Dr Gemma Simmonds is a sister of the Congregation of Jesus and well-known broadcaster and retreat-giver. Gemma spoke from Cambridge at a livestream event on ‘Learning from Covid: church, state and a better future’ on Saturday 6th March 2021. The impact of the crisis was so wide-ranging that old systems just cannot be maintained. And yet we are good both at ignoring warnings and doing nothing to make things better. Christian Catholic faith tells us that as baptised people we have responsibility for the world. Justice is for today. We need to learn to be prophets and become a ‘professional nuisance’. Pope Francis has been a sure guide throughout the pandemic. In particular the encyclical Fratelli Tutti repeatedly emphasises that we belong together. In his address at Ur of the Chaldeans that very morning Francis had reiterated the need for those with differences of ethnicity and religion to come together. Faith is to be lived by all of us. We need to rid ourselves of division, creating a better kind of politics and bringing to an end ‘the virus of indifference’. A ‘more whole and integrated way of living’ is needed. The questions which followed explored some ways forward.
The prelude video for this event can be found here.
