Welcome to Pax Christi in Scotland
Invitation to write to your MSPs
Pax Christi Scotland, with Human Rights Watch, Freedom From Torture, and the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, is campaigning to stop Police Scotland training police personnel from Sri Lanka, despite the human rights violations in Sri Lanka that have been condemned by the UN, UK and others. With these organisations, we have composed a letter (link to correspondence page) which we hope members will send to their MSPs. Copy the letter, then go to https://www.paxchristiscotland.org/contact/, scroll to ‘Contact your politicians’, enter your postcode and choose the 'list MSPs' link. Paste the letter into the box that will appear. When you click ‘send’, you’ll get an email asking you to confirm. This is an important human rights campaign vital to securing peace for very vulnerable people - thank you for helping.
The Peace of Christ
Pax Christi Scotland became one of the member organisations of Pax Christi International in 2019. This Catholic peace movement, with its 120 member organisations worldwide, promotes peace, respect of human rights, justice and reconciliation throughout the world.
The global network, founded in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, believes that peace is possible and that vicious cycles of violence and injustice can be broken. Pax Christi Scotland seeks to address the root causes & destructive consequences of violence within our own society, as well as campaigning to end violent conflict and war around the world.
Pax Christi Scotland supports Pax Christi International’s role as an influential advocate at intergovernmental levels, influencing global peace policy in the UN and UNESCO, the African Union, and the European Union. We are represented on Pax Christi International’s anti nuclear group.
Striving for a nonviolent society in Scotland is our top priority, working through the home, the school, the parish and wider society. With our members, scattered across the length and breadth of Scotland, we will address:
- Discrimination in all its forms
- The language of violence
- The need for a peace-filled welcome for refugees & migrants
- The need for divestment from nuclear & conventional weapons
- The need to remove Trident from Scotland & persuade the UK government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Our aim is to produce resources, to provide an online space for reflection, discussion and training, to be advocates for change in all arenas concerned with nonviolence, and to raise awareness injustice and disregard for human rights.
These are not easy times, but the fact that so many of us here in Scotland and around the world work and pray for peace is encouragement that – as Pax Christi International asserts – ‘vicious cycles of violence and injustice can be broken’. Lets break them together.
Pax Christi Scotland has been working ecumenically to promote the Korea Peace Appeal. That campaign lasts until July 27, 2023, the 70th anniversary of the Korea Armistice. It aims to collect 100,000,000 signatures. We would urge Pax Christi Scotland members and friends to sign here. Then go to our contact page and let us know your action, so that we can encourage our Pax Christi Korea friends. You can see the vigil we held for Korea on the events page or our YouTube channel.
Our on-line event marking the UN International Day against Nuclear Tests brought together speakers with personal experience of the effects of nuclear tests and those who vigorously campaign for an end to nuclear weapons and for compensation for victims of testing and reparation for damaged lands. Clause 6 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons demands both, and Pax Christi Scotland will keep this issue at the forefront of our work.
Marian Pallister's latest Podcast for Radio Alba, 26 September
View our latest online event, on ethical investing
Participants at our first AGM, November 2019
The inaugural meeting when it was decided to seek to become ‘Pax Christi Scotland’, held in February 2018. With Pat Gaffney, (front left) our mentor.