critical role in Liverpool at a time of division, instability, unemployment and low confidence. To have church leaders so visibly working together not only ended a long history of sectarianism, but their solidarity made a lasting impact in terms of the fortunes of a troubled city.

From them, we learned that when it comes to the civic vocation of the church, certain things stand out:

1. Christ centred, joint servant leadership across difference.

2. An outward-facing posture in relation to the neighbourhood, standing in solidarity, in particular with people who are poor. And of course,

3. Catholic Social Teaching - to discern a coherent response to the signs of the times.

So that was how we started. But since that time, Together for the Common Good, the charity I founded, has developed. This is a new time, and it warrants new approaches. We draw on Catholic Social Teaching to enable people across the churches to play their part for the common good.

We do this through public lectures, consultancy, bespoke training for leaders and a schools programme. We create online resources, and we produce a podcast. Together for the Common Good has become like an organic project with multiple strands, and many thousands of people have been involved. More of that later.

Catholic Social Teaching and Common Good Thinking

As we developed early on, Catholic Social Teaching stood out as the most coherent theological framework to understand the world. We felt that it ought to be better known much more widely. For too long it had been a well-kept secret, not only in the Catholic Church, but especially across other church traditions and beyond. It needed to be known better, not only in a global development sense, as we know from CAFOD, but also here at home In this country, in our domestic setting. Not only in terms of charity and social action, but also in terms of how we live it out in a holistic evangelisation.

We sense that God is calling us to draw on this wisdom for a particular purpose at a particular time, to equip people to play their part in spiritual and civic renewal. A time when our country, let's face it, is in trouble. And rather than teaching Catholic Social Teaching in an abstract form as free standing principles, we ground it in political, cultural and social reality. And rather than teaching the whole spectrum of Catholic Social Teaching, we focus on the renewal of society.

Prayer

Before we get into our session, shall we pray? This is a prayer we’ve used at Together for the Common Good at every meeting over the last 12 years.

Glory be to the father, the son and the Holy Spirit +

Come Holy Spirit. We welcome you here in our midst.

Govern our hearts and minds, govern every aspect of our time together.

Be in every thought and word; in every intention and motive.

Lord, we thank you for those who have been an inspiration to us.

Thank you, for calling us through the Gospel and for each other.

Guide us as we work together for the common good.

Bind us together across our traditions - and move our heart's desire closer to the heart of your desire for us.

Lord, give us the grace do your will, and make our mission a joy.

In the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

WHAT IS CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING?

Let's turn to Catholic Social Teaching. You should know that this is interpreted in different ways. Different people teach it in different ways. Mine is not typical. I'm not a theologian, I'm not an academic. My approach has been shaped through my work with grassroots communities, churches and schools. I read a wide range of journalism, I consult with leading political thinkers and philosophers, and my hope is to interpret the tradition in a way that's grounded in the political and cultural reality we live in.

What is it?

So what is Catholic Social Teaching? It's a body of thinking rooted in the gospel. It's intended as a framework for good judgment. It's a gift to all people of good will, not just for Catholics. It's not intended as infallible, but Catholics are obliged to pay attention, not necessarily to agree with it all. It's often called a hidden gem - a bit too well-hidden, if you ask me. Most Catholics are not familiar with it. To be fair, the documents themselves are quite dense - probably too dense for most people.

There are many ways to teach it. But it’s a problem when people teach it from different political positions, cherry pick from it, make it what they want. I'm trying very hard to hold a nonpartisan position. Its stated purpose is for a civilization of love.

The Encyclicals

What form does it actually take? It takes the form of a whole series of very long, dense letters, which we call encyclicals, which over 130 years have been published by successive popes. But it's not just the pope who writes it: each document is actually the product of a team of scholars and practitioners who work with the pope, drawing on lived experience from across the world.

The very first document, Rerum Novarum, was published in 1891 and the reason for it was a concern about the damaging effects of the Industrial Revolution on human welfare. That response was based on scripture, but also on the reality of people's lives, including in that case, in fact, the impact of exploitative practices on poor families in East London. It was Cardinal Manning who fed back to the Vatican what he was seeing on the ground.

Catholic Social Teaching is always grounded in real places. In that way, it offers a theology of place. Now we're not meant to cherry-pick our favourite encyclical: we're meant to engage with the whole body of thinking which grows over time.

Each encyclical is written following deep theological discernment and informed by the lived experience of the church in every nation, and it's deeply grounded in scripture. But it changes. It's a living tradition, it's not meant to be complete or perfect. We can all contribute to it.

It does build on centuries of tradition, the tradition of the Fathers of the Church and on natural law, and whilst it emphatically does not propose a theocracy, nor any kind of religious triumphalism, it does enable the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments to be interpreted into statecraft - that's the job of the laity, not of the Church.

It's visionary, but not utopian. Sometimes it's called the “theology of the Holy Spirit in practice”, it helps us understand how political and philosophical ideas and policies can affect the human person, and to recognise when social systems and cultural values are dehumanising.

Themes

Its themes are very broad. The whole of human life is covered in these long and detailed documents. It's focused on upholding of the flourishing of the human being and the natural world. It's concerned with human agency, social organisation, true democracy, a healthy political economy, the importance of work, the family, ethics, bioethics, and much more.

Components

I like to look at this also in terms of its components. What Catholic Social Teaching does is it identifies the powers - particularly of capital and state - that undermine the integrity of the human person, when they're over centralised. It calls for a just relationship between capital and labour. It is concerned with a true idea of freedom, and therefore it alerts us to false freedoms. It is concerned with truth versus relativism and war and peace and a social peace. It is profoundly concerned with justice - with balance, a just economy, the preferential option for the poor and therefore class, the balance between responsibilities and rights, the culture of life versus the culture of death, our duty to uphold both the human being in the natural world - integral ecology, holding the tension between the nature and the person.

It has a very broad range of themes, and in recent years, it's become more and more concerned about the dangers of overly centralised power, government overreach, state bureaucracies becoming dehumanising and supranational, powerful, corporate financial interests. Because when they are too powerful, they subordinate communities.

And although it is global in its thinking, Catholic Social Teaching guides us to realise that to enable human flourishing, power must be distributed - not centralised - through strong local institutions. So it's not in favour of global governance, but in strong relationships of solidarity between nations.

Theology of the human person

It is based on a very particular anthropology, a Christian anthropology. It recognises what people are really like. It recognises the primacy of God as opposed to the primacy of self - that we are created as relational beings, not as isolated individuals. This is part of a broad understanding - that we understand the Earth and the cosmos to be God's world, His domain, not ours, and that our identity as human beings is in God.

From this we get the imago dei, that we're made in the image of God, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From this anthropology, we get the transcendent dimension of the human person and as in the Trinity, that we are relational beings. This relational aspect we will hear again and again this evening. It is key to the basis of Catholic Social Teaching.

Human beings are in relationship with all of creation and with God. Catholic Social Teaching has a concept called integral ecology, which is set out in Laudato Si. The natural world must never be in conflict with itself – CST is always looking for balance. So for example,

• CST rejects the anti-human tendencies that we see in some environmental activism.

• CST is always pro human and pro nature, and the balance between them.

• CST seeks to balance the interests of environmental measures while respecting people’s livelihoods, and democratic participation. Not top-down coercive measures but to develop a politics of the common good that balances stewardship of the natural world with the dignity of work. This is why the Green New Deal was so unpopular. This is why the present government’s treatment of family farms is so unpopular. This is an example of how building the common good requires hard political negotiation between estranged interests, to do that we bring all the CST principles into play, and we ensure the consent of the different interests.

The attention to the sanctity of each person in this tradition is sometimes referred to as personalism. This was popularised by John Paul II, who said that “the person is the kind of good which cannot be treated as an object of use. The person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love.”1 This is our basis: love is at the heart of this tradition.

CST: What it’s not

Now let's just have a look at what Catholic Social Teaching is not. It's ambitious and visionary, but it's emphatically not utopian. It recognises human life as messier and more beautifully human than any utopia could be. It emphasises the right and the duty of people of faith to take responsibility for their actions.

It incorporates a theology of place. It is not abstract - it focuses on real people in real places and on practical solutions to human problems. Correctly understood, this tradition is nonpartisan, and if it's to retain its integrity, it shouldn't be hitched to one party political position or another. It transcends the old categories of left and right. There's sometimes a lazy tendency to assume that it's all about solidarity, and is basically left wing, which it isn't. Part of it is radical, and part of it is deeply conservative.

It's not anti-capitalist, but it's not pro-state or anti-state either. What it does is criticise all social systems that subordinate the human spirit. And so it requires us to exercise conscience. It offers a set of principles, a framework for good judgment. It calls us to work for justice. It rejects the political quietism of calm acceptance of things as they are.

But it is not proposing a return to some sort of past Christendom - and let's face it, we are in post Christendom now. We live in a pluralist society, and Catholic Social Teaching is clear about the role of the Church in the world. It upholds principles, but it's not prescriptive in policy terms. It does not propose a theocracy. Lay people are responsible for matters of statecraft and not the Church.

It upholds the human person as a relational being not a rights bearing individual, so it does not align with identity politics. It is invitational and never coercive.

CST: What it is

So not only is it a set of principles, not only is it concerned about charity, social action, campaigning and global issues, but more importantly it provides a Catholic worldview, a framework for good judgment. It is realised at multiple levels, beginning with me, beginning with you, beginning with our personal responsibility. It is grounded in reality but also prophetic.

Different from competing ideologies

So how is it different from other competing ideologies? As you'll be well aware, we're in a very confusing time at the moment. There are so many different competing ideologies struggling for power. Now we don't have time to go into this now, but I want you to recognise how many different belief systems, politically speaking, there are around. Catholic Social Teaching has a way of challenging and critiquing each one of these. This is the state that we're in. At the moment we see confusion, a struggle for power.

Key principles

Let's look at some of the key principles of Catholic Social Teaching.

• The common good is a key principle, where we have a determined responsibility to each other. We will look at that in more detail later.

• The human person - we break down this into four sub principles:

• human dignity

• human equality - we are equal in the eyes of God, but critically, we are not meant to be the same –we are made to be complementary: it's that kind of equality.

• respect for life - from natural conception to natural death

• the dignity of work - work is more than a way of making a living, it's how we express our contribution in the world.

• Social relationships -

• You've heard of solidarity. That is an important principle, but also

• Subsidiarity - which is about where responsibility is taken. I shall speak about that later.

• And the principle of participation - we have a duty and a right to participate

• Reconciliation - to bring together that which has been divided.

• And stewardship, sometimes called care for creation - this is the care, not only for the natural world, but also for each other and for the gifts that we've been given.

• And then finally, the preferential option for the poor, which we sometimes refer to as everyone is included, no one is left behind.

So that's the framework of the principles. Some people conceptualise them in slightly different ways, but broadly speaking, that is how we conceive of the principles.

WHAT IS CST FOR?

Justice

So first I want to talk about justice. John Paul II said that Catholic social justice rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity. And he said, ours is a transcendent vision of justice, where human beings are in relationship with each other and with God. We all have an idea what that means, but there are different visions of justice, so we can't take it for granted. To understand our own tradition, we need to go back to the source.

Jesus was a common worker in a Roman economy that was keeping down the wages of the poor.2 His resistance to that injustice was not to start a campaign or an angry factional group. His resistance was rooted in the rabbinical tradition where the meaning of justice is about right relationship. He introduced a whole new way of living, bringing people together, rich and poor, across ethnicity, age and sex, educational background and class. We could say he was building a common good.

This element of relationship runs right through the themes of biblical justice. For example, the Torah laws on helping someone in debt3 involve detailed relational elements. The lender is obliged to accompany the borrower, providing support and advice, not just cash, and “must exact no interest from them”. So, if you like, in “God's economy”, lending is more like accompaniment.

If you're having a hard time, I'm to walk in relationship with you, accompany you till you get back on your feet, for as long as it takes. I'm not just to give you a bank transfer and leave you alone in your flat. The Catholic tradition of social justice is anchored in God's economy of mutual obligation and right relationship.

The Common Good

Now, I want to clarify what we mean by the common good - because it's often misunderstood. People project onto it all sorts of things that they want it to mean: “social justice”, “fairness”, “solidarity”, “equality” or some kind of utopia. It's not those things, and the common good is not the same as social action. It needs to be reciprocal. It enables, it empowers, it involves. So the kind of service provider posture of social action or “doing good to” is not common good.

The common good is about building a shared life, and this is how we describe it:

“The common good is the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal enabled by the social conditions that mean everyone can participate, but we create those conditions and pursue that goal, working together across our differences, each of us taking responsibility according to our calling and ability.”

It's important to say that the common good recognises the reality of class. We must be honest about the consequences of globalisation and the dominance of a middle class culture that now pertains. Some working class communities in our post-industrial towns, for example, have been abandoned and dishonoured, marginalised. We even now have what some are calling an underclass. Large parts of our country are completely disconnected. This is a breach of the common good – we will come back to this later. Reconciliation is possible, not through class warfare, but by negotiating just relationships.

Reading the Signs of the Times

But before we rush to take any action, Catholic social teaching requires us to read the signs of the times. We have a tradition that you may be familiar with, called “See - Judge - Act.”4 We are going to follow that rubric. So how do we see? How do we judge, and how do we act? These “how” questions are about social, political and economic choices.

To make the right choices, we must be anchored in our tradition, or we're at risk of mission drift. Currently shaping our world there are two secular visions of justice that dominate. One is a utilitarian model focusing on welfare, and this is conjoined with a libertarian or hyper liberal model which focuses on rights and freedom from constraint - and this generates a false idea of freedom.

This combination of the hyper liberal with the welfarist is what actually underpins our current operating system. It's the sea we swim in. It's so all around us we can hardly see it. Broadly speaking, this whole system can be referred to as neoliberalism and it has been particularly dominant since around 1979. As a method of how to do justice, this combination is utterly different from our own transcendent relational tradition of justice.5 This is so important, because when we as Christians forget our own tradition, the risk is we inadvertently prop up those secular choices.

Let's go back to See - Judge - Act.

How do we see? What's going on from a Christian justice perspective? The Catholic Social Teaching tradition helps us understand the world. It's based on a Christian anthropology rooted in natural law, where human beings are relational beings who thrive with each other and with God. These transcendent relational fundamentals underpin our model of justice. This is the frame of how we see what's going on. This tradition trains our eyes to look at what's happening to human beings, what's happening to the relationships between those human beings – and to families, to communities, to the natural world, to God's creation.

SEE

So in this time, this very strange time that we're going through, what do we see? We see many examples of loving kindness, community and interdependence of human beings doing their thing. But we also see that this is coming under increasing threat. We see a system generating pockets of intense wealth, but also intense poverty and civic degradation on a vast scale. We see 5.93 million of our fellow citizens on Universal Credit. 14 million people in our country are now classified as poor.

We are seeing a succession of economic crises. We see work becoming increasingly precarious. We see housing becoming unaffordable. We see whole sections of society effectively discarded. We're seeing the dehumanisation and the exploitation of human beings through euthanasia. We see it through the liberalising of abortion, through sexual exploitation.

We're seeing the commodification and financialisation of everything: land, water, homes, human beings. We see the concentration of power and the weakening of local agency, and we see catastrophic damage to the natural world. We're seeing division, isolation, fragmentation and symptoms of human distress and an explosion of mental health crises. We're seeing relationship breakdown, family breakdown, falling levels of trust.

For those who live in pockets of affluence, this damage may be to some extent invisible, but for those in poor communities, it's very clear. What you see depends on where you stand.

JUDGE

So how do we judge what we see, what is actually going on? Our Catholic Social Teaching framework for good judgment, as I said, correctly understood is nonpartisan. It equips us to call out any system, whether capitalist or collectivist or whatever system, if it's dehumanising.

