A message from Fr John

Dear Friends

Good morning - the weather is set to turn, again. But walking round Wardley it’s a real delight to see the daffodils slowly emerging from their slumbers and the blackbirds, male and female, making their presence felt especially in song. I even saw one female blackbird giving a magpie a hard time - I’m glad something can.

Yesterday was the International Women’s Day and so I thought I might share the following with you.
Spanish Sister Alicia Vacas Moro has been named as a recipient of the 2021 International Women of Courage Award...

A registered nurse, Sister Alicia Vacas Moro ran a medical clinic in Egypt for eight years, treating more than 150 low income patients a day. She then moved to the biblical town of Bethany to help an impoverished Bedouin community, especially women and children. She set up training programs for women that provided them with previously unavailable economic opportunities, and established kindergartens in Bedouin camps, providing an educational foundation for children.

In an environment shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Sister Alicia also assisted traumatized refugees and asylum seekers, a job she continues to perform on a larger scale in her current role as the regional coordinator for the Comboni Sisters in the Middle East.

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck northern Italy, she flew to Italy to assist and treat fellow sister nuns, undeterred by extreme danger to herself.

Ann Farr, Chair of Pax Christi England and Wales writes:

'Pax Christi EW sends congratulations to our good friend Sr Alicia Vacas, Regional Coordinator Comboni Sisters Middle East, on receiving the Woman of Courage Award 2021. Pax Christi has a long association with the Comboni Sisters in London and in Palestine and Israel.

'Pat Gaffney and I first met her in Bethany when she had just returned from Gaza as a member of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) delegation collecting evidence on the horrific onslaught there. What she told us then has stayed with me all these years later. Many of us were able to hear more on this in when Sr Alicia came to the UK in 2009, on a PHR tour to report on the impacts of those military attacks

'In subsequent years we have stayed with the Comboni Sisters in Bethany, been entertained by the children in their convent kindergarten and visited their kindergarten projects in the threatened Jahalin Bedouin villages in the desert outside Jerusalem. We were also able to see their work in Tel Aviv with the traumatised refugee women and children in the PHR Clinic and the Kuchinate Project.

'This reward is very well deserved and a great celebration on International Women's Day. We are pleased and proud to have this Woman of Peace and Courage as our friend.'

The awards will be presented in a virtual ceremony hosted by US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken on Monday - International Women's Day. The other women receiving awards are: Maria Kalesnikava, Belarus, Phyoe Phyoe Aung, Burma, Maximilienne C Ngo Mbe, Cameroon, Wang Yu, China, Mayerlis Angarita, Colombia, Julienne Lusenge, DR Congo, Judge Erika Aifan, Iran, Shohreh Bayat, Guatemala, Muskan Khatun, Nepal and Zahra Mohamed Ahmad from Somalia.

She is certainly quite remarkable. The Church has been blessed since its earliest days with the witness of strength and compassion of so many women like Sr Alicia. Unfortunately we have sometimes been too slow to recognise that. Let’s hope and pray that the tide will be turned.

St Joseph, safeguard of the poor, pray for us

Every blessing

Fr John