RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

SOCIAL JUSTICE

We celebrate Social Justice Sunday on 29 September. This year, the Australian Bishops’ Social Justice Statement is titled: ‘Making it Real: Genuine human encounter in our digital world’. It shares Pope Francis’ challenge to us to ‘boldly become citizens of the digital world’. It points out that we are called not just to be inhabitants of this world, but active citizens shaping it.

New digital media offer positive possibilities for encounter and solidarity, however some elements of our digital world may be harmful. These include information overload; social isolation; marginalisation of the vulnerable; consumerism and fake news.

The Statement reminds us that the new digital media cannot be seen as neutral or ‘unaffected by any moral considerations’. While many users do not realise it, the core business of social media platforms is to sell advertising and maximise profits. People’s personal lives may be reduced to data that is traded for profit or power, and it is used to target and influence us in ways previously unthinkable. Pushing users to more extreme positions and promoting fake news and conspiracy theories sells, but this is at odds with human solidarity.

The Bishops amplify Pope Francis’ call to us to ‘boldly become citizens of the digital world’, with the image of the Good Samaritan as our inspiration. We are called not only to love our neighbour, but to bring the love of God to the new global neighbourhood. The Statement points out that we are called not just to be inhabitants of this new digital world, but active citizens shaping it. All of us – whether we are users, communities, industrial or political leaders – have a role to play in rejecting hatred, divisions and falsehoods. We have a duty to foster a neighbourhood that promotes those human attributes and social values that lend themselves to genuine human encounter – love, understanding, beauty, goodness, truth and trustworthiness, joy and hope.

For further details about the Social Justice Statement, visit the Office for Social Justice website www.socialjustice.catholic.org.au. At St Joseph’s College this social justice will be discussed in a variety of units with Year 8 having a focus on Social Justice in Term 4.

Mr Philip Opie

Religious Education Learning Area Leader

COMMUNITY SERVICE

At the beginning of the year, I was fortunate enough to assist in helping the Year 3 and 4 students at my old primary school, Trinity Lutheran College, for the day to get my community service hours. It was a great learning experience as I would love to be a primary school teacher in the near future and it helped me understand what it takes to handle the younger students. I also learnt that to be a teacher it requires a lot of patience, as the Year 3 and 4 students are quite chatty.