From the analysis of political economy as conceptualised with Catholic Social Teaching, we can judge that our prevailing operating system is broken. We can judge that it causes human degradation, vast inequality and the weakening of families. It weakens virtues like responsibility and mutual obligation. It's overly weighted in favour of rights. It reframes virtues like mutual obligation as outdated. It undermines our justice cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity. Effectively, it's an assault on relationship.

If we are really seeing clearly, we can judge that this operating system generates what I would call a politics of abandonment. And if we're thinking in terms of members of one body – as in First Corinthians - if one part of the body is being treated badly or is effectively abandoned, it causes a sickness in the whole body politic.6

This is not just happening in the UK. Every country that has adopted this system has seen the same effects. We can begin to understand this unholy alliance - this utilitarian, welfarist, state market collusion - that attempts to mitigate the multiple forms of poverty it generates. It is not only unjust, it is defeatist. It is an inefficient vicious cycle. It is dysfunctional and inherently unstable. The so called “cost of living crisis” is just one of many crises that this system generates.

So coming from the Catholic Social Teaching tradition, we need to focus on system reform. It doesn't have to be like this. It wasn't always like this. We don't just need to be focused on mitigating the effects of its dysfunction, tinkering around the edges. We must of course, argue for essential needs to be met, that's imperative, but if we don't frame it within a bigger story of system failure and argue a constructive case for economic reform, we can inadvertently become enablers of an unjust system. We can even find ourselves repressing prophetic justice.

But it's not just about the economy.

The logic underpinning this low-wage, high-welfare economic model has moral, social and spiritual consequences too. Despite people's valiant efforts to uphold the sacred and to build relationship, this culture of transactional individualism atomises, separates, generates tribalism and identitarian ideologies: the battle of all against all. Its logic leads governments to overcentralise and to collude with big business to coerce and control, going above and beyond democratic processes, undermining human agency.

So we can judge that we have, as Pope Francis describes it, a “malign” culture. He says it's dehumanising, unjust. It has done great damage, especially to poor parts of the country7 - and he says especially to the young, are the most vulnerable to this culture. It is no coincidence that we see steep rises in loneliness - statistically higher, by the way, among the young than the old. And it is no coincidence that we see bizarre belief systems emerging too. It is this hyper liberalism that allows the “you be you, and I'll be me culture - it doesn't matter, we'll just try and get along.” It doesn't work.

We're living through a period of accelerated social, moral and political confusion. From the position of our justice tradition, we can see that this operating system is anti-human, and this is why it's unravelling. This is why it generates so many pathologies.

Upheaval across the West

This is why we see upheaval across the West. Pope Francis was right to say that this is not just an era of change, but a change of era.8 We are now in a moment of epochal change with a new geopolitical order unfolding on an hourly basis. It is far too early to say how this will work out.

The dynamics of the new order: a tension between transhumanist technocrat oligarchs on the one hand, and the desire for a pro-human, pro-worker, stable form of life, on the other.

ACT

We are in what is described, in political economy terms, we have. Been in an interregnum, and now we are entering a new epoch. As Gramsci said, when the old is dying, and the new is yet to be born, “all manner of morbid symptoms pertain.9

So how we respond in this moment is very important, because amidst all of this, as Christians, we know that God is at work.

Declining church but God is at work

Despite what some people may see as the declining Church, it's actually a change that's going on. It's a profound change. God is still at work. That's our hope: we don't deal in false hope, we deal in real hope, because we know that God is real.

Staying human

We're called to see and to judge, but also to act. Now, remember that Catholic Social Teaching began10 in 1891 as a response to another moment of seismic change. It can guide us again now. This time, the new industrial revolution that's coming at us like a fast train involves the new transhumanist industries, the digital industries, the virtual. So powerful, so fast, and if not constrained, will end up shaming the local, the neighbourhood and subordinating the human being. Our embodied nature as human beings is under threat.

So we are called to shine a light on the hyper liberal philosophy underpinning these dark systems. But we are also called to promote the way of God's kingdom, which is fundamentally about relationships. We are called to be constructive - that is what we will go into more detail after the break. But for now, let’s have a moment for conversation.

BUILDING THE CIVILISATION OF LOVE

Let’s look at this term – the civilization of love – this is the stated purpose of CST. Like baking a beautiful cake, like some of us have just enjoyed, it involves several key ingredients:

• People matter more than things

• Sharing the revealed truth of God 

• Respect for human life - a gift from God 

• Daily gestures of sacrifice and care 

• Looking out for others

• Building up the common good 

It was John Paul II who introduced the idea of the civilization of love – and remember he lived through occupied Poland under Nazi Germany and then was instrumental in defeating communism. He was a towering intellect and a man of immense spiritual stature. He said that the civilisation of love was the foundation of a humane society. He encouraged people to live their lives in love and to use their talents to build up Christ's body.

Pope Benedict XVI continued in this vein, making a sophisticated critique of the neoliberal economy in Caritas in Veritate after the financial crash of 2008, and warned of the dangers of hyper liberalism and what he calls the tyranny of relativism. Pope Francis has built on this inheritance with his beautiful language of encounter and fraternity and made it more accessible.

The common good is at the heart of this civilisation of love – this shared life that enables us to uphold what it means to be human. But as we saw earlier there has been a breach of the common good, and that is what has caused so much trouble. And we as God’s people, are called to join with Him in His work of repair, to restore and rebuild.

The Breach

There is a passage in Isaiah that expresses this well:

“Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt.

You shall raise up the foundations of many generations.

You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

Isaiah 58.12

As Christians, to build the civilisation of love, we are called to stand in the breach. When we spot where someone is suffering, separated or alienated – or indeed a whole community - we need to stand in there and bridge that divide.

The Preferential Option for the Poor

This brings us to focus on one of the key principles in Catholic Social Teaching, the preferential option for the poor. Sometimes we call this “everyone is included, no one is left behind”. I mentioned earlier the very high figures of people on various types of out of work benefits, and the numbers of people who are now recognised to be living in poverty. That is a lot of people, a lot of struggling families.

Pope Francis emphasises again and again that if we are not in relationship with people who are poor – whether on low wages or trapped in poverty - we will get the wrong conclusions. This is a difficult message for a middle class church. Much of the Church has become middle class, and the identity politics version of social justice that's now so pervasive, which is built around gender and race, distracts us from the reality of economic class difference. It shifts our attention away from an injustice that actually affects all ethnicities, men and women. It shifts us away from focusing on an economy that is geared to serve the interests of big corporations rather than human beings, families and communities.

If we're really to understand Catholic Social Teaching, we're not to abandon people. We're to build reciprocal, mutually respectful relationships. We're to build local forms of association. What does that look like? It might look like sports clubs, book clubs, fishing clubs, tenants’ associations, local professional associations - organisations where people can find agency. These small associations are a basic component within Catholic Social Teaching. We'll come back to this later.

Common good is about building coalitions. Think of how Martin Luther King used to describe his “beloved community”. It involves real coalitions and alliances in real physical places with real people. That is very different from an online community, a special interest group consisting of people all over the world who don't actually have a shared place where they are going to care for together. If we neglect our local forms of association, what will happen is that rich places will thrive, and poor places will just become more and more and more degraded as people live online.

Catholic Social Teaching is not abstract. And when you hear the word “diversity”, remember that in the Catholic Social Teaching tradition, true diversity means not only the narrow characteristics of race, gender, disability and so on. It means a truly inclusive diversity – diversity of educational background, diversity of class, and crucially, diversity of opinion.

We are getting to a point now where people cannot tolerate the opinion of someone who’s views are different from theirs. People get into echo chambers, and when they hear something different from their familiar narrative, it is hard to bear, and often people find that hard to tolerate or even shut down the debate.

As Christians, we must stand in the breach. The hyper liberal philosophy that characterises our culture has divided us and we have lost the language of mutual obligation. We've lost the sense of “I am, because we are” that is so well expressed in Ubuntu. When people live in separate worlds and don't know each other, they care less. Then things get unstable and we get what Pope Francis calls a “culture of indifference” where people literally don't even notice the other.

So, if you are aware of two different groups who really don't like each other, something might stir in your heart. You might feel “how can I build a bridge?” “How can I introduce someone from one group to another?” It becomes dangerous for democracy when people become so estranged. This is why Pope Francis talks again and again about the culture of encounter. That's a nice phrase, but it often gets stuck as rhetoric. What does it mean in practice?

Subsidiarity

We will get into that presently, but first, I want to introduce another principle. It's a very important principle and one of the least understood: subsidiarity. In shorthand, when you see this word, think of “responsibility”. It is defined as follows, that decisions should always be taken closest to those they affect, and a central authority should not do things that can be done at a more local level.

Obviously, there are some things that must be done at a higher level, but we should be very careful and discern. For example, when you're raising a child, you don't tie their shoelaces for them if they can do it for themselves, otherwise, you de-skill them. Equally, you don't make them do it before they've learned how to do it. This principle gives us a sense of responsibility at the right level.

This distribution of power requires careful discernment about what decisions should be taken at what level. This is especially important at a time when central governments are becoming more and more authoritarian, more centralised, more legalistic, increasingly taking decisions outside democratic agreements, colluding with big corporations.

Levels of responsibility

At this point I want to introduce you to the levels of responsibility in terms of subsidiarity. This is a way of us conceiving in structural terms how CST would build the civilisation of love. We can see a kind of multiple layering:

• At the international level - this would call for solidarity between nation states but not centralised global governance. Relationships between nations and institutional relations between institutions in different countries is all very good, vital to retain character, to retain particularity.

• At the national level - Catholic Social Teaching would call for conditions in which state power is limited and distributed. This tradition is not in favour of small government necessarily. What matters is how power is distributed. In practice, this would require a national industrial strategy - a true kind of “levelling up”, if you like - where capital is constrained and decentralised, incentivised towards the places that most need decent jobs. Rather than allowing investment to go where the greatest profits are to be made, there would be incentives to invest in the poor places, so that every place and community can thrive.

• At regional level – we would see regional banking, not the big international banks. We would see regional energy providers. Services would be accountable to local regional bodies. It would mean collaboration between, for example, educational institutions, colleges, employers, diocese, religious associations, chambers of commerce, all working together across the flourishing of their region, each fulfilling their own distinctive vocational responsibility. This is a concept of Pope John Paul II – where each person and organisation is called to a unique vocational responsibility. For example, are you a business owner? a teacher? an accountant? a nurse? a street cleaner? working in a shop? Catholic Social Teaching asks “what's your individual vocational responsibility?”

• And then at a local level - Catholic Social Teaching requires each local institution to make an examination of conscience. To ask, are they fulfilling that vocation for the common good in their community? For example, does a business pay its employees fairly? Does the CEO know the cleaners by name - are they all invited to the Christmas party? It's relational. Are the jobs stable? Do they enable family formation? Are they fulfilling? Are they dignified? Are they fairly paid?

Local Institutions

Crucially within the local level are local institutions. Let’s spend a little time on this. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Excercens, which mainly focuses on the dignity of work but also on another key CST component, intermediary institutions.

He talks about the need for, and I quote, “a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes, enjoying real autonomy with regard to the powers pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other.”

What you want is a thick patchwork, a variety, a colourful patchwork of different kinds of institutions – who are connected with each other. That's what you will see in a thriving town, in a thriving Village.

But in a place that's not thriving, what do you see? A betting shop, a chicken shop and a pawn shop. Everything else is closed. There are no local associations, no nice boutiques, no nice cafes. This is what's happened to places in our former industrial heartlands and some of our more remote coastal towns.

What Pope John Paul II is talking about here are these institutions between the person and the state, how they humanise people. For example, if you've been out of work for a long time, and you're able to volunteer in a local institution, it might be something through the church, might be Legion of Mary, it might be to volunteer at a food bank, or it might be to join a local sports association. Through the relationships that you make in that setting, you get your dignity back, you get your relationships back, you get your skills back.

But if those institutions don't exist or aren’t community oriented, you can't do it, the only meaningful contact you have is with the bureaucratic state and you are exposed to the extractive market, selling you things on your phone, feeding you more and more content, turning you into consumer. So you can see how people end up feeling alienated, isolated and lonely.

This is why we need community oriented intermediary bodies, like sports clubs, youth clubs, local businesses, associations, regional banks, mutuals, charities, places of worship, guilds, hospices, unions, universities, community trusts, schools - bodies that are not part of the central state or global business.

This rich diversity of local bodies is what leads to a rich local ecology, and if it's not there, it needs to be built back. That's hard. It's hard work. It's patient, unglamorous work. It starts with people coming together in conversation. This wide variety of local institutions is vital: bodies that bind people together, help people find meaning and purpose.

Pope John Paul II says that every local institution has a calling - a vocational responsibility to play its part for the common good. The local church can play an encouraging and supporting role and enable these human shaped, human sized bodies to act morally and pro-socially, and by facilitating connections between them. Like a kind of social knitting.

Catholic Social Teaching sees this layer, this thick layer of institutions - civil society, if you like – as part of a relational power that is capable of resisting the powers of state and market. It is a humanising power. Now the churches, of course, have a distinct calling at this local level, a calling to play a key role in this reweaving, this upholding of the sacred, supporting the human person, supporting families, bringing neighbours together, standing in the breach. This must begin with discernment, with listening to what God is saying.

Back to our levels of responsibility:

• Further down from the local there is the level of the family - the family is regarded by Catholic Social Teaching as the fundamental building block of society. The society that we live in is not family friendly. We can see this both from the point of view of the Catholic family – which is called to be a witness in the world through its local relationships not to withdraw from it, and also from the point of view of families in society generally. It’s difficult to form a strong healthy family these days. Families need a lot of support. They need encouragement. One of the great things the local church can do is to wrap itself around a family who's struggling and provide friendship, company, and support. This kind of support doesn't always involve money, funding, or require strategy. It requires loving kindness and accompaniment.

• And finally, beneath the family, there's the person – that’s you and me - the level of the individual, our personal responsibility according to our gifts and capability. There is an important point to remember about subsidiarity - something that Pope Benedict XVI articulated very well. He says subsidiarity is really to remind us that everybody has something to contribute.

Even the most profoundly disabled person who you might think is unable to contribute much, can - through relationship with others. Just by being themselves they change the dynamic between people. This is a fundamental point that is so counter cultural. Countries such as Iceland are saying they're proud to be “Downs free”11 because they abort Downs children before they're born.

Right now we have assisted dying coming at us. This is profoundly anti-human, part of what Pope Francis calls the “culture of death”. We are called to a culture of life, that recognises that we are poorer if we get rid of those who are weak. The strong need the weak to be human. It is reciprocity that makes us human. Everyone is worthy of love and affection. Everyone has something to contribute.

We are all called to play our part as moral actors, through the decisions we take, through our relationships, discerning in conversation with God how we are called to put Catholic Social Teaching into practice in our everyday lives. This is a proper understanding of evangelisation. Evangelisation, in Catholic Social Teaching terms, has a holistic meaning. It's not just about proselytising. It's about how we live. Pope Francis says this is how the church attracts – it is by how we live.

Covenant and Place

Now I want to say something about place and about covenant. Covenant is about the long term commitment of the Church to its neighbourhood. To make that real, the Catholic Social Teaching tradition must be integrated into our understanding of discipleship. Currently, it's barely part of the formation; indeed, most Catholics don't know about it. If the more evangelistic wings of the Church integrated Catholic Social Teaching into their formation, they will be better able to read the signs of the times. A holistic evangelisation requires a bridge between our spiritual life and the practical choices of the everyday. A Christian witness that integrates spirituality with the way we live.

But sometimes we - the Church - forget who we are. In our efforts to be modern and efficient and relevant, we sometimes default to an earthly paradigm, to managerial and technocratic practices. We need to listen to what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I've spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” If we ask Jesus into our lives, then through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we'll begin to discern between the realms of heaven and earth.

We need to get things the right way up. God was subordinated at the turn of the Enlightenment, and we're now seeing the consequences. We need to be confident about putting things back the right way up. God is our primary agent. The world needs the Church to resist these dehumanising powers, but currently the Church isn't fit for purpose. It is weak in this way – it needs to understand more about what's going on. As members of the Church, we need to join with God in the building of the kingdom in the places where we live.

