Week Three
Scripture
Rebuilding after the tsunami :
Poovanthopu in Tamil Nadu, India.
Week Three
Scripture
Lesson objectives and outcomes:
Students will be given the opportunity to:
• study biblical texts relating to community building
• produce a display of key texts
• identify messages about community building within the biblical texts
• write their own mini-encyclical.
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
• give examples of biblical teaching relating to community building
• explain in their own words what biblical wisdom teaches about community building and how
this can be applied to current situations of conflict in the world.
Community building
Ephesians 4:25-32
Luke 10:25-37
I John 4:20-21
Galatians 5:14-15
Mark 9:35
Exodus 20:2-17
Acts 2:44-47
Acts 4:32-35
Acts 6:1-7
Romans 12:4
Community building
Ephesians 4:25-32
Luke 10:25-37
I John 4:20-21
Galatians 5:14-15
Mark 9:35
Exodus 20:2-17
Acts 2:44-47
Acts 4:32-35
Acts 6:1-7
Romans 12:4
• Choose all or part of one Biblical text that says something useful about building community
between different people.
• Choose from those above or find your own example.
• Write it out in large script and add it to the centre of a display board.
• Looking at the display, find one message about community building.
• Write it out and place it to the left of the display.
• Join it to the relevant text(s) using a piece of string or strip of paper.
Pope-for-a-day
You have just been elected Pope. You are extremely concerned about conflict
between communities in the world. You want to urge Catholics, and the whole
world, to combat violence by building community.
Write your own mini-encyclical following the structure given below.
(Tip! - quote scripture to add weight to your arguments!)
Para. 1: Introduction: “Encyclical of [name of Pope] on [date] to the
Catholic world and all people of good will… [Explain the issues]
Para 2: [Main point 1]
Para 3: [Main point 2]
Para 4: [Main point 3]
Para 5: [Summary and final call to take action]
Para 6: [Closing prayer]
Pope-for-a-day
You have just been elected Pope. You are extremely concerned about conflict
between communities in the world. You want to urge Catholics, and the whole
world, to combat violence by building community.
Write your own mini-encyclical following the structure given below.
(Tip! - quote scripture to add weight to your arguments!)
Para. 1: Introduction: “Encyclical of [name of Pope] on [date] to the
Catholic world and all people of good will… [Explain the issues]
Para 2: [Main point 1]
Para 3: [Main point 2]
Para 4: [Main point 3]
Para 5: [Summary and final call to take action]
Para 6: [Closing prayer]
Click Here
to see an example of a real encyclical.
Week Four
Catholic Social Teaching
Weaving brings women together to share
their experiences at a camp in Darfur.
Week Four
Catholic Social Teaching
Lesson objectives and outcomes
Students will be given the opportunity to:
• study key texts from Catholic Social Teaching relating to community building
• relate these texts to scriptural texts used in the previous lesson
• make their own judgement about which teaching is aimed at leaders and which at individuals
like themselves
• reflect, using the words of Pope Benedict XVI.
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
• give examples of Catholic Social Teaching about community building
• demonstrate that Catholic Social Teaching on community building is based on scripture
• explain how it might be possible to live the teachings given in these encyclicals.
Fill in the chart.
Click Here for quotations from Catholic Social Teaching on building global community and
working alongside each other for the common good (sometimes called ‘solidarity’).
Scripture
To individuals
To leaders and
governments
Catholic Social Teaching
Time out to reflect…
Time out to reflect…
“Working for peace must mean teaching people to recognise what makes for peace. So it must
be an education for the kingdom of God, teaching people to hallow his name, for otherwise
God’s image, the human being, will not be held holy. …only where God’s kingdom comes near
can peace grow and flourish.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI],
Seek that which is above
In silence, repeat:
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name”.
What pictures come to mind?
How can hallowing God’s name, worshipping God as holy, help to build peace?
Picture someone you know
They are made in God’s image – try to see God’s image in them.
Where is God’s kingdom visible around you?
Week Five
What does a healthy community look like?
Catarina Lux Mejia (14) preparing thread in the
weavers’ cooperative, Chiquimula, Guatemala.
Week Five
What does a healthy community look like?
Lesson objectives and outcomes
Students will be given the opportunity to:
• consider the evidence that signifies a healthy community
• identify these signs in community groups working together in Guatemala and the Philippines
• consider current inter-community tensions in the UK and some ways to address these.
