‘And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.’ 2 Corinthians 9:8
I will be retiring from my role as manager of Caritas Diocese of Plymouth after an amazing five years and wanted to share some reflections on the growth of the work of Caritas in the Diocese of Plymouth.
Caritas was set up in 2019 by Bishop Mark O’Toole as an agency of the Diocese of Plymouth charged with putting the Church’s Social Teaching into action and providing a network for sharing good practice and encouraging new initiatives. When I started the role (a few days before COVID lockdown), I was the only Caritas staff member. During that difficult time, Caritas was able to distribute over £80,000 of crisis grants to people in need and offer other resources and support to parishes and schools.
Thanks to the wonderful support and encouragement of the diocese, we are now a team of six people. Our work is very varied but is always focused on the service of the most poor and vulnerable and promoting the common good.
It is a real privilege to work alongside our parishes, schools and other charities and heartening to see how the Mission of Charity is alive and well across the Diocese of Plymouth. There are so many people in our diocese who are struggling with poverty, isolation or marginalisation. Our role is to look for new ways to reach those in need. We share ideas and good practice through formation and education: running events and workshops to identify local unmet needs and to pray and reflect on our call to respond. We provide signposting on issues such as cost of living and ageing and support parish groups to undertake direct social action e.g. through community sponsorship, running a foodbank or creating new social opportunities for people who are isolated. We seek to create new opportunities to fulfil our role as stewards of Creation and develop new environmental initiatives.
We work closely with partners including Catholic Children’s Society Plymouth and St Vincent de Paul, who do so much wonderful work at the grassroots. We also collaborate with our diocesan schools who are a great example of faith in action.
All our work is underpinned by the Gospel imperative to ‘love one another as I have loved you’. This core principle has given me and the team the opportunity to be open to new ideas, to test out innovative approaches (which don’t always work) and to do our best, working with others, to respond to Jesus’ example and teaching. There are plenty of facts and figures about what we do, but why we do this work – to be of service to others – is what makes this such an amazing role.
The diocese is now recruiting a new Head of Caritas and you can find out more about this role here https://www.plymouth-diocese.org.uk/the-diocese/careers/
(Pictured is the Caritas team)