Place is important, because this is where people are. This is not abstract, it's real. The paradox is that we encounter the heavenly realm in the grounded embodied-ness of the neighbourhood, because God is at work through people. God is already at work in our neighbourhoods, whether or not we're paying attention, whether or not we're joining in. In the abandonment of our poorest neighbourhoods, there has been a disconnect. The Church has often been out of touch with what God is doing. God calls us to join in, beginning by listening to our brothers and sisters in the local.

A Relational Church

We are called to become a relational church. To a reweaving, to a remaking of social life. This means having a covenantal as opposed to contractual or transactional relationship with our neighbours. Covenant has an expansive meaning, and it can have a transformational effect on our relationships, on our churches and communities. We know from Scripture that covenant is about God's unconditional promise to us in Christ. It is lasting and durable. It is not a fly-by-night. It doesn't depend on funding. It’s not like “oh sorry, the funding has run out, so we’ve got to stop.” It's about always being there.

As Pope Francis says in his latest encyclical, Dilexit Nos, which means He Loved Us, he says it's all about real connection, heart to heart, about sharing vulnerability, telling the truth. And in Fratelli Tutti or Brothers and sisters together - the encyclical before that, he emphasises the importance of local relationships and loving friendship. In fact, he talks about civic friendship as an intentional act. And in Evangelii Gaudium, his first encyclical, the Joy of the Gospel, he says he wants us to become more relational, to resist tribalism, resist individualism. He wants us to “smell like the sheep.”

He says to stop keeping people at arm's length. We must get involved. Pope Francis doesn't like it when we get into a kind of technocratic arm's length dynamic with people trapped in poverty. In his World Day of the Poor Letters, which are published every year, he says we have got to stop outsourcing. He says no more proxies, stop delegating, don't just fundraise or be activists or campaign on social media. He says this is personal.

Relationship building in Catholic Social Teaching is not just a “nice to have”, it is fundamental. It could be described as a counter cultural insurgency against individualism. Rather than a political campaign, it's about tenderness and loving kindness. It's about spending time together with each other. This is how we will stay human.

Catholic Social Teaching and our Calling

I hope you can see that Catholic Social Teaching, although it's a powerful intellectual framework which calls us to engage very deeply and prayerfully, is not an “add-on” to our faith. It's a profoundly integrated part of it. This theology of the Holy Spirit is a profound mystery and it needs to be grounded in place.

PRACTICES

What does it take to play our part in building the civilisation of love at parish level?

The country is in trouble, the culture is fragmented, in need of care and attention.

But small actions can make a big difference.

We can begin with practices that help to shape us become relational in all that we do.

Are we facing inward, to our own community, or outward to the neighbourhood?

In fact, we need to do both at the same time.

Let’s look at practices in church first.

Practices – in church

Inside church - think about what we might be able to do, to make life in the church more common good, more communal, more relational. For example, in terms of liturgy, what are some of the creative ways we could cultivate a more communal experience?

• Culture of expectation

• Allow experiments

• Communal spirituality in liturgy

• Communal practices of prayer

• Small discipleship groups

• Conversations in the Spirit

How could we make it easier for people who aren't used to church to join in? And how could we invite them into the discernment of designing what that looks like together? Could we choose communal practices of prayer, pilgrimage, Lectio. Could we organise prayerful activities outside as well as inside church? Could Adoration become a more communal experience? Maybe we could invite a local musician to come, maybe we put cushions around to make it into something people share together, rather than a solitary experience.

Small discipleship groups are very important, small study groups, prayer groups, and accompaniment. Just so you know, during COVID, churches with these small cell groups fared much better than churches that didn't – this is because they had real relationships of trust between people.

I would highly recommend the synodality method of the Conversation in the Spirit12 to foster a more collegiate dynamic between people. It is very simple and beautiful. You can use it to either discern what God is saying to us through scripture, or for decision making. Each person gets exactly the same amount of time to speak. Everyone listens, there is a moment of silence and a second round. People listen and also speak in the third round. It's a profoundly affecting process. I would suggest that as a way of building trust and relationships between people in the congregations.

Outward-facing practices

What might we do to connect with our neighbours so that we can act together in genuine solidarity?

• Joining God in the neighbourhood

• Looking for signs of the Kingdom

• One to one conversations

• Knowing the neighbourhood

• Acting together for justice (according to a Christian understanding of justice)

• Connect with other human beings

• Everything is an occasion for communion

How will we discover what the concerns are? How should we respond to injustice in our area?

It helps that we understand the big picture about what has gone wrong with our culture – to read the signs of the times. We learned earlier what has happened to our culture, our economy and why: – the diagnosis is important or we will make the wrong response.

We may not be able to change it from the top down, but we can begin by working bottom up.

It matters how we relate to our neighbours.

We know we can join with God and be part of the antidote.

We can begin by getting to know our neighbourhood – we can walk in pairs. As we walk and pray, we will notice things. We could walk the same route every day and say hello to people as we walk. We will notice signs of the kingdom.

We could do a parish mapping, draw a map, draw in the church, then all the institutions around it, and ask “are we in relationship with them or not?” and “What is the nature of the relationship?” “Are there institutions that we don't know? If so, who knows them?”

The objective is to be in listening mode with the attentiveness of the Holy Spirit so that we find out what is going on.

The practice of the one-to-one conversation, that is usually associated with community organising – is a key practice. Some of you may already be doing this in your work with Citizens.

We will also uncover injustices that need our solidarity – for example the price of housing, issues with Airbnb’s, second home owners and so on making it impossible for young families to stay and raise a family in a decent home.

But the 121 is not just for a campaign. It should be a core practice, used simply for the honour of hearing someone's story. People are so lonely even in the midst of 500 friends on Facebook, or in the midst of a busy working week: the beauty of having someone listen to your story can be transformational, and mutually so.

We should see this as a vital practice in its own right, not just for a campaign. We should be thinking about this as a practice as a default way of being church in the neighbourhood. We are called to be a people who listen, a relational church.

Very basic practices become important - like making eye contact at the checkout, talking to people at the bus stop, putting down the smartphone, making a genuine, definite, proactive, intentional effort to say hello to people.

And for every interaction, every event we hold, we need to think how it can be an occasion for communion.

Seeking the peace of the city

To build the civilisation of love, there is a particular passage that captures what we are wanting to do here. Let’s pause on this for a moment.

Seek the peace of the city

where I have sent you into exile

and pray to the Lord on its behalf

for in its peace, you will find your peace

Jeremiah 29.7

Recap: what have we covered?

• Catholic social teaching - for spiritual and civic renewal

• What is CST? Encyclicals. Themes, Components. Imago Dei. Human Person. Integrity of Creation.

• CST: What it’s not. What it is.

• Competing worldviews. CST principles.

• What it’s for. Justice. Common Good.

• Reading the signs of the times. See-Judge-Act. Staying human.

• Stated purpose: building a civilisation of love.

• The breach. Preferential option for the poor. Subsidiarity. Levels of Responsibility.

• Local institutions. Covenant and Place.

• Becoming a Relational Church. CST and our calling.

• Practices: internal and outward-facing.

• Seeking the peace of the city.

There is much more to discover. My hope is that this brief introduction to the tradition of Catholic social thought will help you see why it is such an important resource as we work for civic and spiritual renewal.

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good (T4CG). She writes and speaks about the vocation of the church in society, and is co-host of Leaving Egypt, a transatlantic podcast exploring what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling.  

For some years, I’ve been preoccupied by the relationship between the church and society. And seeing the malaise afflicting our country, I think it’s not unreasonable to entertain the possibility that the church could play a role of reconciliation and healing.

But as Pope Francis has said, we’re living through a change of era. This is a strange period in which the sickness is more visible to some than others. While most leaders across the churches sense the upheaval, few can make sense of it.

Symptoms of the malaise include loneliness, mental health issues and social fragmentation. But also, we see the degradation of human beings, the commodification of creation, vast concentrations of corporate power, and unprecedented inequality generating poverty in all its forms, and the careless globalisation that has led to the discarding of whole communities.

No one can deny the scale of the unravelling any longer. It seems beyond our capacity to address.

The early signs became evident to me when I was experiencing a call of the Holy Spirit on my life. It was in 2011 that I began to see the instability, and I was concerned about the churches’ ability to respond. I saw loss of confidence, division, confusion and mission drift.

Having witnessed the partnership between my late father, Bishop David Sheppard, and the Catholic Archbishop Derek Worlock, I had a residual confidence that the Christian spirit had the potential to play a critical role in civic renewal.

In my mid-twenties, I’d had a conversion experience and was received into the Catholic Church. But it was only in my late forties that I felt this particular call, having hitherto avoided church-related work. Growing up in a clergy household had forged a scepticism that served me well.

I was called to a new curiosity about the civic vocation of the churches. In that first year, others joined me and Together for the Common Good emerged. It was then that I discovered Catholic social thought. I found Rerum Novarum, Centesimus Annus, and Laborem Excercens contained vital wisdom about political economy. This nonpartisan ethical framework rooted in the gospel and anchored in real-world experience answered many of my questions about what was happening to our country.

This tradition helps us see that the centralising of state and corporate power is morphing into what Francis calls a “technocratic paradigm.” Governments increasingly act in the interests of big corporations, insulating them from democratic accountability: a collusion some describe as “the machine.” Such developments are corrosive of civil society and undermine the flourishing of human beings.

But this tradition also helps us see where we have been complicit. We’ve outsourced responsibilities we used to carry, becoming more dependent on products and services than on each other, weakening mutual obligation and local institutional life. Our overemphasis on rights and our neglect of mutual responsibility has led to a cult of self. This assault on relationship has led to the breakdown of trust and the menace of identitarian politics on both the right and left.

Unless the reasons for this are understood, solutions will remain elusive, and the deterioration will progress. This lens has helped me see that the causes stem from variants of liberalism. Its roots date back centuries, but we’ve had an intensification over the past 45 years and an acceleration since the pandemic. We’re now faced with hyper-liberalism in both economic and social forms, whose individualistic and transactional characteristics are dissolving human relationships.

The neoliberal philosophy has been enabled by successive political parties across all countries that have adopted it. Such gross mismanagement is provoking blowback. There is a profound disconnect between the governing and the governed. Dissent is framed as extremist by a political class bent on maintaining power by constraining the range of acceptable opinion.

But Catholic Social Thought doesn’t just enable us to see what is going on. It is also a source of guidance for how to respond, and within this, the common good suggests a compelling story. As Together for the Common Good developed, the more we discovered that the common good provided a distinctive narrative, unlike the market, welfare, and human rights agendas that had become so dominant and divisive.

A language emerged emphasising relationship, mutuality, and reciprocity. It proposed building alliances—not only across ethnicity, gender, and ability but across opinion, class, socio-economic background, sex, age, experience, and education. In matters of statecraft, it sought balance between estranged interests, not least between capital and labour.

But outside a small number of experts, this story was not widely known. The term was frequently misunderstood or got stuck in the academy. In addition, Catholic social thought itself was subject to misappropriation, oversimplification or abstraction. To make it more accessible while honouring its integrity, we developed a set of common good principles. We also forged this definition:

“The common good is the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal, enabled by social conditions that mean every single person can participate. We pursue this goal by working together across our differences, each of us taking responsibility according to our calling and ability.”

This “common good thinking” went down well with Christians of different traditions. We emphasised its distinctively Christian anthropology, framing our identity in God as relational beings. Promoting balance between rights and responsibilities, and emphasising free participation, the common good then becomes the antidote to identitarian rights-based trends and the coercive utopias of totalitarian tendencies.

Lacking a theological training was at first a source of embarrassment for me. But in my efforts to respond to God’s call, I found my weakness became a blessing. I found I could interpret the spirit of the tradition to others. Having been fortunate to learn from many of the leading thinkers firsthand, and despite never having spoken in public before 2014, I now regularly give talks and sessions for many groups of Christian leaders and organisations.

These groups want help in reading the signs of the times to discern how to respond to the challenges they face. They value how the framework of Catholic social thought helps them navigate political and ideological confusion. They want to discuss this time of profound change in the church and its implications for leadership. They want to engage with common good perspectives on justice, poverty, economy, charity, and social cohesion. They welcome how this way of thinking integrates social concerns within discipleship, mission, and holistic evangelisation.

There is also significant interest around how this tradition understands political economy. So I have provided platforms for theologians, politicians, and practitioners through published pieces on our website as well as through public debates. Most recently, I’ve invited speakers to deliver public talks, addressing the dignity of work, economy, civic participation, social peace, people and planet, the response to identity politics, Christian social action, what it means to be human and much more. I also convene private in-person round table conversations with our expert speakers, providing senior clergy, charity CEOs, diocesan personnel, journalists, and business leaders with the rare opportunity of deliberating together across denomination and opinion.

To bring common good thinking alive at parish level, we have run various experiments, some of which have been adopted and adapted by others. Our latest local church resource is currently being tested and reviewed, having been successfully trialled pre-pandemic. Common Good Journey helps members of congregations to become more outward facing, discern their unique vocational responsibility, and build solidarity with poor communities.

Young people are especially vulnerable to the malign culture and need help facing an uncertain future. Following demand from teachers we have developed Common Good Schools, a programme consisting of lessons, assemblies, and community engagement. We train teachers to position their school as a force for the common good in the neighbourhood and help young people learn the importance of responsibility, relationships, and reciprocity.

Just over a year ago, we launched our first podcast, Leaving Egypt, which is attracting a growing international audience. My co-host Alan Roxburgh and I explore the signs of the times and what it means to be God’s people in times of unravelling. In conversation with guests across the Christian traditions, we do two things: with leading thinkers, we examine the causes of the malaise, and with grassroots Christians, we discover stories of how the Holy Spirit is reweaving new life.

Thirteen years ago, I had no idea what Together for the Common Good would become, or that thousands of people would be touched by this work. I also have no idea where it’s going. But I do know that we are not meant to be doing any of this on our own.

We are entering a place we’ve never been before. If our societies are to hold onto the human spirit in the new era, then the church—in all its forms—must build a common good with neighbours and join with God in the reweaving of our common life. We are sceptical about the endless managerial attempts across the churches to fix the problem of decline – the times are calling for a new, yet ancient, Christian imagination.

Jenny Sinclair

Founder and Director, Together for the Common Good

Good evening everyone. Before I accepted this invitation I did say I wouldn’t fit neatly on either side of the motion. What I’m going to say can be described as a “common good” position.

To do that I’ll draw on the tradition of Catholic social thought, which, just to be clear, is not infallible, doesn’t propose a theocracy. It’s intended as a gift to all people of goodwill.

The common good in this tradition isn’t a compromise or a third way, nor is it utopian. It recognises that, made in the image of God, human beings are relational beings, whose integrity, agency, and their connection with each other, must be upheld. From this Christian anthropology, people must not be subordinated to domination – whether by capital, state, nor by other powerful interests. It recognises context, that human beings have histories, traditions and interests, who, in a modern plural society have to live together, so we talk about building a common good between different groups. It’s sometimes described as a both/and tradition.

In terms of traditions of justice, the common good is not utilitarian, communist, libertarian, it is not liberal, nor is it progressive. It is based on the rabbinical, relational model of justice and virtue ethics that Jesus exemplified, and so it prioritises relationship – with each other and with God.

And so looking at our immigration crisis, a common good position requires us to consider the interests of all the human beings involved, that is those on the move and host populations, and, to do so in light of Christian tradition and within the context of political economy, citizenship and social peace.

Our Story as God’s People

First, emigration is indivisible from the Christian and Jewish story and is integral to the mission of God – it goes to the very heart of our story as God’s people.

Since the 1940s, Catholic social thought has emphasised that migration is part of the human search for the fullness of life and should not be blocked by governments. John Paul II said:

“The task of proclaiming the word of God, entrusted by Jesus to the Church, has been interwoven with the history of Christian emigration from the very beginning… ‘

But – this doesn’t mean open borders.

