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As the cost of living crisis is at the forefront of people's minds right now. Christians Against Poverty (CAP) Scotland, have put together this piece for us in response to many requests from churches in Scotland wondering what they can do to respond.

Over the last couple of years many of us have experienced what it’s like to feel trapped and lonely. Through lockdowns and periods of self isolation we’ve been cut off from friends, family and loved ones. We’ve experienced the impact on our mental health and wellbeing from periods of uncertainty and isolation. 

For many of us, the easing of COVID restrictions in Scotland meant an end to isolation, but for thousands of low income households struggling with problem debt and poverty, the isolation and loneliness they feel is actually getting worse due to the cost of living crisis and mounting debts.

At Christians Against Poverty (CAP) we are seeing a concerning upward trend in the impact that low income and problem debt is having on households throughout Scotland. In a recent survey, we discovered that 60% of our clients have felt lonely often or always. Over two thirds (68%) were scared to answer the phone, more than half (55%) were too afraid to answer the door and 40% were too afraid to leave their home. Worryingly, the proportion who thought no one could help them has increased from 34% to 43%.

Right now we know many people are feeling isolated, scared and forgotten as they struggle alone with their debts, not aware of the free help available. Too many remain trapped in debt as they are too embarrassed or ashamed to tell anyone, even those closest to them. 

At CAP we have a network of community based Debt Centres based in local churches throughout Scotland. Through our Debt Centres we provide free, professional, person-centred debt help to anyone who needs it. 

Debt can happen to anyone, an income shock, a sudden change in circumstances, can push people into unexpected debt. At CAP Scotland, the main causes of debt that we see are low income, mental ill-health and relationship breakdown. In Scotland, the average annual household income for CAP clients is less than half of the UK average. Without a debt solution, the average repayment term in Scotland is a staggering 43 years - something that simply isn’t sustainable. 

Even before the pandemic, over 1 million people in Scotland were living in poverty. That means for over 1 million people their resources fall far below their minimum needs. This means facing daily financial uncertainty that strips people of dignity, it strips them of choices and it prevents them from being able to fully participate in the community around them. Poverty is oppressive, it is all consuming and it can pull people under. 

Right now as we face a cost of living crisis, poverty is on the rise. People in our cities, in our neighbourhoods and perhaps even living next door are going without the basic essentials that we all need. We know that poverty disproportionately affects some of our most vulnerable citizens with the highest rates for single parents, disabled households and those from Black and Minority Ethnic communities. 

A recent study from Citizens Advice Scotland found that 1 in 5 people regularly run out of money before payday. More and more people are being pushed into debt as they are forced to borrow money to pay for essentials. 

Regularly we hear from people who are struggling to afford the basic essentials that many of us take for granted. We hear heartbreaking stories from individuals who are feeling the impact of rising costs and worried about the future and how they will survive the winter when they can’t afford to heat their homes. Recently, one woman told us that the only reason she can afford to buy food is because she has a credit card and she can’t remember the last time she had 3 meals in a day as she chooses to go without in order to feed her children, surviving off their leftovers. 

Struggling with debt takes its toll and leaves people feeling trapped, isolated and suicidal. As well as mental ill-health being one of the primary causes of debt, debt also exacerbates mental ill-health. 43% of our clients told us that debt made a pre-existing mental health condition worse. Tragically over a quarter of our clients have either seriously considered or attempted suicide as a way out of debt. 

There is a particular stigma that exists around debt meaning that many people are too ashamed or embarrassed to tell anyone. This leads to delays in seeking debt help, 1 in 2 of our clients wait for over a year to get help, often waiting until they reach crisis point. 

CAP Scotland client, Bethany*, experienced the profound impact of problem debt on her mental health: “When you have debt you feel like you are hiding. You feel like people are after you, especially if you have mental health problems and are getting terrifying letters. Debt can be such a secret pain and worry. It can be something you don’t even speak to your family about so you don’t have any support.”

As a church it’s time for us to rise up and make a difference. It’s time to allow ourselves to be moved by holy discontent at the reality people in our communities are facing as many are being forced to make impossible choices between heating or eating. The latest stats released by the Scottish Government, show that people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland have a life expectancy that is 25 years shorter than those in the least deprived areas. Poverty is costing lives. 