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
• give examples of signs of a healthy community
• comment on examples of inter-religious community-building in the Philippines and Guatemala
• explain their own views of inter-community tensions in the UK and suggest lessons that could
be learnt from other countries.
The Philippines
The Philippines
The Philippines
Click Here
to view and/or download web stories of community building in the Philippines.
Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala
Click Here
to view and/or download web stories of community building in Guatemala.
Week Five
What does a healthy community look like?
In groups, summarise one of the stories. Include:
a. the problems facing communities in the story,
b. the ways in which they tried to build community and peace, and
c. the signs of health now visible in the communities.
Choose one person to read out your summary to the class and one person to take notes during
feedback.
Click Here to watch a clip of John from London speaking about tensions he has
encountered in the UK and consider your own views:
Time out to reflect…
Time out to reflect…
“May Christ banish from our souls whatever might
endanger peace.
May God transform all people into witnesses of truth,
justice and love.
May the minds of rulers be illumined with God’s light,
so that,
besides caring for the material welfare of their
peoples,
they may also guarantee them the fairest gift of
peace.
May Christ inflame our desire to break through the
barriers which divide us,
to strengthen the bonds of mutual love,
to learn to understand one another,
and to pardon those who have done us wrong.
Through his power and inspiration may all peoples
welcome each other as members of one family,
and may the peace for which we long forever flower
and ever reign among us. Amen.”
From the prayer of Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 171
Week Six
How bad can an unhealthy community get?
Genocide memorial, Rwanda.
Week Six
How bad can an unhealthy community get?
Lesson objectives and outcomes
Students will be given the opportunity to:
• identify aspects that are displayed in an unhealthy community
• find out, from the experiences of genocide survivors in Rwanda, about the worst extremes of
community breakdown
• discuss some of the causes of community breakdown
• identify signs of hope in Rwanda today.
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
• give examples of signs of an unhealthy community
• comment on one example of community breakdown in Rwanda
• explain some of the ways in which Rwanda is now working for community cohesion.
Week Six
How bad can an unhealthy community get?
What might you expect to see in a community where cohesion has broken down?
Jot down your ideas:
In 1994, Rwanda suffered the worst possible consequences of community breakdown when
tensions between different communities resulted in genocide.
Click Here to watch a short clip from CAFOD’s website,
where Dermot O’Leary explains the background of the Rwanda conflict.
Liberaté Muhagihana
Liberaté Muhagihana
“The problems started for us in 1990 when there
was a war in October [invasion of forces from
Uganda]. That’s when people started saying that if
you were a Tutsi living in Rwanda then you were an
informer for people outside the country. My
husband was accused of being an informer and
they called him a cockroach. In 1991 they put him
in prison…
“My husband was freed from prison at the end of
1992. But even after he got out of prison people
would come to the house harassing him and telling
him to join the party in power. So every day if he
was not home by six o’clock in the evening I would
always worry that something had happened to
him.”
Liberaté Muhagihana
“On 6 April 1994 he came home late. In the
morning about five o’clock. He woke me up and
asked me whether I had listened to the radio the
night before. He said the president had died. .. .We
were very afraid so we got up and got dressed. All
the neighbours were also up early that day talking
about the president’s death.
“The militia then said, ‘There are thieves coming
from a different district to rob this village so we
want all the men to go to this place so that they can
stop the thieves.’ That is how the militia would get
all the men out of the house.
“In the evening of the 7th we kept hearing rumours
from other areas that Tutsis were already being
killed… On the Sunday my husband came back…
the whole meal was like my husband was saying
goodbye to us all; he kept putting food into our
mouths. He told us that things were becoming bad
because he heard that the militia were targeting
people to kill…”
Liberaté Muhagihana
Liberaté’s husband fled to nearby Nyagasambu,
where he had heard there was less prejudice.
Liberaté stayed and continued with the meal. “When
I was serving the children, women came and said,
“Why are you still cooking?” They told me that there
were looters burning houses in the village. I took
some sheets and blankets and we went to hide in a
small bush by the house…”
“Then I heard the militia say [to a neighbour who
was a Tutsi but had joined the Hutus], ‘What are you
doing? You have not killed all the cockroaches in
your sector.’ He replied, “I have none left”. Then the
voices said that he must kill Liberaté’s husband.”