Borders

Catholic social thought not only asserts the story of God’s people, it also upholds the right of nations to preserve their borders.

Despite his concerns about what he calls “aggressive nationalism”, Pope Francis does affirm the nation state – in fact he laments the “weakening of the power of nation states” due to “the economic and financial sectors, … tend[ing] to prevail over the political.”

So the common good approach affirms the upholding of national borders and the enforcing of a fair migration policy.

Conditions

But it does come with some important qualifications and conditions:

It distinguishes between “necessary and unnecessary migration” – and I quote from a Vatican document here – “Those who flee economic conditions that threaten their lives and physical safety must be treated differently from those who migrate to improve their position.” [1]

With that important distinction in mind, the tradition insists on a raft of humanitarian conditions. This list of conditions is long – too long for me to go through here, but it is based on Matthew 25:40 – ‘As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me’ [2]

It insists for example that families should not be divided, it insists on humanitarian corridors, on religious freedom, on the right to work, on decent housing, on help with visas and the justice system – and on integration into society. It summarises these conditions under four principles: welcome, protect, promote and integrate.[3]

The tradition also asserts the right not to migrate. Receiving countries are to partner with sending countries to address working conditions, governance and corruption to disincentivise people leaving.

Theology of Place

So, while it is fundamentally in solidarity with the migrant, in recognizing political reality, Catholic tradition does uphold the right of nations to preserve borders. It does so in recognition of the wider context of political economy, citizenship and democracy, and not least to the theology of place.

In this tradition, our civic inheritance is seen as something fragile, something to be valued and protected. It’s conservative in the true sense.

This means that not only do we welcome the contribution that the migrant may bring – – but we also uphold the particularity of place and the life of the people who dwell there.

The importance of belonging to place is affirmed again and again in Scripture, for example in Acts 17:

²⁶ …he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷

We are embodied, embedded relational beings made in the image of God, and love of place is affirmed. For example, Pope Francis says:

“there can be no openness between peoples except on the basis of love for one’s own land, one’s own people, one’s own cultural roots….I can welcome others who are different, and value the[ir] unique contribution…, only if I am firmly rooted in my own people and culture…. [4]

But Francis also asserts the need for roots and belonging, and he condemns the liberal tendency that mocks tradition and cultural attachment:

“There can be a false openness …born of those lacking insight into the genius of their native land or harbouring resentment towards their own people. … We need to sink our roots deeper into the fertile soil and history of our native place, which is a gift of God…. [5]

So building up this common good position, what else should we take into consideration?

Political economy

Catholic social thought calls Christians to stand in solidarity with people who are poor, whether it is our neighbour down the road, or overseas. Jesus loved the poor because in their humility they have a greater awareness of others and of God that the affluent and the busy so easily miss.

Viewing immigration through a race or rights frame is too limited – it can distract us from factors around the economy that are relevant, and some would argue, central.

Catholic social thought has a lot to say about migration but even more about political economy.[6]

Its primary concern is to enable the flourishing of the human person, families and communities, both globally and locally. It critiques any system that is dehumanising – whether the overcentralised state or unconstrained capital. In this sense it is a nonpartisan tradition that is at once both socially conservative and economically radical.

At the heart of this is the dignity of work, the cornerstone of a politics of the common good. Work is more than a way to make a living, it is how we participate with God in the shaping of the world. [7]

A common good requires balance between the interests of capital and labour, and recognizes that work has historically operated through a system of inheritance, with a body of skilled practice passed on through generations.

But over the last forty five years globalization has eroded this inheritance.

This is an important backdrop to understand the migration crisis we now face.

As the economy reshaped to allow capital the freedom to move, and required labour to become mobile, there was a failure to manage the impact at home. Instead of a coordinated strategy of retraining and investment, there was a default to a lazy reliance on the import of people from overseas who were willing to take lower wages. This neoliberal imperative to keep wages low then required higher and higher levels of migration.

And so now we have a low wage, high welfare economy, with increasingly precarious and meaningless jobs rewarded with wages too low to live on, subsidised by the public purse making up the difference. We are drawing skilled low paid workers away from their own countries to prop up our health care services, and meantime we have a shocking 5.2m people on out of work benefits.

We have concentrations of wealth and vastly inflated property prices in our urban centres where the young cannot afford a home and form a family, and a state of civic degradation in our poor, post industrial, urban, rural and coastal areas: a forty five year abandonment, with huge pressure in terms of housing need, health services and schools.

From a Christian perspective, this careless treatment of our own fellow citizens is unacceptable.

It’s into this context that refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants end up. They too end up on low wages living in poor conditions in poor areas. Again, from a Christian perspective, this is unacceptable.

John Paul II says that the migrant’s “search for work must in no way become an opportunity for financial or social exploitation.” [8]

While it may have made sense on a corporate spreadsheet, the consequences of this hyper liberal ideology on social peace were never properly thought through – nor any mandate sought for the level of immigration it generated. Successive governments have colluded to insulate financial interests from democracy.

This current migrant crisis represents a story of mismanagement on a vast scale. While some have benefited, a very high price has been paid by our poorest communities.

As a result, migrant workers are now seen as opponents, the credibility of genuine asylum seekers and refugees is undermined, and dissent about the level of immigration is silenced with accusations of racism. Legitimate questions of economy are suppressed. Meanwhile the interests of big corporations are obscured and protected.

And so immigration has become a lightning rod around which voters feel ignored. Even setting aside the small boats, enormous increases in legal migration proceed without voter consent. People feel the government is not in control of running the country.

Social peace

Catholic social thought has a great deal to say about social peace. [9] It is concerned with the dignity of all human beings and balancing the interests of different groups – both welcoming and protecting refugees and asylum seekers, and requiring the consent of the host community, taking great care not to destabilise the host population.

This tradition has a great deal to say about citizenship and democracy too. When governments fail to address questions of culture and ignore questions of democratic control, social trust is eroded.

People lose faith in the establishment. Fears go way beyond race – the vast majority of the British people are tolerant and generous. Rather, their concerns are around security, livelihood, sovereignty and agency. Subsidiarity, mentioned earlier, speaks to this. Decisions should be taken closest to those they affect. People see their world changing and quite rightly feel decisions are being taken outwith the democratic process.

In fact, immigrants who have long settled here are concerned about who is coming into their adopted home, especially about the failure of certain extremist groups to integrate in some places. When dissent is silenced or met with contempt, disquiet grows.

People often ask me what can be done about the problem of the far right. Well if the concerns of ordinary voters continue to be ignored, then more will go down that road. If the language of compassion and empathy is weaponised to close down dissent, legitimate concerns will be driven underground and result in a politics of resentment.

On the far left, racialized post colonialist and oppressor-oppressed ideologies argue that migration is an inevitable payback for the sins of empire – part of a sea of liberalism that frames open as good and closed as bad, where any constraint – whether on identity, tradition, family, borders or capital – is seen as regressive. These pressures inhibit governments from acting, and in many countries we are now seeing life on the ground becoming destabilised.

This mismanagement, together with the subordination of family, community and place to the interests of big corporations, is undermining social peace.

Christians are always asking how should we respond. Many on the right are troubled by modernity and worry about national security, while many on the left are troubled by history and disturbed by the plight of migrants.

The tragedy is that neither have paid enough attention to the nature of our political economy. They have not acknowledged the extent to which our working class poor – of all ethnicities – have borne the brunt of the profound social and economic changes of the last forty five years.

This negligence by both the Christian right and the left unfortunately results in migrant and refugee rights being seen as a middle class progressive left liberal concern, which provokes a sense of loss and powerlessness – a gift to the far right.

In conclusion

I think it was Chesterton who pointed out the problem of promoting one virtue to the exclusion of all the other virtues [10] – he understood the importance of the holistic both/and position to which Catholic social thought invites us. It requires that we embrace complexity.

So my response is that Christians should support border controls – but as a component part of a carefully thought through strategy that takes account of our story as God’s people, that insists on key humanitarian conditions being met, that is based on an understanding of theology of place, and that all of this is situated within a comprehensive strategy of political economy with a proper conception of citizenship, honouring democracy and a commitment to social peace.

Jenny Sinclair

Founder and Director, Together for the Common Good

NOTES

[1] Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” and Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, “Refugees: A Challenge to Solidarity”(1992) (#4)

[2] Gaudium et Spes #27

[3] https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/documents/papa-francesco_20170815_world-migrants-day-2018.html

[4] Fratelli Tutti, #143

[5] Fratelli Tutti, #145

[6] Centesimus Annus

[7] Laborem Exercens

[8] Laborem Exercens #23

[9] Pacem in Terris

[10] GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy [III The Suicide of Thought]

Click below to listen to a recording

Introduction

Hello everyone, it’s great to be here and lovely to meet you.

So, in the next hour and a half, we’re going to explore how the Church is called to fulfil God’s mission in the wider context of deep change across the world.

• We’re going to look at what it means to be relational, and the meaning of mission.

• And we’re going to explore the forms of leadership needed for God’s mission at this time in the context of profound change happening in the Church and across the world.

• We going to look at why the Church is called to a more relational culture now, and how Catholic Social Teaching can help us navigate this period of upheaval.

• And then we’re going to look at what practical steps we can take to become a more relational church.

• So I’m going to talk for a bit have a break, we will have a couple of short chat breaks, and then a longer discussion at the end.

My story

Just before we go any further, I just want to tell you a little about my own journey to this point.

I grew up in an Anglican clergy household, I was a rebel in my teens, I left the church. Much to my surprise, and to everybody else’s, in my mid 20s, I had a conversion experience and was called into the Catholic Church.

I lived a quiet life raising my children, and I worked as a graphic designer. But then in my late 40s, in 2011, I had a nudging of the Spirit in my life, and everything changed. And the first idea for Together for the Common Good came to me then, when I saw that things were going very wrong with our culture. And I saw that the church was struggling to respond.

And so I know what it means to listen and join in God’s mission. This work is really my vocation.

So at T4CG we draw on Catholic Social Teaching² and we engage across the Christian traditions to encourage people to play their part in spiritual and civic renewal. We help to make Catholic Social Teaching² more accessible. And we call this “common good thinking.”

Common Good Thinking

This is how we define the common good:

“The Common Good is the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish – as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal, enabled by social conditions that mean every single person can participate. We create these conditions and pursue that goal by working together across our differences, each of us taking responsibility, according to our calling and ability.”

This definition is deliberately written in that way because it’s relational, and it’s practical, and requires our involvement.

1. MISSION AND RELATIONAL CULTIURE

Just to be clear what I am doing this evening – in exploring the relational church in dark times, I’m drawing on a range of resources. From the body of Catholic Social Teaching, from this year’s World Day of the Poor letter, from the Instrumentum Laboris document from the Synodal process, from what learn from missional experts and grassroots experiences, from my own work in different Christian traditions, especially in poor areas. I want to show that the culture change that the Church is called to, is not some kind of ecclesial management exercise or political argument, but a calling of the Holy Spirit to make the Church fit for purpose to serve the world. I’m going to try and illuminate some of the concepts in ways that I hope will be meaningful for you in your ministry.

First of all, let’s explore what we mean by “relational”, by “mission” and by “church”.

What does it mean to be relational?

At the very heart of the Gospel is the concept of relationship. And this fundamental point requires the whole People of God to be involved. We know the passage from Romans 12: 4-8, the church as one body

“For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ..”

Each person’s calling is important and complementary. We are not called to a solitary mission but to a shared journey of discipleship. This brings us closer to the mission of Jesus – closer to the ways of the early church and the way they lived.

This relational culture aims to foster the inclusion and involvement of the whole People of God so that God’s mission can flourish. And in St Paul’s words we just heard there, describe a beautiful image of the church as a single body, with every member contributing in their own way. And if one part of the body suffers, then the whole body is wounded.

But this call to relationality is not just to improve the church. it goes to the heart of the challenges of our time: the domination of our culture by ideologies that reduce the human person to the unencumbered self, which is resulting in a battle of all against all.

In God’s eyes we are not all meant to be the same, nor are we meant to be equal. We are designed to be different for a very particular reason. We are made to love each other. We were made for relationship. I just love this quote from Catherine of Siena. As she was discerning the mind of God, she says:

“I distribute the virtues quite diversely; I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others… And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person, so that you may be constrained to practice charity towards one another… I have willed that one should need another and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me.” St. Catherine of Siena discerning the mind of God (Dial. I,7)

So we are not designed as isolated individuals in competition, nor was leadership meant to be isolated. We were designed to help each other, in love, under God.

This is in effect a relational, distributed form of leadership – which not only liberates people from isolated models of leadership, it liberates followers from passivity or alienation. It allows every person to find agency, purpose and meaning.

If the church can make the shift to becoming relational, then it can act and help to reweave the brokenness that we are seeing in the world, and allow the multifaceted nature of God to find expression in the world.

So what is the meaning of “mission”?

The culture shift required is to bring us back to God’s priorities rather than our own. Our society has got very lost, and this is what the world needs now.

Pope Francis talks about the “discernment of the times”⁴ in order to fulfil the church’s mission – which is God’s mission – which as Pope P aul VI said is “to proclaim and establish among all peoples, the Kingdom of God.” (Lumen Gentium⁵).

At the heart of this mission is God’s desire to heal the fragmentation caused by a de-sacralised world. It is about bringing the Kingdom alive on earth as in heaven.

The missio dei (the mission of God) is in fact about a total vision for the transformation of the whole of reality – this defines the goal of mission as bringing back the whole universe into reconciled relationship with God. As it’s stated in Ephesians

“…to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Eph 1:9-10

This is a bit cosmic, but this is the vision. So the Missio Dei reminds us that the church is called to join in with this mission of God.

It is not the church that has a mission but the God of mission who has a church. Too often, we get this the wrong way round.

Mission has been ‘inward’ rather than outward; the Church has not always fulfilled her calling to give herself away for the sake of the world but has instead sought to shore up her own influence and power.

God wants to transform the world. The Missio Dei necessarily involves the whole people of God, requiring the church to engage across all cultural, racial, social, political and economic differences.

So what we mean by mission, is rooted in the radically inclusive trinitarian relational life of the Godhead, and so the Missio Dei calls every human person – across all differences – into God’s great creative participation.

And if some are missing, the mission is incomplete.

Changing church

So we need to be honest about the changes in the church. Can the church fulfil this mission that we’re talking about? The prospects don’t look good. The institutional churches in the West are in decline, while other parts of the body of Christ are growing. Globally God’s church on earth is undergoing profound change. But I think it’s clear that God is at work, we need to listen to Him and discern how we can join in.

There is a lot of talk about walking more closely with God – the practices of synodality, Lectio, listening and accompaniment – with these practices we will be better able to sense the movements of the Spirit in our neighbourhood.

This listening – both to the Holy Spirit and to each other and to our neighbours, especially those who are poor – is fundamental. Because our culture has become so atomised, we have become estranged from each other, and our culture has fragmented so we mix less with people outside our socio-economic group. Our estrangement from each other makes it harder for us to hear God. So we need to be very attentive.

What’s clear is that what is not working is what I’d call the “consumerist” model of church. You know – where you go to church, you get something and you go home again. Where there is a very thin notion of relationship.

Whereas churches seeing growth are doing something different: they are relational, they’re providing a sense of family, they’re attentive to the Holy Spirit, living in friendship alongside their neighbours, and they make it easy for people to get involved, especially poor people.

Relational culture

There is a powerful sense of God calling forth a new – and yet ancient – culture in the church.

In this post-Christendom period, the church needs to adapt. I will say much more later about how we develop a relational culture, but for the moment I want to focus on responsibility.

When we think about the new culture, the principle of Subsidiarity is fundamental to helping us understand responsibility. Subsidiarity is a core principle in Catholic social doctrine which determines that decisions should be taken as far as possible closest to those they affect and a central authority shouldn’t do what can be done at a more local level. Its purpose is very important – it is to uphold the integrity of the human being, prevent domination, and ensure good leadership.

