Justice is everyone’s mission

By Fr Stephan Alexander

General Manager, CCSJ and AMMR

In last Sunday’s issue, I wrote about the CCSJ’s Pastoral Guide for Parish-Led Crime Prevention and Community Transformation and its conviction that crime in Trinidad and Tobago is a pastoral crisis that demands a pastoral response.

Among the guide’s recommendations are two foundational parish structures: a Parish Social Justice Ministry, and a Parish Crime Prevention and Community Care Committee.

The first provides the parish with a structure to coordinate its social mission and pastoral outreach; the second helps the parish understand local realities and organise practical responses to crime and community vulnerability.

This week’s column focuses on the Parish Social Justice Ministry, exploring what it is, why it matters, and, importantly, what it is not.

For some parishioners, hearing about a Parish Social Justice Ministry may raise immediate concerns: does this mean another committee, another meeting, and another responsibility for the same few people who already seem to do everything in the parish?

If that is your concern, allow me to reassure you from the outset: the answer is no.

The Church in Trinidad and Tobago is sustained by people who already give generously of themselves in catechetical programmes, youth and prayer groups, St Vincent de Paul conferences, hospitality ministries, and many other areas of parish life. Many already carry heavy responsibilities.

A Parish Social Justice Ministry is not intended to ask more of those who are already stretched. Its purpose is precisely the opposite: to ensure that fewer people carry more than they should and that more parishioners discover their place in the Church’s mission.

Simply put, a Parish Social Justice Ministry is the parish’s organised expression of the Church’s social mission. It is the place where the parish intentionally asks: Who in our community is struggling? What wounds surround us? What is God asking us to do in response?

It provides a framework through which the parish can coordinate its efforts to support families, accompany the vulnerable, strengthen communities, and promote the dignity of every human person.

The idea is deeply rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, which recognises that proclaiming the Gospel requires more than preaching alone. It also requires practical love, human development, community building, and advocacy wherever human dignity is threatened.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the CCSJ uses the term Parish Social Justice Ministry to describe this broad and beautiful mission of charity, development, and justice working together.

Many of our parishes are already engaged in this work through the Society of St Vincent de Paul, youth and family ministries, prison ministry, environmental initiatives, and numerous other organisations that quietly serve the vulnerable daily.

Some ministry leaders may therefore hear the term “umbrella ministry” and feel uneasy. Will ministries lose their identity? Will long-established groups be absorbed into something new? Again, the answer is no.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul remains the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Likewise, Youth Ministry and Family Life Units remain unchanged. A Parish Social Justice Ministry does not replace existing ministries or diminish their identity.

Rather, it creates a space for ministries to communicate, collaborate, support one another, and respond together when circumstances require it. It seeks communion rather than control, cooperation rather than consolidation, and partnership rather than bureaucracy.

This becomes particularly important when people face complex difficulties. For instance, a family affected by violence may require material assistance, grief support, youth engagement, counselling referrals, and spiritual accompaniment all at once.

No single ministry can meet all these needs alone. Yet together, the parish often possesses the gifts and relationships necessary to respond to the whole person and the whole family. The Parish Social Justice Ministry helps to make that coordinated response possible.

This is one of the reasons the CCSJ identifies Parish Social Justice Ministries as essential to parish-led crime prevention.

Crime rarely emerges from a single cause. Poverty, trauma, family breakdown, addiction, educational failure, loneliness, hopelessness, and social exclusion often combine long before anyone enters the criminal justice system.

If we wish to prevent crime, we must also strengthen families, accompany young people, respond to trauma, and create communities where people experience dignity, belonging, and hope.

Yet the work of a Parish Social Justice Ministry extends far beyond crime prevention. It touches every aspect of the Church’s concern for human flourishing: the elderly person living alone, the family experiencing hardship, the young adult searching for purpose, the migrant seeking belonging, the person living with disability, and the victim of violence or abuse.

Most importantly, this ministry does not belong only to specialists, professionals, or long-serving volunteers. Every parishioner has something to contribute. Some can mentor young people. Some can visit the sick or elderly. Others can assist with administration, advocacy, fundraising, transportation, or professional expertise. Some offer the invaluable gifts of listening, welcoming, encouraging, and accompanying those who are hurting. The Gospel has room for every gift and every person.

Ultimately, establishing a Parish Social Justice Ministry is not about creating another structure. It is about helping the parish become more fully what the Church is called to be: the living presence of Christ in the community and a sign of God’s love for those who suffer, struggle, and hope.

For this reason, I extend a sincere invitation to every parishioner. Whether your contribution is large or small, public or hidden, your gifts are needed. The work of building safer communities, stronger families, and a more just society cannot belong to a small group of dedicated volunteers alone; it belongs to the whole Church.

Let us therefore step forward together according to our gifts, our circumstances, and our vocation. Let us share more widely the responsibility for the Church’s mission of charity and justice.

Let us become, together, parish families that protect human dignity, strengthen hope, accompany those who suffer, and become an instrument of Christ’s peace in the communities we call home.

The CCSJ asks for your support. Please donate:

Catholic Commission for Social Justice

Account #: 290 458 025 501

Bank: Republic Bank Ltd.

or you can contact us at:

admin.ccsj@catholictt.org