In the face of such overwhelming injustice it can be hard to know where to start but the important thing is to take that first step. Rise up in prayer, lift up the people around you and petition God for lasting change. Get to know people in your community, open your doors, show them the practical love of Jesus, host community meals, create a safe space for people to come and be heard. Partner with organisations like CAP, that can resource your church with specialist knowledge and tools. 

Use your voice. Talk to your local Councillor or MSP. Right now the Scottish Government is not on track to meet the interim Child Poverty Targets for 2023. Make sure your local elected representatives know about the issues of poverty in your community and ask what they are doing about them. 

Finally, we would love to take this opportunity to encourage you to consider opening your own CAP Debt Centre - they are needed now more than ever before. We’re here to serve and equip your church to serve your community and see lives transformed. Find out more by visiting capuk.org/yourchurch

Danny Sweeney, Social Justice Coordinator with Justice & Peace Scotland gives his personal reflection in our blog on the beatification of Fr Rutilio Grande SJ and his fellow martyred companions Nelson and Manuel after attending the Thanksgiving Mass in Edinburgh on 22nd January 2022.

“True love is what Rutilio Grande brings with his death, with two campesinos next to him.” This was the homily of his friend and archbishop, Oscar Romero following the murder of Fr Rutilio, along with his partners in mission Manuel Solórzano and Nelson Lemus on 12th March 1977 by a military junta death squad. Over 40 years later, and with a couple of COVID related delays the church recognised the martyrdom of Rutilio, Manuel and Nelson, along with the Italian Franciscan Fr. Cosme Spessoto who was assassinated in El Salvador on 14th June 1980 saying Mass for a murdered student.

 Sacred Heart Church, Edinburgh marked the beatifications a few hours ahead of the events in El Salvador on 22nd January 2022. The Jesuit church has a small chapel dedicated to Romero and Grande including a relic of the new Blessed; his diary. Fr David Stewart S.J showed me the diary before the Mass started, it includes notes by Grande reminding him to take medication for his diabetes. “We’re not quite sure how it ended up here, or really if we should keep it” he does confess. Fr David has been the driving force behind the event, with the support of the Jesuit community, Justice and Peace Scotland, and the Archdiocese of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh.

Archbishop Leo Cushley lead the celebrations, the Gospel for the vigil mass recalling Jesus starting his ministry taking up the scroll of Isaiah; “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favour.”

The good news to the poor is what led Grande and his partners to be martyred. Fr David noted in his homily that Grande’s murder wasn’t the start of Romero’s conversion to the option for the poor but certainly was a fork in the road which led to his own martyrdom three years later. But the new Blessed brings far more to the universal church than being just “the inspiration of Oscar Romero”. Looking online the response in both English and Spanish I’m struck by the numbers across the world who are celebrating this; is a beatification usually such big news? There is a call for Grande to be recognised as a patron saint for mental health, following his first-hand struggles with mental and physical health challenges. Fr David noted that most Salvadorean Jesuits at the time were committed to university academia, but Grande chose to go out to the poorest in the villages, and banners carried in San Salvador are celebrating him as “Amigo de los pobres”.  (Friend of the Poor)

Speaking with those gathered I was most struck that they wanted their children to be present. One mother to two young girls from the parish serving on the altar, the other whose son is a university student in Edinburgh both told me they saw this event as speaking to the life of a church which is active and engaged in the world, and they thought it important to share this with their families. Perhaps it is the grouping of the three new beati which can speak volumes? Manuel Solórzano in his early 70s, Nelson Lemus aged 16, both lay people along with Fr Tilo (as he was known) on a shared mission for justice and in solidarity with the poorest in their community. Coming from a reality where for too long the church had sided with the rich and powerful, where Generals and dictators expected the archbishops’ blessings, to see clergy and laity taking the side of Isaiah, of Jesus, of the poor gives us new hope that we won’t just speak the words of justice, peace, and hope but will live them in our community too.

For me, I found myself thinking of the communities I’ve come to know in recent months ahead of COP26 who with Pope Francis are trying to hear and respond to ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’. In Latin America we continue to see the murder of earth defenders, indigenous leaders, and activists by governments and corporations more interested in exploiting our common home than protecting it. In Myanmar where another military junta is waging war against the people and the church. We know that such persecutions continue today, but they can seem very distant from our own experience in the West. This distance was shortened towards the end of the Mass when Archbishop Leo remarked how deeply moved he had been by the service, having known in his previous ministry several people who like Rutilio, Manuel, Nelson and Cosme had paid the same price for proclaiming the good news to the poor as they had. 