• Church teaching has long advocated for subsidiarity in public life – for example neither governmental power nor the power of capital should be overcentralised and power should be distributed regionally and locally. Equally it is vital in terms of personal conscience and the autonomy of the family.

• But in terms of the ecclesial architecture of the Church, we could say that the Church has to some degree failed to implement subsidiarity within its own structures.

• Where responsibility is taken is a matter for careful discernment – there are decisions of course which belong in the proper authority of the Magisterium of the Church. I for one am immensely grateful that at times of cultural instability that the Church is the one institution that is holding firm to tradition, holding the tension between truth and love.

• But Subsidiarity is also important in terms of place: it’s about lifting up the authentic cultural character of people in each location. Every part of the world has its own unique characteristics, histories, tragedies and gifts. So subsidiarity means people taking responsibility according to their particularity, not being dominated by a higher authority. This means that each diocese, and each parish should discern its own calling – and be grounded in reality.

• It’s important that what you’re doing in terms of interpreting mission is authentically of where you are. That means doing that interpreting with your neighbours.it’s of value to the whole world that we each do mission in a way that’s iterated naturally and authentically from our own situation, and then we will learn from each other’s particular contexts. God’s energy is expressed differently through each of us. So place and particularity are very important.

An occasion for communion

And we are not meant to do this on our own.

The relational posture asks that everyone acknowledges their incompleteness, that mission is only complete when everyone is involved.

Mission in our time requires that everything becomes an occasion for communion.

One very beautiful way of conceptualising how the church is called at this time is rooted in the story of the apostles at Pentecost and the book of Acts, that well known passage that we know:

“³²..They had everything in common. ³³ … great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ There was not a needy person among them … distributed to each as any had need..” Acts 4:32-35

So this sense of having everything in common.

It is a fair enough question to ask whether the church can authentically proclaim the gospel if is not actually living in relationship with its neighbours – in this communal way – whether its efforts for outreach, if its posture, is actually more one of marketing.

“Mission is not the marketing of a religious product, but the construction of a community in which relationships are a manifestation of God’s love.”^5a

The Catholic tradition is quite explicit that the church’s relationship with the poor is central. The poor and excluded are supposed to be at the heart of the church. This is very challenging for churches that have become middle class.

“Walking together” – this phrase that we’re using now – with poor people, does not mean just serving their needs. Many churches fall into the trap of welfarism – that is, a defeatist politics that sees increasing social security benefits as the primary way to help poor people.

How different is this from the way of communion, where we enter into a relationship of solidarity which then naturally and organically advocates for jobs and investment to enable everyone to reach their aspirations. A relationship with people who are low paid means mutual respect and respecting their agency. There’s a reciprocity though, that means hearing each other’s stories, spending time together. Not a service client relationship.

We will come back to this later. But first, let’s pause for a few minutes – and I’d like to put this question to you. Just turn to your neighbour and give each other a few minutes.

DISCUSSION: Why do you think this behaviour change is called for now?

2. CONTEXT: THE NEW ERA

Catholic Social Teaching helps us stay true to mission

We have thought about what it means to be relational, the meaning of mission but it only really makes complete sense when we understand the context that we are operating in. We have to read the signs of the times.

About eight years ago you might remember Pope Francis said,

“We are living not through an era of change, but a change of era.”⁶

We’ve got to take that seriously. He wasn’t the only one to spot this. To understand why becoming relational is important, we need to understand this new era.

Our experience must be understood within our political reality- this points to a need for political literacy. Reading the signs of the times is important to Pope Francis as it has been to his predecessors. This means it is necessary to develop a Catholic understanding of political economy, a greater sense of real politik in terms of our own context. In many cases people need to be reconverted or even introduced to our own tradition of Catholic social teaching.

It’s often said to be the best kept secret but it’s really unforgivable now. It’s a worldview. It’s a fantastic framework for good judgement.

So Catholic Social Teaching – which has been called the theology of the Holy Spirit in practice – can help us recognise what’s going on. It helps us understand these matters of political economy – that means, how our society is structured in terms of how power is arranged, our arrangements in terms of jobs, investments and so on. It helps us to understand and identify the social and cultural systems that are dehumanising. Because it’s always concerned about the human person. It gives us an authentically Christian and Catholic political literacy, It helps us avoid mission drift, which is a massive risk just now and resist the corrosive influences that all kinds of secular ideologies which are becoming so active in this era.

These ideologies are dangerous for Christians. Secular humanism laughs at God. It reduces religion to a lifestyle choice, it aims to relegate the church to a private club out of the public square. And this post-modernist ideology wants us to adopt false ideas about human beings. And some well-intentioned people sadly in the church have been seduced into these worldviews. But we should be confident in our Christian identity. We need to remember we are made in the image of God: and as Christians our identity is in Jesus Christ.

So back in 1891, when Catholic Social Teaching, the modern version of it, started, it was mounting a response⁸ to the industrial revolution – that’s why it started – noticing what was happening to human beings. It emerged from a church that was standing in solidarity with the poor at that time. An authentic, reciprocal relationship with poor people helps us to discern the signs of the times.

We’re not in relationship with poor people, we tend not to be able to read the signs of the times properly.

It’s then continued to guide us all these years with encyclicals, letters and guidance – to uphold true freedom, to uphold the human spirit – to resist what we might call “the principalities and powers”.

So Catholic Social Teaching, identifies, in simple terms, three types of power, the two earthly powers of money and state and the one transcendent power of human beings in relationship with each other and with God. Because we’re made in the image of God, we are partly transcendent, and that means relational power is a transcendent power.

Correctly understood Catholic Social Teaching transcends left and right. It’s non-partisan, it’s not anti- capitalist, because it recognises that capital can be creative, but it recognises that it has exploitative, extractive and commodifying tendencies and so it has to be constrained.

But neither is Catholic Social Teaching pro- or anti-state. It recognises that governments can and do promote the good, and it also calls out bureaucratic systems in the administrative state when they become dehumanising, too technocratic, too centralised. It’s always concerned about the human person.

So it calls for both state and money power to be de-centralised, distributed wherever possible to local institutions and to the family which it regards as the building block of society.

New Era: the Unravelling

So our Catholic Social Teaching lens – it can help us navigate this change of era. And the reason I’m telling you this is because this is why the relational church is relevant now. It helps us navigate this era and helps us see what is happening to the human being.

I think we can all sense it, can’t we, but we find it hard to name. We are caught in a deep spiritual malaise. There are forces have been corroding our civic life for over forty years, with deeper roots going back at least two centuries. The pandemic⁹ accelerated these trends, but they are not new.

These forces were unleashed by a philosophy¹⁰ that views human beings as isolated individuals, rather than the relational beings as God created us.

So it’s based on a wrong anthropology.

It has generated what we might call in shorthand “individualism” – and this is the philosophy behind what is happening. This individualism is antithetical to the Catholic understanding of human nature. And like any lie that is treated as true, it has deeply damaged our institutional and social relationships and our sense of belonging and meaning.

So we can see that the family, community and relationship with place have all been undermined. In your parishes, I am sure you will be dealing with the fallout.

The economic application of this transactional individualism has led to the degradation of large parts of our country, to the abandonment of whole communities. This is a breach of the common good.

And successive governments from both left and right have steadily promoted the neoliberal frame underpinning this “me-first” society and not challenged capital. And now it’s beginning to unravel.

Right across the West, in all the countries that have adopted the same system, we see breakdowns in trust, political and cultural polarisation, social fragmentation, increasing inequality, rising pathologies, symptoms of human distress like loneliness, addiction, self-harm, depression and nihilism and so on. I’m sorry to be frank, but this is what’s happening.

The churches too have been vulnerable to this assault, and they haven’t known how to resist.

The era of individualism has generated also a careless globalisation: with its off-shoring of jobs, capital flight, human trafficking, zero hours contracts; the medicalisation of sadness, the shaming of manual work by the so-called knowledge economy, the promotion of “social mobility” over belonging to place. All of this is in the interests of big corporations. It’s not in the interests of families and communities.

Now geopolitical change and war are adding to the inherent instability of this economic model. And the collusion we’re now seeing between capital and the technocratic state, with big tech, big pharma and big media – altogether what some people are calling “the machine”¹¹ – this is challenging the very meaning of human life.

And as governments fail to act, we see this loss of trust, and in the vacuum, extreme ideologies gain traction.

Identity: God vs Self

So this individualism has deep roots. It begins with the Enlightenment, which of course brought many benefits but it also included a turning: a turning away from God and towards the Self.

And over time, it led to a loss of the sense of the transcendent nature of the human person. We need to get things the right way up again.

Everything seems stacked against us, doesn’t it, in a world completely dominated by the cult of Self, framed by this aggressive secular humanism. And this new era is just unfolding, we don’t know what’s coming. We may need to accept a tragic realism that things are not going to get back to normal.

But the truth is that this is God’s world. And if we really believe that God is real, then God is the primary agent. And so the proper posture for this time of uncertainty is surrender.¹²

We need to be clear about who we are as human beings – our real, God-given identity. My identity is not to be reduced to a category, like “straight, white woman.” No! my identity and yours is as a transcendent human being in God. This is who we are – before we were born, after we die, and all our mortal life.

Now Catholics in particular appreciate the sacramental reality of the two realms, the earthly and the heavenly. Each realm has its own worldview and we have to choose the right one.

As Moses said to the Israelites leaving Egypt, we should choose freedom in God, not the false freedoms of the machine. The machine deceives and unravels. Meanwhile God builds relationships.

Sometimes in the church we make the wrong choice. We forget who we are. We choose the earthly paradigm. We rely on managerial, technocratic approaches. Just like the builders of the towers of Babel, we think we can sort it all out on our own. Well we can’t.

The purpose of the relational church

Why do we need to know all this? Because this is why the church is called to this new, ancient culture of relationship.

Pope Francis is calling for this change – for a culture of encounter, for a fraternal church – at a critical moment in the world, for a very good reason. It’s not to save the church for its own sake. It’s to make the church fit for purpose to heal the world.

So this listening posture is central. The era that’s been so damaging has been this era of individualism. And the antidote to individualism is to build common good. Developing a relational culture in the local church is to build back the connections between human beings that have been lost.

So the world needs the church to be fit for purpose – to resist the dehumanising powers and work for the Kingdom in the places where we live. The local church (that’s us) needs to be generating this relational power, as part of God’s mission to uphold the human space.

This is what Catholic Social Teaching has consistently taught us – from Rerum Novarum in 1891 which highlighted the importance of solidarity with the poor to resist the power of capital, to Fratelli Tutti¹³ which emphasises the importance of solidarity, fraternity and civic friendship.

So the Catholic tradition calls us to a countercultural insurgency against individualism.

This is the point of becoming a relational church. So when we read Fratelli Tutti, it’s not all nice fluffy language. It’s actually got a really hard edge to it, because it’s urgent.

However the churches have been weakened by this individualism. Too many have capitulated to polarised debates, many have turned inwards. Many have fallen out of relationship with their local communities.

And it has to be said, that few Catholics know the reality of the Holy Spirit in their lives – it’s not been part of their formation. But this is something that people can learn. And I’m sure that many of you here will know the difference this can make.

So we’re going to pause again for a few minutes, same as before, turn to somebody else. have a little chat for a minute each and let’s let’s come back looking at what it takes to become a relational church.

DISCUSSION: Where do you see signs of the unravelling where you are?

3. BECOMING A RELATIONAL CHURCH

Power and ministry in a broader vocational context

So we’ve seen the brokenness and we know this is a dark time. And we know we can’t meet all the need – it’s too great. And it’s likely to get worse. And it can be overwhelming. So I want to say this to you very directly. Because I know a lot of clergy, and I know its reality. Remember that you’re not the Saviour. Please remember that. If you set yourself up as the rescuer – as well as it being a form of idolatry, by the way – it’s a recipe for burnout.

But we can walk together with people. That’s not the same as trying to save people. We may go down together. It’s about solidarity. So when we’re thinking about this relational church, it does help to set ministry within the broader context of God’s mission and the broad range of vocations, ordained and non ordained.

And the complementarity between them, we can see how church models of leadership have also become influenced by individualism, how the plague of managerialism has captured parts of the church.

In many cases, priests and bishops are saying that their training didn’t prepare them for this moment. They were trained for an individualistic model of leadership. And what we know now as clericalism, is actually a result of the era of individualism. And that’s why it tends to isolate separate and inhibit the range of charism that the Holy Spirit generates.

So we need a distributed model of leadership, one that is more grounded, and which seeks connection with people.

I’m reminded of something my dear friend, Archbishop Emeritus Patrick Kelly told me. He’s a very old man. But in reflecting on his ministry as an archbishop, he had one big regret. And that was using the archbishop’s car. He said he realised how much he had missed by not taking the bus. So a sense of humility, and the need to be connected to people, not separate.

As Christians we’re called to be the embodiment of love in a desecrated world. Mission is not abstract. God loves people, so that means it’s located, it’s grounded, it’s about living a common life among our neighbours, where everything becomes an opportunity for communion.

When it’s done, well, this is a source of joy. Some churches and church leaders do it really well. Others have lost it completely.

Posture

So becoming a relational church requires some shifts in posture. And it has two aspects, in my view, a simple way of looking at it – inward facing and outward facing.

• Inward facing – in terms of focusing on the formation of your congregation

• Outward-facing – in terms of how you and your congregation relate to your neighbourhood

And I think they have to be together, they are two sides of the same coin, if you just focus on the inward facing, formation of congregation, that’s not mission. Both require remembering that God is primary agent, not us.

A key practice is the one-to-one conversation . not instrumentalised for a campaign, just for the honour of hearing a person’s story – by doing this you are giving time to re-establish human connection

• introducing this to the parish develops a congregational culture of encounter, where people are recognised and heard, their stories are known. When you are sitting next to someone in the pew, you actually know who they are.

• And then, as members of the congregation develop this habit, get more confident about doing it, they then extend their one to ones to their neighbours, and by doing so discern how the Spirit is at work in the neighbourhood – back to discernment again – and a listening culture is established. People find it enriching, joyful, meaningful, they discover connection.

Inward-facing

So let’s look at this inward-facing posture. What would this look like for you, in your church?

So just some suggestions. You’ll have your own ideas.

1. In terms of liturgy, can you think about creative ways to cultivate a more communal spirituality, ways to make it easy for people who aren’t used to church to join in – invite them into be part of the discernment as you design that.

2. Help people learn how to pray. People really want to learn how to pray. Especially, think about the traditions of Catholic prayer that are communal – Lectio, accompaniment, pilgrimage¹⁸. Things that require doing this together, not just individual prayer, recognise what we can do together.

3. Even Adoration for example, could be made into a more communal experience. You could invite a musician to provide some contemplative music and create a refuge from the noise of everyday life, encourage people to come and be in the presence together. It’s a very powerful experience, rather than just going on your own and sort of kneeling at an atomized way.

4. Then, of course, there’s the synodal spiritual conversation³, some of you may have come across this. This can be transformational for relationships. Many congregations are adopting this, not only to learn about each other, but also they’re using it for business meetings and decision making, as a way of doing things in relationship with the Holy Spirit.

5. small discipleship groups are foundationally important – groups that journey together, pray together, dwell in Scripture together, build trust and spiritual intimacy, where you can share your brokenness. It’s worth noting that churches with cell groups like these did much through the pandemic than those that didn’t have them. It’s more like the early church. Discipleship is meant to be a shared as well as an individual experience. We have to do this together. Make it intergenerational wherever possible. Alpha¹⁹ is a great place to start and there are other cell group models, as is preparing a meal together. The whole ministry around food is very rich.

