Join us for Holy Island Pilgrimage

This year our Holy Island Pilgrimage takes place on Saturday July 8 and is being jointly organised by CAFOD and the Romero Trust.

Clare Dixon will join us from our Latin America and the Caribbean team, along with Julian Filochowski, director of the Romero Trust, and Father Jim O’Keefe and Father Chris Hughes.

Here is our timetable for the day…

10am: Meet at Purdy Lodge Café on the A1 and travel in convoy to Holy Island Causeway.

11am: Meet at Holy Island Causeway to walk and reflect (approximately two to three hours). Non-walkers are welcome to join us afterwards, meeting at St Mary’s Church from noon.

3pm: Mass in St Aidan’s Church

4pm: Depart from Holy Island businesses.

Bring your parish, school or local community together to arrange transport and join us on this wonderful occasion. All are welcome!

This lack of crop diversity makes the current food system unfit to cope with the challenges brought about by the climate crisis and also makes it unsuitable for quickly adapting to disease and conflict. We just need to look at Russia’s war in Ukraine to see the impact this has had on the price of key staples such as wheat and overall food prices.

Although enough food is produced to feed everyone, around 800m people go hungry each day and many of them are small-scale farmers who grow the world’s food.

This situation is intensified when small-scale farmers cannot access a wide variety of local seeds that they have used freely for generations.

Instead of saving, producing and sharing their own seeds, they are often pushed towards buying a limited selection of commercial seeds produced by a few corporations. This is not good for the climate or for food security. It’s much better when small-scale farmers can build and freely access a diverse set of seeds. It increases local resilience.

Seeds are also a symbol of hope and transformation in our Catholic faith, which is why CAFOD is inviting parishioners across the country to support Salina.

This summer, your parish can support Salina by adding your names to her letter.

Find more about how your parish can support Salina at cafod.org.uk/food.

Carol Cross, Community Participation Coordinator