Pewsheet – 22nd June 2025

The Rector writes ’Today we celebrate ‘Sanctuary Sunday’ , the final day of the annual Refugee week which this year began on 16th June and ends today, (more on Sanctuary Sunday in the inside pages). Refugee week itself is a festival where we try to celebrate compassion and connection, a week to make sure that everyone is welcomed.

https://refugeeweek.ie/ tells us that

Through a collective programme of community events & culture, sports and educational activities alongside awareness raising, Refugee Week brings people from different backgrounds together to foster a deeper understanding of why people are displaced and the challenges they face when seeking safety, and celebrate communities who welcome them. Community is the incredible every day. Simple acts of shared generosity and continually showing up for one another. Inviting someone new to the men’s shed or GAA practice, offering directions or a smile. Kindness multiplied to become a community welcome.

As we know from our own parish, communities can bring people together, bridge divides and offer support. As a Church of Sanctuary, we are committed to supporting Refugee week each year, and Sanctuary Sunday in particular. It encourages us to practice solidarity to make Ireland a truly welcoming and safe place for everyone.’

Sanctuary Sunday

This year, Sanctuary Sunday is 22nd June 2025.

The event aims to give expression through prayer and witness to the centrality of sanctuary and hospitality to the stranger in the Christian call to love our neighbours. At its heart, this work is about connecting people, locally and globally, with respect for the dignity of every human person as made in the image and likeness of God.

Churches are at the heart of the community reflecting the Refugee Week theme of ‘Community as a Superpower‘. Given the current ‘climate’, now is an important time for churches to engage with issues relating to asylum and refugees, with the hope of bringing more ‘light’ to an often heated conversation.

Sanctuary Sunday is marked at the end of Refugee Week and aims to promote the Church of Sanctuary

programme, building cultures of welcome, hospitality

The Conference of European Churches (CEC) and Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) are also asking churches across Europe to hold services, prayers, or vigils on or around 22 June 2025, in connection with World Refugee Day (20 June), to remember those who have lost their lives on their journey to safety—whether in the Mediterranean, the Channel, at Eastern borders, or elsewhere.

Affirmation of Faith

I believe in the equality of all,

rich and poor.

I believe in liberty.

I believe in humanity and that through it

we can create unity.

I believe in the love within each of us,

and in the home, happy and healthy.

I believe in the forgiveness of our sins.

I believe that with divine help

we will have the strength to establish

equality in society.

I believe in unity, the only way to achieve peace,

and I believe that together we can obtain justice.

Amen.

Peru,

SPCK ‘From Shore to Shore’

St John’s Church is currently without a Community Employment Worker and would like to encourage applicants with garden maintenance/ cleaning skills to apply.

Please apply via the Community scheme (long term unemployed)

Dates for your Diary

June

29th 5th Sunday United Service of Wholeness & Healing in St Mary’s at 11am (no 9:30am Service that day)

July

9th Mothers’ Union 130th Celebration Service 11:30am Rushbrooke, Cobh

Random Notes CDXCIV

GENEVA, 12 June 2025 – The number of people displaced by war, violence and persecution worldwide is?untenably high, particularly as humanitarian funding evaporates, with the only bright spot being?a pickup in returns, notably to Syria, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said today.

There were 122.1 million?forcibly displaced people by the end of April 2025, up from 120 million at the same time last?year, representing around a decade of year-on-year increases in the number of refugees and?others forced to flee their homes. The main drivers of displacement remain large conflicts like?Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, and the continued failure to stop the fighting.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: “We are living in a time of intense?volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape?marked by acute human suffering. We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find?long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”?

Forcibly displaced people include people displaced within their own country by conflict, which?grew sharply by 6.3 million to 73.5 million at the end of 2024, and refugees fleeing their?countries (42.7 million people). Sudan became the world’s largest forced displacement situation?with 14.3 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), replacing Syria (13.5 million), and followed by Afghanistan?(10.3 million) and Ukraine (8.8 million).

The report found that, 67 per cent of?refugees stay in neighbouring countries, with low and middle-income countries hosting 73?per cent of the world’s refugees. Indeed, 60 per cent of people forced to flee never leave their?own country.

While the number of forcibly displaced people has almost doubled in the last decade, funding?for UNHCR now stands at the same level as in 2015 amid brutal ongoing cuts to?humanitarian aid. This situation is untenable, leaving refugees and others fleeing danger even?more vulnerable.?

“Even amid the devastating cuts, we have seen some rays of hope over the last six months,”?Grandi added. “Nearly 2 million Syrians have been able to return home after over a decade uprooted. The country remains fragile, and people need our help to rebuild their lives again.” In total, 9.8 million forcibly displaced people returned home in 2024.?

Many of these returns, however, happened in an adverse political or security climate. For?example, a large number of Afghans were forced to return to Afghanistan in 2024, arriving?home in desperate conditions. In countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo,?Myanmar, and South Sudan, there were significant new forced displacements at the same?time as the return of refugees and IDPs.?

The report calls for continued funding of UNHCR programmes that save lives, assist refugees?and IDPs returning home, and reinforce basic infrastructure and social services in host communities, as an essential investment in regional and global security.

(Edited from https://www.unhcr.org/ie/news/press-releases/number-people-uprooted-war-shocking-decade-high-levels-unhcr. Emphasis is my own.)