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Earth Week
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held 52 years ago, it now includes a wide range of activities coordinated globally by many organizations including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. In many places, this day has expanded to a week known as Earth Week.
Last year on Earth Day, Pope Francis warned that harming the earth put human life at risk. "There is a Spanish saying that is very clear about this. It goes: 'God always forgives; we humans sometimes forgive, and sometimes not; the earth never forgives.' The earth does not forgive: if we have despoiled the earth, its response will be very ugly."
We are encouraged to do our part as Catholics in whatever way we can through awareness, sustainable action and prophetic advocacy. This newsletter offers a few opportunities to observe and to act with your parishes and families. Do also check what's going on in your cities or towns for other ways to engage!
Note the new date for our next Parish Liaison meeting: April 29th at 7:30 PM.
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April 20th at 6:00 AM
Today we face multiple crises. The COVID health crisis, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are three interconnected crises calling us to change direction towards a regenerative civilization with an integral ecological story and pattern of life. The 2020 United Nations Global Biodiversity Report notes the importance of biodiversity in addressing climate change, long-term food security and concludes that action to protect biodiversity is essential to prevent future pandemics. Leaders of universities, scientific research and ecclesial bodies sense that we are at an inflection point, with life altering consequences and a responsibility to act. It is time to amplify Pope Francis’ teachings in Laudato Si’ to co-create life giving relationships with creation and inspire thousands of people to do the same with the output of our roundtable, public webinar, education and advocacy to regenerate healthy ecosystems on Earth. When biodiversity flourishes, human life flourishes. Click here to register. |
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PASTORAL ORIENTATIONS ON CLIMATE DISPLACED PEOPLE
This booklet written by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting an Integral Human Development aims to deepen Catholic awareness of the climate crisis, its causes, its development, its consequences and the prospects for attenuating and properly managing it, especially when considering Climate Displaced Peoples. It is incumbent upon us to see and acknowledge the growing phenomenon of "environmental refugees" and to act accordingly. Paraphrasing the famous quotation from Hamlet, the Pope says, “To see or not to see” the effects of climate change in the lives of our brothers and sisters “is the question that leads us to the answer in action together.” Read more here.
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Catholic Climate Covenant - Resources
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 This year’s Earth Day program theme is “ Restore Our Common Home”, a theme that addresses how as people of faith we must urgently act to not only protect but restore God’s beautiful gift of creation. The one-hour educational and prayer program is the perfect way for our families, parishes, schools, and religious communities to prepare for the Vatican’s launch of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform in May 2021 (during Laudato Si' Week) The program has prayers, readings, discussion questions, a short video, and suggested activities. Click here to download program.
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 Catholic Climate Covenant is blessed to invite you on April 20th to a special screening and panel discussion of The Condor & The Eagle, an award-winning documentary that follows four Indigenous leaders embarking on an adventure from the Canadian boreal forest in North America to the heart of the Amazon jungle in South America. Their path through the jungle takes them on an unexpectedly challenging and liberating journey, which will forever change their attachment to the Earth and one another. The screening will be followed by an inspiring and timely post-film panel discussion! The program is free but donations are appreciated. To learn more and register, click here. |
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Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Climate Justice: Urgent Explorations of Global Climate Change and the Consistent Ethic of Life
Fr. Daniel Horan, OFM
Thursday, April 22 at 7:00 PM
This year marks the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis’s promulgation of Laudato Sí, the encyclical letter on “Care for our Common Home,” and the fifty-first anniversary of Earth Day. And yet, when it comes to Catholic attention to important life issues in the United States, global climate change and other ecological crises often fail to rise to the level of concern or attention that other prolife subjects typically do. In this presentation, Fr. Daniel Horan, OFM PhD, draws on the consistent ethic of life principle to show how the Catholic tradition ought to recognize global climate change as the most important life issue today, for it threatens the very conditions of all life on this planet. Register Here!
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 Ignatian Solidarity Network
21-Day Challenge from April 23rd to May 16th
Walk with other Catholics as we learn, pray, and take action for environmental justice. In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis invites all people to act on behalf of creation. This call to action is grounded in the principle of integral ecology—the idea that environmental, social, political, and economic systems are interwoven—and sustained by a sense of wonder before the interconnected nature of all life. The environmental justice movement similarly asks us to view the world as interconnected and prophetically calls us to change the systems that create the unjust distribution of environmental hazards. You can sign up to participate in this 21-Day Challenge to learn from those directly impacted by environmental justice. Read more and sign up here!
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Next Parish Liaison Meeting
New Date: April 29 at 7:30 pm
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