The Columban Way: Forty years of Justice and Peace in Britain. Photo: Becca Long
What a legacy we carry! This year marks 40 years since the very first Vocation for Justice newsletter (VfJ) and I have had the pleasure of tracking its history with two longstanding authors: Columban Fr Ed O’Connell and Columban co-worker Ellen Teague.
If you’ve been a faithful reader of VfJ, you won’t be surprised to hear that it was born out of witnessing grave injustices, including abuses of human rights, the brutality of military dictatorships and unbounded exploitation of people and the natural world.
After returning from Peru in 1985, Ed connected with Justice and Peace (J&P) groups across Britain and worked alongside CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), amassing a growing national network of those concerned about justice and peace issues. The newsletter became a way to maintain those contacts, raise awareness of global and local issues and mobilise people for action.
By 1986, Ed and Mike Kelly would get together to write and gather articles from all over, copying, stapling and posting them, the newsletter growing from a couple of hundred copies to a thousand quite quickly as more people valued VfJ as a contribution to J&P work.
It united Catholics in a shared longing for justice, rooted in the pastoral cycle of See–Judge–Act and shaped by global experience. Columban Frs Frank Nally, Tony Burke, Ray Collier and Frank Regan also went out to accompany J&P groups and assist in CAFOD and J&P events.
Ellen recalls Mike and Ed’s first J&P conference, where they played the hymn in the liturgy, I Pray That I May Never Be Indifferent. “It really summed up what we were trying to do - that we won’t be indifferent to injustice around the world.” She was invited to run the newsletter when Ed returned to Peru in 1999, her great faith becoming an invaluable driving force; she truly believed that the newsletter provided information and a process that weren’t appearing elsewhere. “I was convinced of that then and I'm convinced of that now.”
VfJ wasn’t just a mailing list; it became a campaigning tool, addressing issues from interfaith and racial justice in East London to debt, trade and environmental concerns. Some of its first editions featured articles from leading scholars within the church, such as Albert Nolan, Gustavo Gutiérrez and Aung San Suu Kyi, bridging these leading thinkers with parishioners here in Britain. They were not afraid of controversy, publishing a statement on institutional racism in the Church in an edition Ed tells me about on the Congress of Black Catholics. “So, the Columbans were quite prophetic in advertising issues that weren’t really appearing elsewhere … I’m very proud of that,” Ellen said.
I was curious about their favourite editions. Looking back over the years, Ed fondly remembers the celebration of the tenth-year edition, introduced by Christine Allen and with great contributions from people like Molly Somerville on racial justice, Kathy Piper and Theresa Jackson, as well as Rosemary Read and Carol and David Cross writing on the See-Judge-Act principles applied to unemployment in the Middlesbrough area. I was struck by the fact that VfJ was really a gathering force in the movement of the whole Church towards taking justice, peace and care for Creation issues seriously.
Ellen’s favourites were those where they really made a difference. She reflects on the eventual promise made by the mining corporation Rio Tinto to withdraw from mining in the Philippines, recalling Rio Tinto’s chief executive writing to Columban Fr Frank Nally following their campaigning pressure as part of the Working Group on Mining in the Philippines. “If I might just add a little story,” Ed says with a smile, “While we were demonstrating outside the Rio Tinto offices up in the city, some of the workers came out at lunchtime and said, ‘Keep it up. You don't even know half of what goes on.’”
The Columbans could make unique contributions, considering they actually lived in and amongst some of the injustices that were being covered. They were among the first to expose the extractive industries and put climate change on the agenda. They were influential in encouraging the Catholic Church to mark the Season of Creation each September. VfJ also broadcast the directive to gather for the “Hands around Birmingham Campaign on Debt” in 1998, which became the first mass protest of Jubilee 2000, when 60,000 people showed up to demand debt cancellation for impoverished countries during the G8 summit in Birmingham! I hadn’t realised how much influence the newsletter had in bringing to light issues
So, for the first 30 years, VfJ worked at the grassroots, educating people, engaging them in events and imparting the social analysis skills and tools to reflect theologically and devise plans of action.
The last ten years have brought fresh challenges in bringing younger people in and through this process. It was interesting to hear how they reflect on more recent years, showing resistance to support justice and peace as the tide shifts. It’s troubling that J&P workers are losing funding at the diocesan level. There’s a lack of training and formation for young people in these areas and limited paid roles in J&P in the Church. They noted how the Church focuses on its charitable wing, while the focus on J&P has diminished. “But of course we have to carry on because these marginalised people and poor communities have to carry on surviving and we have to support them.”
VfJ moves online from May 2026, so the team must reach people creatively. Ellen laughs as she remembers finding a copy of the newsletter sitting in the archbishop’s house in Westminster - the physical copy always reached interesting places. Distribution online will be different, but the mission remains. The Columbans have been prophets for building the kingdom values, seeing mission not as coping with the decline of priests and parishes, but as having open eyes to read the signs of the times and stand in solidarity with the vulnerable - both people and planet. The hope for the newsletter online is that their readers will own it, embody it, distribute it and take responsibility to See-Judge-Act: “The Columban way is to go to the grassroots … I can’t see any other way forward.”
So, after 40 years, from its raison d’etre to its sustaining power and to its hope for the future, VfJ returns time and again to the same theme: Justice, faithfully taking up the cause of the exploited and the poor and fighting for equitable relationships. Aren’t these the priorities Jesus had?
Thanks to Ed and Ellen for sharing their time with me and for being people of hope. May the coming years be fruitful as the newsletter continues to offer signs of hope and witness to the Kingdom of God, calling us again to listen to the cry of the poor.
Becca Long is a Columban Faith in Action Volunteer in Britain.
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