Liberaté Muhagihana
Liberaté fled with her four children, two boys and
two girls. She entrusted her youngest son to the
care of her cousin and later became separated
from her eldest daughter. After hiding in various
places, including behind a bathtub where killers
were washing the blood from their hands, Liberaté
returned to her home and found it had been burned
down. She went to speak to the militia leader.
“I said, ‘I have come to see you because you are
the one who knows who should be killed or not be
killed. I have come to ask if I should be killed, in
which case kill me right here.’ He told me to go and
sit with the other wives they had gathered
together…The men had a list and were telling
people where to sit. When they called your name
you went with your children and they killed you
right away.”
Liberaté Muhagihana
“The children started crying for food and I didn’t
know what to do. There was an old woman with
us… I said to the old woman, ‘Let’s pray, and if
they come to kill you, don’t cry out.’ So we started
to pray and the killers came in and took me out and
said, ‘Give us money and give us your big radio.’ I
said, ‘I don’t have any money or the radio. I left
everything in the house.’
“I had a fake Hutu identity card. ...I told them, “My
husband is Tutsi, so he ran away leaving his Hutu
wife.”…I asked the killers where I should go now
and they indicated a house. When I was in the
Hutu house someone came to tell me that my
husband had been killed the day before. I couldn’t
show emotion because they believed that I was
Hutu. So I said, ‘Let him die’…”
Liberaté Muhagihana
Liberaté heard them discussing ending her son’s
life, so she left the house and tried to find someone
willing to hide him. Everyone refused, including a
congregation coming out of a church. “Then one of
the men saw my son and hit him with a metal club.
My son fell into my lap but the Hutu kept hitting him
with the metal club. After they had killed my son,
they left.”
Even then, the horror was not over for Liberate. The
following day Liberaté saw her brother buried alive
in the same pit where the murderers had thrown her
son’s body. They said to her, “We are not going to
kill you because you will die of grief anyway.”
(Liberaté and her surviving children are now rebuilding
their lives with the help of CAFOD partner, AVEGA.)
Odette Kayirere
works at AVEGA, with traumatised widows of the genocide. She says:
Odette Kayirere
works at AVEGA, with traumatised widows of the genocide. She says:
“What are my hopes for the widows? …a country
without division and where we can live together.
“…When the decision was made to release prisoners
they asked all civil society groups like AVEGA for
their input… Category one prisoners will never be
released; those are the planners and the big killers.
[But] we said that those who were shamed and
asked for forgiveness and who gave reparation to
the victims should be freed… If the man who killed
my husband came and said, ‘What I did was awful’,
then I think I could forgive…”
Odette Kayirere
works at AVEGA, with traumatised widows of the genocide. She says:
“I have hope that by giving a good example, [by good
government] and by education of the population on
patriotism and human rights, respect of everyone can
be engendered so people can understand that, if I
have a right to something, everyone else has the
right to that as well. The genocide made us reflect on
what the roots of it were. We must reinforce love,
and see that money divides us.
“We didn’t have the opportunity before to get the
public together to give their opinions on various
things… We have been asked lots of questions now
about how we want to live our lives… Now primary
education is free because of a decision by the public
– parents only have to pay a small fee towards the
school upkeep. In some areas the local population
has become involved in building schools and health
centres, so they are now much better protected by
the general public.
“…In talking about a situation even traumatised
people can begin to understand and move on.”
Time out to reflect…
Time out to reflect…
“God of Justice, transforming hatred into love,
vengeance into forgiveness, and anger into compassion:
We light a candle for justice.
Help us to speak your language of justice
and to speak the truth of your love for all people.
WHO WILL SPEAK IF WE DON’T?
Give us courage to work together for peace.
WHO WILL WORK IF WE DON’T?
Give us hearts of compassion, to care for those oppressed and in need.
WHO WILL CARE IF WE DON’T?
In ……… (insert the names of countries in conflict): LORD, LET YOUR PEACE COME.
In the towns and cities of our own country: LORD, LET YOUR PEACE COME.
In Rwanda, where the pain of injustice is not yet forgotten: LORD, LET YOUR PEACE COME.
Amen.”
From CAFOD Lent Fast Day CD-ROM, 2004