6. in terms of the charisms that are work among your congregation – it’s very important to learn to recognise these among the non-ordained – the vocations that are emerging beyond the ordained ministries. Key to this is accompaniment – your leadership needs to be sensitive to this, so that you can identify quietly alongside people. Someone might say “I just feel like I want to deepen my faith, I don’t know what to do..” That’s a sign – there will be lots of ways that people express it and not know how to articulate it, but you need to be alongside people to help spot what is going on. Everyone has a calling, not just priests and religious, deacons and bishops and so on; we all have a vocation.¹⁶ But it can be easily missed if you don’t know what to look for. Before I was called to this work, I was a graphic designer, I wasn’t doing anything like this. This is how God works. So we need people who can walk alongside us who can spot and identify what is going on.

7. And a fundamental shift from this individualistic to more distributed forms of leadership is to notice beyond the usual suspects, to people who have previously been overlooked, unexpected places. Remember Jesus built the church on a fisherman. Peter was not well educated, not an obvious leader. The church desperately needs a broader mix of people. So when you’re recruiting, make sure you recruit not just according to age, gender and race, but also to class, to educational background to socio-economic background; and crucially, to be countercultural as the church should be in these times, recruit to a diversity of opinion. Becoming relational means refusing to be tribal. We must work together with people we disagree with.

These are just some of the places to start in terms of developing your inward-facing approach to becoming a relational church.

Outward-facing

Let’s look at the outward-facing posture now.

In this time of unravelling, we are called to subvert the culture of individualism by building relationships with our neighbours. Remember our Christian anthropology means we are fundamentally transcendent, relational beings. So by doing this we are playing a crucial role in the reweaving that which has been torn apart.

To get the congregation to step into this mindset, we could begin by asking some simple questions, for example:

1. How can we become more attentive to where God is already at work so we can join in? Not in the church, but in the neighbourhood? Where do we look?

2. We can ask questions about our identity as a congregation – who are we, as a people, in this place? How is God calling us to do here and now? Who, among our neighbours are we called to be in relationship with? What can we do together? These are the kinds of discernment questions you can involve your congregation in to start with.

3. At the heart of Catholic Social Teaching is the preferential option for the poor. Mission is not an exception to this rule: for the church to thrive, poor, low paid people must be at the heart of mission. In relational terms that means working with and rather than for people who are low paid, not making them beneficiaries but respecting their agency.

4. And there is something we need to be honest about here – which is the issue of middle-class church. There is a fear that many churches have of poor people. The fear of ordinary families in the neighbourhood. People have admitted this to me – often churches are more comfortable helping refugees or fundraising for CAFOD than they are in helping their next-door neighbours. When people say this, they often go a little bit quiet and say, well, actually, we’re afraid of dysfunctional families in our neighbourhood. There may be good reason for this.

But this points to the difficult reality that the church is not forming its own people to be confident about being a good neighbour. And sometimes these things can be with support can be provided training can be provided to give build a lot of confidence.

So this requires discernment and potentially some support. Pope Francis is clear. He said we should stop outsourcing – to the state and to professionalise charity workers – and get personal. He’s not saying the state shouldn’t exist, not saying charity shouldn’t exist, he affirms all of these things, what he’s saying is the church has done so much outsourcing that it’s lost its ability to be relational. It needs to become a community of place.

The first step is to be honest about it. It’s not just Catholic churches that have fallen out of relationship with the poor communities that surround them, many other churches have too. It’s because some churches have become much more middle class, and lost that sense of solidarity.

But it has to be said that there are some churches that are actually doing this quite well. Some of the nondenominational and Pentecostal churches for example. Making it easy for people to get involved, to step over that threshold, so that it’s not intimidating. We can learn from what they are doing.

Practical steps: where to start

So we’ve thought a bit about our inward facing and outward facing practices that can help us become a relational church. But before our discussion let’s look at somepractical steps.

Let me tell you a very brief story. A woman, a single parent with a daughter, told me she had been struggling with terrible debt for two years. She had gone to mass every week, but she hadn’t told a soul. That’s the opposite of relational.

By contrast, a relational church has a culture where people are known and support each other. Where people are valued despite their brokenness. That woman would have been supported. Now, sadly, I think we all know that that is not an isolated story. There are many churches where people aren’t known.

So we could ask ourselves are we the kind of parish that knows enough about our neighbours, for example, to club together to ensure a poor person gets a dignified burial?

Are we that kind of parish? Are we? Are we the kind of parish that would be comfortable to welcome an ex-offender and his family? How prepared are we to do that?

Are we the kind of congregation in which we make our Sunday dinner a real occasion for communion, by sharing our table? This is what Pope Francis is asking for explicitly – that we should share our table. I know an Italian parish priest who does this every Sunday. He welcomes in ten to twenty homeless men off the street – but crucially it’s not a soup kitchen. They cook, eat and wash up together. They sit around a table together. So over time, he helps them re-enter society, by treating them like human beings, in a sense of family.

A pastor I know in Croydon invited some neighbours who were not used to church to a shared meal. He said to them, would you join me – I’m not cooking, I’m not washing up. Would you join me to make a meal? It’s sort of church but not really. So they came, they cooked together. They had a conversation. He introduced them to prayer very simply. And they said could we do this again next week? They came again, they brought family, they brought friends. Over six months, it grew to over 100 people. They had to move into the church hall. People got baptised. He learned that there are different ways of doing things.

We are called to become these communities of place. You’ve probably heard of the national movement Place of Welcome²⁵ – there are more than 600 across the country now. Any church can start one, all you need is a room and a few friendly, sensitive people who can host, invite people to come talk about things, play music, be together, play board games, make it intergenerational, a place where people can be together.

And think about young people, remember that loneliness is statistically higher among 18- 24 year olds than among the old.²² Young people need a space, a physical space to meet, but invite them to co-design and co-host it.

There is great potential for the local church as a convener – by partnering with local businesses, charities, associations, colleges, to do things together that encourage forms of association that privilege poor and low income people. Like Jesus, we are to live an incarnational theology that tangibly weaves itself into all aspects of our daily experience.

We have buildings, we’ve got people who are connected into the community, we can share these things. There is potential to build bridges between estranged groups, to offer a space, and support to enable deliberation, to stand in the breach, to suffer with.

The church doesn’t just belong to the small group inside. Jesus didn’t start a private club. So in sharing our buildings, we are helping to build a local economy of gift. If we ask our neighbours for help when we need it, that’s a good place to initiate a culture of reciprocity.

Let me just share a little story with you. A church I know²⁴ in Birmingham when it first started out was in a dilapidated building had nobody there was nobody coming and they asked the neighbours what they most wanted. Top of the list was a playground. So that’s what the church did. It organised, got everyone involved. Neighbours actually dug the foundations together. That was 25 years ago. That church was a dilapidated building, almost empty then. It’s now the hub of that community with 2,500 people going through that building every week, worshiping, participating, people finding their place in terms of taking responsibility.

The poor are supposed to be the treasure of the church. Pope Francis also says that the church needs to be evangelised by the poor, so we need to try to move away from a kind of “service-client” dynamic that creates the tension of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

We need to join with people who perhaps would otherwise be seen as beneficiaries, recipients or “service users” and do things together. We should be striving for a sense of family, a hand up not a handout.

There is a mysterious reason why Francis wants us to engage with the poor – it’s not just for their benefit. The church is increasingly marginalised, and it needs friends. If a church is struggling, vulnerability can be a strength because it’s when you’re vulnerable that you ask for help and that is how relationships form. So when we think about church decline, I can’t help thinking whether God could be humbling the church so that in its poverty it realises its need for others, especially the poor. The posture needs to shift from host to neighbour.

In a few moments we’ll open up for discussion, I’d love to hear you share your stories from your contexts.

But just to finish, I want to say that being a relational church naturally will lead us to live in the way of the early apostles, to have all things in common – and it will lead us to express our solidarity with our neighbours on low incomes. And together then we advocate for decent jobs and place-based investment – to create a place where young people can build a life, be fruitful and multiply.

So different from this situation of abandonment. You know, poor communities have been abandoned by the political class, and by the church.

This is what Pope Francis’ vision is getting at, building on John Paul II’s concept of a civilization of love. And yes, it does sound idealistic. But it’s a vision that can be built up incrementally, by people like you. From the local in small steps. It doesn’t need to be big grand schemes.

This is a shift from contract to covenant.

It’s a way of loving people. It’s a way of loving people in a place. It’s like Jesus said, I’ll be with you always, He won’t abandon people. So this is how we prepare the church to heal the world. This is God’s mission. It is deeply embedded in the Old Testament model of justice. And it’s profoundly rooted in our DNA as relational beings, and expressed in the Trinity in the life of Christ himself.

This relational church is really about building the Kingdom.

DISCUSSION: Thinking about power, posture and practical steps, how can the church become more relational?

Jenny Sinclair

Founder and Director, Together for the Common Good

NOTES

¹ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/about/our-founder-director

² https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/about/catholic-social-thought

³ https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/common/phases/en/EN_Step_6_Spiritual-Conversation.pdf

⁴ Pope Francis for the opening of the Synod, 2021: https://rb.gy/ekerw

⁵ Lumen Gentium, 1964: https://rb.gy/hmtbp

^5a Instrumentum Laboris

⁶ https://aleteia.org/blogs/aleteia-blog/pope-francis-we-are-not-living-an-era-of-change-but-a-change-of-era/

⁷ https://svp.org.uk/our-history

⁸ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/stories/to-live-a-decent-life

⁹ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/leading-thinkers/the-plague-and-the-parish

¹⁰ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/leading-thinkers/how-christian-is-postliberalism

¹¹ https://unherd.com/thepost/paul-kingsnorth-how-to-resist-the-machine/

¹² https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/leading-thinkers/the-story-in-which-we-find-ourselves

¹³ Fratelli Tutti, 2020: https://rb.gy/x37dg

¹⁴ https://wherepeteris.com/big-tent-catholicism/

¹⁵ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/resources/one-to-one-conversations

¹⁶ https://www.pathsoflove.com/johnpaul-vocation.html#sdfootnote6anc

¹⁷ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/resources/the-common-good-examen

¹⁸ https://www.pilgrimways.org.uk/

¹⁹ https://alpha.org.uk/catholic-context

²⁰ https://www.24-7prayer.com/podcast/introducing-lectio-divina/

²¹ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/stories/the-soil-of-community

²² https://www.ukonward.com/reports/age-of-alienation-loneliness-young-people/

²³ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/leading-thinkers/the-politics-of-grace-and-place

²⁴ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/stories/pavilion-shaping-a-community-of-hope

²⁵ https://www.placesofwelcome.org.uk/

²⁶ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair/how-should-the-church-respond-to-poverty-at- this-time

²⁷ https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/leading-thinkers/renewing-the-covenant

As a boy of twelve in Malawi, Harvey Kwiyani* heard God’s call that he was to become a missionary in Europe. He didn’t even know where Europe was. But it happened and now, he is a missional leader and theologian living and working in the UK.

In our conversation Harvey refers to the legacy of the Enlightenment, where Western cultures shifted their focus from the worship of God to the worship of the individual. This led to a culture of self, derived from the false anthropology of individualism, where the human being is conceptualised as “the unencumbered self”, free from constraint. How different this is from God’s true anthropology, where we are regarded as relational beings made in His image. This truth is reflected in the African Ubuntu way of seeing the world, simply defined as “I am because we are.”

We explore together the difference between an Ubuntu-shaped missiology and an individualistic-shaped missiology. Harvey says:

“The Enlightenment is centred on human capacity – when you elevate the individual and the individual becomes the centre of the world. But for people in sub-Saharan Africa, our operating philosophy that shapes our worldview is simply this, that “I am because we are”, that we cannot be fully human in isolation. That, to be human, you’re required to be in community with others. So individualism is discouraged, is frowned upon. There’s always harmony and exchange between the individual and the community.”

We reflect on the impact of the loss of this natural awareness in Western Christianity. Harvey has been working with many Christian communities in the UK, Europe and the US, and he has been shocked at “the inability to expect God to show up in day-to-day life.” He concedes that “at least some will expect God to show up on Sunday in church, but that’s also rare. Most people do not have space in their lives that God can show up into.” He describes this as “functional atheism.. where many, many people who say they are Christians.. say they follow Christ, but live as if God does not exist.”

By contrast, the Ubuntu mindset is anchored in a fundamental awareness that God is actually among us. He says this way of being is “grounded in a belief that the spirit world is watching us at all times.” Connecting this to St Paul’s instruction, ‘do everything as if you’re doing it unto the Lord’, Harvey says that in Ubuntu communities, their “interpersonal relations will be really grounded in the belief that they are serving the spirit world as they serve one another.” The reality is that this has been their formation, passed down over generations. Inheriting this natural way of things, “people have learned to listen to the Spirit.”

I was struck by the similarities between this Ubuntu way of being and the new but ancient method of Conversation in the Spirit. This is at the heart of synodality (walking with each other and with the Holy Spirit) that we discussed in an episode with Avril Bagient, a practice Pope Francis is trying to reintroduce across the Catholic Church.

We can see the stark contrast between Ubuntu and individualism, not only in terms of how we relate to God, and how we relate to each other, but also in terms of our economic systems. From a Catholic Social Teaching perspective, we are called to interrogate what economic systems are doing to the human person. The Western neoliberal economic model, despite being a powerful engine of wealth creation, also – wherever it is unconstrained – commodifies, dehumanises, degrades, exploits, extracts, and even dissolves relationships.

By contrast, in economic terms, Harvey adds, “Ubuntu offers a different way to talk and think. One of the pillars is human generosity. The most powerful person in the community is the one who gives the most, not the one who hoards the most. It helps the community thrive together. There is nobody poor because they are all sharing resources. In the context of Ubuntu you only thrive if your neighbours are thriving.”

I ask him about the risk for African nations who want to import a Western economic model. While they have every right to aspire to prosperity, the question is how can that be achieved without wrecking their culture. Because in importing our operating system, which after all comes from the same post-Enlightenment root as the secularising, unravelling spirit that is now afflicting the West, it is likely that they will inadvertently also import a culture that damages their relationships too. Their Ubuntu culture will be subordinated, along with their natural way of understanding God, and replaced with Pharaonic forms of captivity so familiar to us in the West: managerial techniques, all sorts of dehumanising technocratic systems, commodification and so on. We don’t want what has happened to us to happen to them. There is a sense of a need to warn them to be careful what they wish for.

Harvey agrees: “Yes, that’s profound. To some extent, the ship has sailed. European colonisation of Africa changed everything. When the African nation states emerged after that era, they were almost by default required to follow Western economic systems. This accounts for the chaos in the Congo and in South Africa and many other places. My hope is that people can resist. But it will take a lot. We’re seeing something happen in West Africa. There are people saying ‘We are going to be our own people. We are going to manage our own resources.’ But it will not be easy.”

This brought me back to the West and to the people who have borne the brunt of these inhuman systems. What can be done at this late hour? Pope Francis has repeatedly called Christians to join in solidarity with poor communities: in fact he says the Church needs to be evangelised by the poor. Why does he say this? Because he senses that, having lost its way, itself being so afflicted by our dysfunctional operating system, the Church, having become more middle class, has become estranged from poor communities. The Church needs to be blessed by what the poor can bring: an instinctive awareness, borne of poverty, of the need for others and for the divine. This is at the heart of God’s special love for the poor.

Harvey concurs, saying that “one of the things I see about the Western church, is the church’s inability to work with poor people.” He spoke of people he comes across evangelising in poor areas: “give them three years, they’ll be out of there. They will relocate to somewhere in the suburbs because they just cannot figure out how best to follow Christ among poor people.” He added that, “part of the reason we’ve seen revivals over the past few decades in Africa is really just the poverty.”.

What I think Pope Francis is getting at is that someone who is poor has retained a sense of their need for others and for God that the affluent and the busy so easily lose. This raises the proposition that poor people may be less likely to have been captured by the “malign culture” as Francis describes it. He is suggesting that despite everything, there is still a residue of people in the West, who, by virtue of their poverty, may have retained a pre-modern sense for the need for God. They have not completely lost that kingdom instinct of needing others. We can sense this when Jesus says “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20-21).