Perhaps it is fitting that here too, where we see a government mired in corruption, the poorest communities suffering the most, and the various mental and physical health challenges exacerbated by two years of pandemic we celebrated the beatification and look to the lessons these saints have for our church here and around the world.

Blessed Rutilio Grande, Blessed Manuel Solórzano, Blessed Nelson Lemus, and Blessed Cosme Spessoto; Rezar por Nosotros!

You can watch a recording of the service on our YouTube channel here https://youtu.be/oR_Nap8yUKc

This text was originally published in ICN on Wednesday 26th January 2022. 

Just returned from another month in Calais at the Maria Skobtsova House, Alex Holmes updates us on events over Christmas and the New Year.

St Pierre Park, Calais, the willow trees are gold in the early January sun. Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia, the ‘Three Graces’, daughters of Zeus, are the central feature of the park’s fountain and an immutable reminder of the gifts they were said to bestow: youth and laughter and elegance.

Fireside, in the Eritrean camp. The laughter is infectious. ‘Fessehaye’s Tigrinya is no good. Remember he didn’t know what alam dirho* means?’ Yusef’s smile lights up his whole face. ‘Now I have the egg, and he has the poop’. He’s video calling from his bed in a UK hotel having rowed across the Channel in November. 

‘Hotel like prison’ retaliates Fessehaye with a prolonged chuckle, ‘here we are free, with fresh air and a fire, good Eritrean friends and we can cook our own delicious food. Come back to Calais!’ 

‘Calais is dog’s life’, retorts the ever-grinning Fili, his hand freshly bandaged from a burn. I ask him how his hand is. ‘Fine’, he grins, ‘but in our tradition, if you burn yourself, you must use shinti.’ 

‘What is shinti?’

‘Pee-pee’. Laughter ripples around the fire. ‘And if you cut yourself, you must rub bun (coffee) into the cut and then cover it. Our village medicine is history, not science. It is good’. He turns his attention to his shoes. ‘I need softy’. He’s passed a packet of tissues and begins to meticulously wipe every trace of mud from his shoes.

The talk moves to the UK and the increasing difficulties of crossing the Channel to claim asylum. Hamed, the artist, smiles, but it is a wistful smile. ‘Life for the rich is good but not good if you are poor. If you have money, you can pay a smuggler to help you cross the sea and there are no CRS*. If no money, you try in a truck and there is always CRS’. Today he spoke to his girlfriend in Eritrea. He’s 21 and it’s been 4 years since he saw her. ‘She said ‘how is school?’ I tell her it is good. I cannot tell her about life here, the cold and the mud’. The stress of Calais has pushed Hamed to take up smoking.

A figure skips out of the dusk. It’s Hayat. ‘I skip like bambino’. He laughs. ‘In Libya, people were kind. They say I am bambino’. He tells me about life back home, the farm he grew up on. ‘It was a big farm, we had a large house, more than 450 cattle, many donkeys and camels, 36 dogs.’ But like everyone held in a smuggler’s detention centre in Libya, he was a commodity with a value. ‘My father had to sell 400 cattle to raise the money or smugglers kill me’. Hayat moves away from the fire to a secluded spot to dye his hair black. The diet and stress have partially turned his hair brown; it is undignified, and he is concerned about his appearance.

Negassi is taking photos of his new acquisitions, hair oil and a bar of ‘Beauty Cream’ soap. There’s a burst of laughter from the other side of the fire. It’s Aaron, Aaron whose broad smile lightens my every visit to the fireside. ‘Too late for you, Negassi, you are too old to become beautiful’. Negassi’s hair is very black, soft and straight. ‘My grandfather was British. He came to Eritrea in colonial days. I am going to UK to find him’. 

Night has fallen. Passing the line of tents that are pitched at the foot of the 4 metre high security wall, I notice one that is flattened. A figure is moving under the canvas. ‘Bruq leyti, goodnight’ I call. A face pops out. It’s Sami. ‘What happened to your tent Sami?’  ‘No problem’, he laughs, ‘I fix it tomorrow’.

One definite highlight was the bishop coming to say mass in the car park beside the larger of the 2 Eritrean camps on Christmas Eve despite the objections of the mayor of Calais

* alam dirho , the world is like a chicken (to some it gives eggs, to others poop!)
* CRS, the French riot police