Faith

Sr Guilhermina Marcal with some of the children she cares for at a camp for internally displaced people in Timor-Leste (photo © Marcus Perkins/Progressio)

Progressio was founded on faith and it’s still vital to us. In the ideological tumult of 1930s and 1940s Europe, churchgoers and clergy reacted against fascism and Hitler’s rejection of ‘kinship and love’. Our history continues to inform the work we do today.
    
Inspired by Cardinal Hinsley’s wartime broadcast, we became ‘The Sword of the Spirit’, a “campaign of prayer, study and action to unite citizens of this country in support of future peace”.

In the 1960s and 1970s, radicalised by the experiences of the poor and marginalised in Latin America, liberation theology put a fresh spin on the Gospel message.

As the Catholic Institute for International Relations, we published the work of Peruvian priest Fr Gustavo Gutiérrez in English for the first time and brought liberation theology to the UK.

Today, as Progressio, we’re proud of our founding faith and our independence from church structures. Faith grounds our values and is the starting place for our unique combination of Catholic and secular approaches to challenging poverty and injustice.

And today faith is central to our work all over the world. We work with people of all faiths and none, but we’re still a faith-based organisation in a faith-based world.

In the UK we’re powered by members with a progressive Catholic perspective, active on issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

Jesus Christ was a champion of the marginalised, the weak and the poor. He wanted everyone to live ‘life in all its fullness’. So do we.

Find out how you can get involved and contribute to Progressio’s work