In this season of decline experienced by many of our Western churches, perhaps God could be doing something profound. Could He be humbling the Church so that in its poverty it might sense a calling to reconnect with the poor? For those churches able to grasp this, who are able to build a common good with their neighbours trapped in poverty, this could be an inflection point.

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*Dr Harvey Kwiyani works for the Church Mission Society (CMS) in Oxford, UK, where he leads the ACTS ELEVEN Project, a new initiative in the form of a study centre for global witness and human migration. He also leads a Masters programme in African Christianity. You can find him at his Substack, Global Witness, Globally Reimagined

This article features episodes #05 and #20 from our Leaving Egypt podcast. You can find the full archive here

You can also listen to the talk here, or read on below

It is an honour to be here with you in Blackpool. I hope that what I will say will help you as you reflect on who you are and what you do. In this time together, we’ll be reading the signs of the times, looking at the underlying causes of what’s going on, and exploring how God is calling us to respond. I’ll ask some challenging questions about justice and around the dynamics between the church and the margins. We’ll explore what reconciliation could mean in practical terms, and how we’re called to spiritual and civic renewal. My hope is to prompt you to think differently, to sense what God might be saying about a Christian imagination for this time.

Signs of the times

We’re going to start by reading the signs of the times.

Now remember there is no such thing as a neutral worldview. So let me tell you the theological position I am taking. I listen and learn across the Christian traditions, in particular from Catholic Social Teaching. A school of thought rooted in the gospel and intended as a gift for all people of goodwill, a deep theological tradition that draws our attention to God’s worldview.

Sometimes referred to as “the theology of the Holy Spirit in practice”, it began as a response to the Industrial Revolution, it seeks to uphold the integrity of human beings and creation, and to interrogate structures of power.

This tradition has even-handedly condemned all systems that dehumanise: communist, socialist and liberal as much as capitalist. This is because all are based on the materialist, spiritually empty premises established by the narrow rationalism of the atheistic Enlightenment.

When we read the signs of the times, first we say what we see.

We see that young people can’t afford a home, that social trust is breaking down. We see the symptoms of what Pope Francis calls a “malign”[i] culture – extreme inequality, the collapse of trust in institutions, subordination of the local by the digital, we see sclerotic health systems, the atrophy of local forms of human association, the disconnect between the managerial class and the population, the weakening of democracy, low productivity, massive public and private debt.

We see it in climate warming and the tragedy of displaced people, in the catastrophic damage done to the natural world, we see it in the liberalising of abortion and assisted dying, in the industrialisation of human exploitation – the commercialisation of surrogacy, the normalising of cosmetic surgery, organ harvesting, sexual exploitation, human trafficking.

And not least, we see symptoms of human distress – rises in loneliness (higher among the young than the old), rises in addiction, self-harm, depression, nihilism, indifference, lack of meaning, we see the tyranny of a social media culture incentivising a false idea of freedom.

We see governments of all parties over the last forty years enabling a system undermining the dignity of work. A system requiring units of labour to be cheap and mobile, requiring the importing of low paid workers away from their own families to prop up western economies – a system described as “frictionless” by investors is in human terms a recipe for social unrest.

Four decades ago, the idea of moving to find work was regarded as right wing – but now it is rebranded as freedom! This transactional “freedom” broke parts of our country. As jobs moved overseas to low wage economies, whole sections of our societies were discarded.

We have civic degradation on a vast scale. We see it across our post-industrial heartlands and coastal towns, not least here in Blackpool. Not only in this country but across the West. This withdrawal of jobs and investment with no meaningful replacement is effectively a politics of abandonment. In human terms its impact has been catastrophic. It was a betrayal of the working class, a breach of the common good.

We are seeing multiple forms of brokenness. Why is everything unravelling? What connects all these symptoms? Just over 8 years ago, Pope Francis said we are not entering an era of change but a change of era.[ii] The old era is breaking down and the new is yet to be born. We’re living in an interregnum. We need to understand what’s going on.

What’s going on?

Every era is shaped by a particular philosophy. The animating idea of the current era that’s breaking down, comes from the philosophy of liberalism.[iii] This manifests in various forms – much of which are positive – but it morphed, into an ideology which we know as neoliberalism. Its roots are in the Enlightenment, but it manifested 45 years ago in the form of neoclassical economics which follows a narrow economic logic: the pursuit of profit maximisation over everything else.

This involved the removal of constraint from finance capital which ushered in the phenomenon of transactional individualism. From this philosophy we get a particular form of financial system and from this, globalisation – geopolitical economic processes that serve the interests of supranational corporations. This generates low wage, high welfare economies, where increasingly precarious and meaningless jobs are rewarded with wages too low to live on.

But the impacts of this system are not just economic. The philosophy underpinning the neoliberal model has led to profound social and moral consequences too. Precarity of employment on top of an inflated property market has undermined family formation and weakened the confidence of the young in adulthood.

Its amoral incentives to fragmentation eat away at shared values and erode our sense of citizenship; it dissolves the particularity of place; its commodification is undoing what it means to be human; its individualism ferments multiple pathologies – relationship breakdown, loneliness, mental health disorders, crime, the breakdown of social trust, spiritual, cultural and moral confusion.

This is why we see the emergence, on both the extreme left and the extreme right, of identitarian politics, distorted forms of victimhood, authoritarian tendencies, the battle of rights and the culture wars.

There is a denial of the transcendent and an assertion of the material. This denial subverts natural law and generates an anti-human system that some call “the machine”[iv]. It generates a de-moralisation – and poverty in all its forms: economic, relational and spiritual. We see the so-called “cost of living crisis” but this is just the latest in a wider crisis unfolding across the West.

We can describe this as the era of contract. The type of operating system that this philosophy generates is inherently unstable because it is founded upon a false anthropology – a desiccated, soulless conception of the human being which generates a false idea of freedom. At the core of this is freedom from constraint – from country, from history, from religion, from God, and now, even from human nature itself.

In its extreme form, it sees family as a constraint, and tradition and accountability are seen as obstacles to “progress”, even relationship to place is reframed as old fashioned. Ultimately, it “liberates” society from truth and from mutual responsibility.⁹

Its view of the human being incorporates the idea of “the unencumbered self”, emphasising rights over responsibilities and corroding our sense of mutual obligation. It is effectively an assault on relationship.

This philosophy denies the primacy of God and creates a cult of self – individualism. How different is this from a Christian anthropology where human beings are transcendent, relational beings, made in the image of God.

This individualism drives a political economy where we outsource more and more of the things we used to do as communities – childcare, care for our civic environment, entertainment, care of the elderly. What follows is family breakdown, isolation, the fragmentation of communities, spiritual confusion. Just consider the loss.

With a relativistic and materialist logic – no truth and no beauty – its worldview ultimately brings about its own destruction and, in the meantime, generates all sorts of instability.⁷ As an old era dies, “a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” [v]

Every country that follows this system is seeing the same effects. Beneath its shiny veneer, we are faced with a disintegration. The motivation of this spirit is anti-human which is why the system is now unravelling.

We can think of this as a power grab. It is important to understand the principalities and powers of our time, what we might call our modern pharaohs.

Catholic social thought helps us to see that whenever finance capital dominates it has the tendency to dehumanise and exploit. Its business is the commodification of creation and the “financialisation” of everything. Land, water, homes, human beings.

But equally, when power is overcentralised in the state, it too tends to be dehumanising. We can see this post-Covid as governments are becoming increasingly authoritarian, with more and more decisions taken outside the democratic process. Catholic social thought warns about the rise of “the technocratic paradigm.”[vi]

Why does this matter? Because this overcentralising of power erodes civil society, the human space.

And now – we see a collusion between both powers – the modern pharaohs of capital and state – where governments act in the interests of big corporations, insulating them from democratic accountability.

What some describe as “the machine”[vii], might be regarded in biblical terms as a modern Egypt. This malign spirit operates a different kind of slavery – a list of pseudo-freedoms. It says, “you can have mobility, consumer choice, rights and self-determination!” These false freedoms serve the economic interests of a few, but for everyone else, as they become captured, people trust each other less and less and are more easily manipulated.

This system has been foolishly perpetuated by all political parties over a forty-year period. Such gross mismanagement is provoking discontent. After four decades of no correction to the devastation, the so-called “left behind” had enough of this domination and mismanagement. They literally had nothing left to lose. In previous eras their actions might have been understood as a peasants’ revolt.[viii]

But now, such reactions are framed by corporate interests as “populist”, held in contempt by an elite class which cannot accept that this is political blowback their own policies have produced.

This lack of recognition explains the disconnect – why so many people are angry and alienated. People are sick of being ignored and object to decisions being taken outside of democratic processes.

There is increasing resistance internationally to this corrupt merger of corporate and state power. More and more ordinary people feel disempowered, humiliated, their views held in contempt. This has been building for years now. Legitimate questions get framed as extremist, by a dominant cultural narrative bent on constraining the range of acceptable opinion. This is a recipe for resentment and extremism, on both the right and on the left.

So how should we respond? Yes, it is overwhelming. We are in a place we’ve never been before.[ix] Is there any chance of renewal? How can the church foster positive change in this context? How can we collaborate with our communities to address this overwhelming challenge?

What does it mean to be God’s people in an age of unravelling? Let me suggest to you an ancient concept as a way forward. It’s not dramatic, it’s not a campaign. We don’t deal in false hope. It’s deeply rooted in our Christian tradition and also resonates with other traditions in particular the Hebrew Bible, Aristotle and Ubuntu. I would invite you to consider the common good as an antidote to this malign culture.

The antidote

But what is the common good? Let’s have a look at what it means. First off, it’s not “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” That’s a utilitarian proposition – a model of justice that is not Christian.

Anchored firmly in the Gospel, the common good starts with what it means to be human—our identity in Christ – where every person is of equal value under God – everyone is worthy of love and affection. Yet we are not meant to be the same – our Christian anthropology tells us that we are relational beings designed to complement one another – God intentionally made us to need each other.[x]

This is why we say we need to build a common good between us. A taste of the kingdom. As in first Corinthians[xi], the common good conceptualises the human family as one body, in which poor people are given the most honour. The common good requires a shared life with poor communities – because this is how God sees.

The common good is not woolly: not a vague idea where all values are equal, not a “you do you, and I’ll do me” kind of liberalism, which as we’ve seen leads to a battle of rights. The common good emphasises a balance between rights and responsibilities. It is place-based and embodied, not abstract. It is non-partisan, non-tribal, non-party political.

The common good tradition places trust in ordinary people and rests on the principle of Solidarity: the common good is strengthened when we join together across our differences. It is undermined when we’re isolated, separated, or divided by identity categories. It is incompatible with identity politics ideology – the common good can’t be built in a “safe space” insulated from dissent. It requires deliberation, negotiation, diversity of opinion, listening, mutual respect, forbearance, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption.

It is based on the recognition of natural law, acknowledging people’s realities and calls us to work together across our different interests – whether of class, socio-economic background, ethnicity, sex, age, ability, experience, and education. It’s realistic about human fallibility yet encourages virtue.

The common good is not utopian: it is not a medicine that’s good for you that justifies a top-down imposition. It cannot be imposed or delivered. It arises from people’s free participation. It insists on the human agency that comes from true freedom in God, not the false freedoms of “choice” promised by consumerism, nor the totalitarian utopias of collectivist ideologies.

At Together for the Common Good, we define it like this

the common good is the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal, enabled by social conditions that mean every single person can participate.

We create these conditions and pursue that goal by working together across our differences, each of us taking responsibility according to our calling and ability.

This is for everyone. But as the People of God, we are called to a special role, a kind of reweaving in the local – to a building of civic relationships that is covenantal not contractual. We could describe this as becoming a relational church. Like a stick of rock, we must be relational all the way down.

This calling to build common good belongs within an integrated evangelisation in its holistic sense – it is about both our relational identity in God and about how we live. This speaks to our civic relationships – and how well we know our neighbours – particularly people trapped in poverty.

And yes, community organising in its authentic form can be part of this – but I believe there is a prior step – the character of the church itself. There are still so many churches – possibly even a majority – who, having fallen out of relationship with poor communities they want to help, are “helping” in ways that are – let’s be frank – sometimes counterproductive. This dynamic between churches and poor communities needs some attention. We need to ask “whose side is the church on?”

Whose side is the church on?

Discerning our charism in this age of moral, cultural and political confusion does require hard questions. First, what do we mean by justice? To begin to think about which model of justice we’re following, let’s recall the passage from Deuteronomy, “If there is among you anyone in need…you should open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need….’[xii]

What do you notice? Down the centuries, we can lose touch with the original meaning of ancient words. You might have noticed the word lending. Some scholars believe that the ancient meaning of lending money in the original Hebrew meant something closer to our understanding of accompaniment. Lending as accompaniment! How different is that from the way we address money, poverty and debt today, where “help” looks like a bank transfer.

This prompts us to think about the differences between models of justice. The contemporary welfarist and utilitarian approaches to justice – like the way the British welfare state currently operates – are materialist and prioritise efficiency.

By contrast, the Christian model of justice is rooted in the ancient rabbinical, biblical justice tradition of right relationship – relationship with God and with each other. In God’s economy, if I’m having a hard time, you’re to walk in relationship with me – accompany me until I get back on my feet. It may involve lending money, or it may mean you help me get a job, or just keep me company.

Not just a cash transfer. Not a system that rationalises out opportunities for human connection. Not to abandon our neighbour in their flat surrounded by unpaid bills. Our primary relationships should be with each other not with the bureaucratic state.

This is not to say the welfare state shouldn’t exist, of course not. What this perspective does, is point to how it should be reformed – and how the church should respond. Many churches have got stuck on “welfarism” as their default justice tradition, losing touch with their relational calling. Others have fallen in with the dominant culture – the progressivist identitarian version of justice rooted in postmodernism. There is huge mission drift.

These materialist models – the identitarian, utilitarian and welfarist ideologies – often displace the economic justice aspect of the Christian relational tradition, undermining working-class solidarity.

Every year Pope Francis publishes a letter for the World Day of the Poor. He’s been saying we should stop outsourcing, whether to the state or to charities. He says it’s personal. Solutions are not to be found in activism or welfarism.[xiii] We are not to use the welfare system or charitable agencies as a way of keeping poor people at arm’s length.

This is challenging for those engaged with the social action service provider posture. Catholic social thought highlights the divisive benefactor-recipient dynamic for several reasons. Not least because it alienates the very people the church wishes to help – it creates a tension of “us” and “them”.

Campaigning for benefits cannot end poverty. By itself this does nothing to resist an economic system geared to the interests of capital, in fact it feeds a defeatist politics of low expectations.

Foodbanks and other forms of social action are often sources of pride in churches wanting to serve the community, justifying their usefulness. But the Church has a sacred vocation to be transformational, not to be useful.

The truth is foodbanks only mitigate injustice. This is the well-known foodbank paradox.[xiv] They meet increasing need but mask the prophetic: they’ve become a fixture of a toxic low wage economy propping up big corporations. They’re in a trap: the more efficient emergency food aid becomes, the less urgent economic reform appears.

More than distribution points, at the very least, church foodbanks should be places of welcome and conviviality, places with the opportunity to talk and to pray and be prayed for: places of communion.

But more than this, from a Catholic social teaching perspective, any activity around food poverty has got to be situated within a confident demand for economic reform,[xv] for decent jobs, retraining, place-based investment – “to restore the places long devastated” as we read in Isaiah 61. The dignity of work is central to a politics of the common good. We must not capitulate to a workless future on welfare.

Alongside these questions of justice, we need to examine the power dynamics in our charitable activity. Are we acting in solidarity or encouraging dependency? Are we taking a lead from people in poverty and supporting their initiative, or are we setting the agenda?

Too many churches, Christian charities and volunteering models, like mainstream society, have been influenced by our marketised society, falling into a transactional exchange as deliverer or rescuer – where “the poor person” is the recipient, and nothing is asked of them.

The language used in social action circles gives a clue. Terms like “outreach” and “service delivery” do not reflect a language of friendship and mutual respect. Likewise professional class terminology like “community development”, “projects” and “facilitators” betrays a managerial mindset – well-intentioned but unintentionally alienating the people it aims to help. Despite using the language of “empowerment” these interventions often leave poor communities disempowered because what is really needed is the dignity of work.

The language of “marginalised” may sound appropriate from a church activist position, but it depends where you stand. From God’s worldview, poor people are not marginal. The number of people classified as poor in the UK alone is currently around 14 million.[xvi] That’s a lot of people. It includes a broad range, from the destitute to what we might broadly term the working-class. This doesn’t feel “marginal” to me. In fact, post-Christendom, the dynamics have changed. It’s actually the church that’s marginalised.

Inadvertently this service-client dynamic can rob a person of their agency, over time it can de-skill and entrench dependency and entitlement. In a recent lecture [xvii] for Together for the Common Good, Jon Kuhrt speaks about the balance between grace and truth. He quoted a formerly homeless woman who said: “People can’t be hand-fed, they have to help themselves. It’s alright all these agencies giving people things all the time, but you have to want to help yourself… You can throw everything at them but it’s not going to work.”

This reflects the tension in Catholic social thought between the principles of solidarity – standing alongside those affected by poverty – and subsidiarity, which encourages responsibility to be taken at the appropriate level, empowering people to help themselves.

As Pope Benedict said: “Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person [which] respects personal dignity by recognising in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others.”[xviii]

There is a good reason for giving a hand up and not a hand-out. A working-class friend of mine says: “The church has become a woke foodbank. Handouts are soul destroying. People need dignified work so they can maintain some self-respect.”

When the church calls for more benefits, or campaigns to end poverty, and omits the call for economic reform, jobs and investment, it inadvertently fails to stand in solidarity with working-class people, whose desire to support their families is at the very heart of their moral code. This has massively alienated people from the church.

There was a time when many churches, not least the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army – and the 1889 dock strike[xix] comes to mind – had a covenantal relationship with poor families. William Booth and Cardinal Manning knew their people and understood the impact of capital and recognised it had to be constrained. They knew what solidarity looked like.

But many Christians are often more comfortable – and many have told me privately – fundraising for charity at arm’s length than they are in getting to know their next-door neighbours. Often there’s fear. There are issues of confidence. There are issues of class. Many churches have become captured by a middle-class culture and lost connection with poor communities – and don’t know what solidarity looks like.

A model of justice based on Christian anthropology does not pit working-class people against each other according to identity. No, it starts with listening to the concerns of workers and in solidarity builds an alliance that can mount a resistance to the powers. The church can help to build such an alliance. We might fail, but we will fail together.

The coming months and years are likely to be hard. We’ll need to build a greater mutual dependence at local level. But this could be an inflection point for those churches willing to join with people in the margins. Some already do this very well[xx] but too many are still unable to make this change. What we need is a new confidence – a renewed Christian imagination for our time.

A Christian imagination for our time

There is a deeper reason why Christians are called to live in solidarity with people trapped in poverty. It’s about reconciliation. Pope Francis says the Church needs to be evangelised by the poor[xxi] because someone who is poor has retained a sense of their need for others and for God that the affluent and the busy so easily lose. He is saying that in this sea of liberalism, the Church itself has become estranged from God. Reconciliation is needed and that will come through a relationship with poor communities.

In Matthew 25, Jesus invites us to live out this reciprocity. Connecting with someone in need opens us up to a closer connection with God. This is the great mystery at the heart of God’s special love for people who are poor. We need to be a church that can learn to receive as well as give.

Because we’re all a little bit broken. We connect with each other through our woundedness.[xxii] It is what makes us human. We are not like the machine. The church is not meant to be an efficient delivery system.

So how do we “do” reconciliation? It begins with humility and an intentional posture of listening – to God and to our neighbours. We need a culture of one-to-one conversations[xxiii] – as a practice within our congregations. A practice of listening – just for the honour of hearing someone’s story. Imagine if everyone in your congregation was able to do this and have one-to-one conversations in the neighbourhood every week?

It’s about bridging gaps where there’s estrangement, standing in the breach, feeling the pain where there is tension, putting relationships first, building trust, refusing to be tribal. Recognising that people have different concerns and may not like each other. We need to be unafraid of disagreement but determined to find areas of shared interest.

A politics of reconciliation requires truth telling, a willingness to stay in the room, to listen, to negotiate, to broker shared interests. It requires humility, saying sorry, forgiveness, redemption. It requires genuine respect for diversity of opinion, not covert intentions to re-educate.

In this dark time, people are yearning for meaning. But we won’t get much help from our culture and its leaders. The very people who should have a vision are lost in perpetuating a dysfunctional system. The unravelling is real and will get worse.

But we have a story to tell. A story of spiritual and civic renewal, of truth, beauty and goodness. Of what it means to be human, to love, to trust, what friendship means, what it means to be a good neighbour. It is important to name these things that are fast being forgotten. A story that not only calls out structures of sin, but which also builds a common good that can offer resistance to the powers that atomise and separate.

A story that requires responsibility to be taken at all levels: international, national, regional, local, personal – in line with the principle of Subsidiarity, everyone has a part to play. Let’s briefly name what this common good vision of renewal could look like:

At national level it would involve governments enabling conditions that prioritise families and communities. It would balance different interests say, between business and unions, between young and old, between urban and rural, between migrants and host communities, between the interests of capital and labour.

It would deconcentrate capital by enabling regional banks and energy providers and by shortening food supply chains. It would constrain the excesses of capital through a national industrial strategy incentivising place-based investment, job creation and retraining – balancing environmental measures with the dignity of work – to correct the abandonment of the forgotten places.

At regional level, we would see institutional collaboration between educational bodies, employers, investors, communities, religious and other regional networks all working together for the renewal of their region.

At local level, local government would create conditions that enable people to run their own local organizations – to build back that lost agency – to foster a diverse layer of local associations – clubs, businesses, schools, charities, and religious bodies – each living out their own vocational responsibility, each enabling local people to find fulfilment, each meeting local needs, and working together for the good of the community.

This local ecosystem would, at community level, cultivate family life – in all its variety – helping families help each other and their neighbours, teaching young people local civic responsibility and the importance of good relationships.[xxiv]

At the personal level each of us would buildlocal relationships, borrowing and lending, creating a reciprocal gift economy rather than weakening ourselves by outsourcing everything to the market and to the state. We need to strengthen our mutuality, our interdependence.

The people of the churches have a distinctive calling – despite determined attempts to discredit and privatise our faith, despite the pressures to conform to the new secular ideologies, we have a responsibility to be authentic, according to our different Christian charisms, not to hide away but to work together with our neighbours of all backgrounds, to live out this vision, at every level.

Our calling

In this malign culture, we’re called to be non-tribal, to live out our countercultural story, to be a light in the darkness. As the new era unfolds it’s our job to stay human.

We can shape the world by the language we speak and living it out authentically. We must mean what we say. We must speak the language of covenant not contract, of solidarity not division, of mutuality not individualism, of relationship with each other not the cult of self.

We must know that we are relational beings and not be shy about our God-given identity. Each of us is called to a unique vocational responsibility, if we really surrender. God calls each of us in surprising ways. Discerning our vocational responsibility requires an examination of conscience – perhaps with colleagues, or with your congregation: how is God calling us in this place?

Can our congregations learn to be intentional about building civic relationships, can they become a people who practice reconciliation? Do they have the courage to be authentic?

Are we alert to what’s going on, are we holding to a Christian justice tradition, or is there mission drift? Are we joining with people in the forgotten places and demanding investment and decent jobs?

Do our congregations know what it looks like to stand in solidarity with the poorest in our communities? Not as service providers, not as rescuers helping victims, but as neighbours and friends who share in each other’s local concerns, joys, hopes and fears – and who feel each other’s anger and pain – and act together to build a place where our children can make a life.

What needs to happen to make this possible? At a time when many people in our country feel dislocated, our churches and centres are called to be places where people feel at home. Places where people can work together, building structures of grace, where we regard everything we do as an occasion for communion.

Jenny Sinclair

Founder and director of Together for the Common Good and co-host of the Leaving Egypt podcast

NOTES

[i] Pope Francis, World Day of the Poor letter 2023

[ii] Pope Francis, Pastoral Visit to Prato and Florence

[iii] Adrian Pabst, How Christian is Post-liberalism

[iv] Paul Kingsnorth, Being Church in the Age of the Machine

[v] Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

[vi] Pope Francis G7 summit address

[vii] Paul Kingsnorth, Being Church in the Age of the Machine

[viii] David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere

[ix] Alan Roxburgh, The Story in Which We Find Ourselves

[x] Dialog of Catherine of Siena (I,7)

[xi] 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

[xii] Deuteronomy 15:7-11

[xiii] Pope Francis, World Day of the Poor Letter 2022 (#7)

[xiv] Jem Bartholomew, The Food Bank Paradox

[xv] Maurice Glasman, The Economics of the Common Good

[xvi] Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK Poverty 2024

[xvii] Jon Kuhrt, Grace, Truth and the Common Good: the future of Christian social action

[xviii] Caritas in Veritate, 57

[xix] Jenny Sinclair, To live a decent life

[xx] Sian Wade, The Spirit and the Kingdom in Lincoln

[xxi] Evangelii Gaudium, 198

[xxii] Luigino Bruni, The Wound and the Blessing

[xxiii] T4CG, One-to-one conversations

[xxiv] T4CG, Common Good Schools

Click below to listen to a recording

An alliance between neighbours

Recently I came across a message on Twitter by young a man who had just lost his job: “due to Covid-19, I’m no longer needed. I’m willing to do anything. I need a job to support my wife and newborn baby. Help appreciated.” It was not the only one like this. As the impact of the pandemic thunders on, more stories like this will be surfacing.

Around the same time I found an old photo of me as a baby in a pram looking out over the docks in East London. This was Canning Town in the sixties: I grew up in a Dockland Settlement where my dad was the vicar.

Dockers and their families were our neighbours. I learned that being the son or daughter of a docker meant not knowing when your dad would get his wages. Men had to turn up and stand around to get picked for work, which might mean anything from a few hours’ to a full day’s pay.

Today, unpredictable earnings have become a familiar feature of our economy. That plea from the young father shows how hard it still is to support a family on contract work. Seeing his message brought to mind an event that took place not far from where my pram was parked overlooking the docks, over 120 years before.

The Great Dock Strike of 1889 happened against rising concern about the living and working circumstances of ‘the working poor’. Families were tolerating appalling conditions. There had been a long fight to get more rights for workers. A series of riots had sparked fears of social unrest, fuelled by sensational press reports about life in East London slums.

The strike began after a dispute between the dock workers and the East and West India Docks Company over a decrease in a bonus payment, known as ‘plus’ money. The strikers, led by Ben Tillett and John Burns, demanded an increase in pay, the abolition of the contract and ‘plus’ systems, and that men should be hired for at least four hours a day.

Their action was held at great risk to themselves and their families went hungry. But an alliance emerged to support them, made up of civic friendships long established in the East End, including the Jewish community and the Salvation Army, which provided soup kitchens and raised money for the dockers’ families and children.

Soon trades across the whole of the Port of London came out in support, along with workers in factories and workshops throughout the East End. There were large, peaceful processions which earned the sympathy of the public. Within two weeks, 130,000 were on strike. One of the busiest ports in the world came to a standstill. Relations between strike leaders and dock managers had reached stalemate. After a month, the Lord Mayor convened a committee, ‘The Mansion House Conference’, to try and broker a settlement. Cardinal Manning, who had been involved throughout the strike, was seen as impartial by both parties and agreed to act as mediator.

After lengthy negotiations, the employers met practically all the dockers’ demands. The resolution of the strike became known as ‘the Cardinal’s Peace’.

Manning’s contribution cannot be attributed merely to his mediation skills. He held the trust of both sides. The 81 year old archbishop was the son of a banker and was fully conversant with the interests of the City. But most significantly he knew his people. He was loved and respected among the parishes in East London. He was the object of working class affection, and had no vested interest other than the flourishing of the communities he served.

During the strike he forged a friendship with the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. Their shared concern for the conditions of the working poor comes across in their personal correspondence and in their public writings. The year after the strike, Booth was to write “In Darkness England” and the year before, Manning had published his pivotal article, “A Pleading for the Worthless”.

They were under no illusions about the power of capital and its impact on communities. Manning wrote:

“The capitalist is invulnerable in his wealth. The working man without bread has no choice but either to agree or to hunger in his hungry home. For this cause, ‘freedom of contract’ has been the gospel of the employers, and they have resented hotly the intervention of peacemakers.“

His scepticism about that ‘freedom of contract’ claim resonates today as our own economy adjusts to the pandemic. If he were alive today, he would not be surprised to see capital attempting to recoup its losses: he would be defending the impact on the low paid and on people with insecure contracts. His concern was for the dignity of labour and to see families thrive.

Throughout the strike, Manning had kept Pope Leo XIII regularly updated. Just two years after, Leo would publish Rerum Novarum (Of New Things), exploring the theology around the rights and duties of capital and labour. “On the authority of the Gospel”, the document insists on restraining the dehumanising tendencies of capital, and sets out unequivocally the role of the Church:

“the Church uses her efforts not only to enlighten the mind, but to direct by her precepts the life and conduct of each and all; the Church improves and betters the condition of the working man by means of numerous organizations; does her best to enlist the services of all classes in discussing and endeavouring to further in the most practical way, the interests of the working classes.”

Rerum Novarum is widely regarded as the foundation of Catholic social thought, from which we derive Common Good thinking. Following Gospel teaching, it focuses on what enables the human person to thrive, transcending party political and ideological positions.

Hence it explicitly supports the right of labour to form unions. It also critiques Socialism. It affirms private property rights:

“Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order.”

This balance of interests gets to the heart of the Common Good. Like the dock strike negotiation, it requires us to achieve a fair settlement. Later, John Paul II was to address the nature of work too. In Laborum Excercens he drew attention to the dignity of work. He addressed the forces that degrade the human person. His first hand experience of Eastern Europe and World War Two taught him that we need to be doubly vigilant: the wellbeing of our communities can be undermined not only by money power, but when government is overcentralised, by state power too.

Capital’s ‘freedom to contract’ carries the risk of commodification: it sees everything including human beings and nature as having a price. But an over-zealous state can dehumanise people too. In the Covid-19 era we are seeing the acceleration of both tendencies. Both have the potential to undermine the flourishing they promise – even more so when they collude. When the state acts in the interests of capital we see a combination of forces that pose a threat to democracy.

We have lived within the frame of contract culture for such a long time, it is easy to forget there is any other way. But somewhere deep in our memory is the tradition of covenant, which holds that agreements should be based on just relationships, kindness and decency. Covenant gets power the right way up. It is a deeply biblical way of doing things. Within this frame, a negotiation of interests is fundamental.

Manning provides a model for church leaders. He knew his people. He saw them as beloved neighbours. This was a covenantal relationship with people, rooted in a specific place, a faithful promise based on love and respect. When everything else is adrift, there is a need for commitment. Churches have a particular calling to build durable local relationships with their neighbours.

The dockers, Cardinal Manning, William Booth and their allies worked together in harsh circumstances to bring about decent pay for local people. Years later around 2001, the same East End communities in the same area were facing similar issues of in-work poverty. They came together as The East London Community Organisation, TELCO, and started to work on what was to become the Living Wage. Inspired by their forerunners a century before, just as Pope Leo XIII had been to write Rerum Novarum, their efforts are part of an inheritance of covenantal commitment.

As a baby I looked across the docks at the cranes and ships stretching out for miles. Over fifty years on, the landscape has changed almost unrecognisably and the map has been redrawn. But some things remain the same: that young father needs a decent wage to support his wife and new born baby. Who will join with his family in covenantal relationship if not the Churches? As the fallout of the pandemic unfolds, it will be necessary again to uphold the humanity of our neighbourhoods and help people to live a decent life.

Learn more about the Great Dock Strike, Cardinal Manning and Catholic social thought here