This is the first time the Forum has been held in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2011 when it was held in Auckland. It was last held in Wellington in 2006.

The event will attract 30 delegates from at least 11 countries or territories in Oceania, as well as representatives from further afield in the international Caritas network.

Those attending the Forum include Cardinal Soane Patita Mafi from Tonga, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong from Fiji, Bishop Joe Roszynski from Wewak, Papua New Guinea and Bishop of Christchurch Paul Martin.

There will be representatives from Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, American Samoa, New Caledonia and the Caroline Islands in Micronesia.

Michel Roy, Secretary-General of the Caritas Internationalis confederation, will also be attending.

The theme for the Forum is "Let us go together: Me haere tahi tatou," focusing on three priorities:

• Indigenous perspectives on Catholic social teaching
• Disaster risk management
• Environmental justice.

The Forum will also help prepare for Caritas Oceania's participation at the Caritas Internationalis General Assembly in Rome next May, 2019.

The fifth Caritas State of the Environment for Oceania Report, "Waters of Life, Oceans of Mercy," will also be launched at the Forum on St Francis Day, 4 October.

This report, published by Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand on behalf of the region, tracks five key environmental issues affecting the lives of Oceania's peoples:

• Coastal erosion/sea level rise
• Food and water
• Extreme weather
• Offshore mining and drilling
• Climate finance.

The report puts a human face on how climate change and other environmental issues are affecting people dependent on the oceans, freshwater and healthy sustainable land use for their survival, livelihoods and identity.

Source

• Supplied: Karl Corney Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• Image: caritas.org.nz

He said this in a presentation Reweaving the Ecological Mat — Ecology and Development. This was part of a series of lectures organised by the Pacific Theological College's Institute for Mission and Research, the University of the South Pacific's Faculty of Arts, Law and Education and the Pacific Regional Seminary around the theme "Churches in Conversation with Society on Issues that Matter".

Chong said that in the beginning there existed an interconnectedness among all things in the whole of creation but that the sacred thread is lost.

"Today we are losing our interconnectedness. Our common home, Mother Earth, is becoming a pile of filth.

"We have to reweave the threads of our interconnectedness. Where do we look to for resources and inspiration for interconnectedness?"

As a starting point, Chong encouraged a talanoa (discussion) about what Fijians hold sacred from their cultural identities, "What is tabu for us, what our totems are. We look to indigenous and native cosmology and the spiritual traditions."

Chong said the language of domination had desacralised creation/the environment to exploit natural resources to the point where the world is in a state of exhaustion.

Reverend James Bhagwan, known as Padre James, is Secretary for Communication and Overseas Mission for Fiji's Methodist Church.

He used Chong's address as the starting point for his recent opinion piece in the Fiji Times, "Science Meets Spirituality".

He was writing at the time when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of around 100 experts from over 30 countries, was meeting in Nadi.

"I was privileged to be invited to share a prayer of blessing at the official opening of this important meeting," Bhagwan said.

"The making of a space for spirituality in a meeting of scientists was a way of framing this gathering in the context of the Pacific.

"It was also an affirmation that, in the context of climate change, spirituality and science are important strands of the ecological mat that is being rewoven."

Source

• Fiji Times
• Image: Beautiful Holidays

He says he considers the link to be so unfaltering that when he baptizes a new member of the church or confirms someone or even when he ordains a priest, he asks individuals to plant 10 trees as a way to give rise to new life.

Such an act of faith is one way he prayerfully encourages people to help stem the rapid pace of climate change.

"(I) use this situation, which is going to be affecting us more drastically than probably in the past, to help people recapture our relationship to the environment," he said.

"We must entrench something in our lives to continue this environmental concern, respect and care."

Bishop Unabali was in Washington to open a three-day symposium highlighting the urgent calls from Pope Benedict XVI on the importance of Catholics acting on behalf of an increasingly fragile environment in the face of climate change.

The event was hosted by The Catholic University of America

Source

• CNS
• Image: CNS

In this Explorations we won't try to answer all the questions about the environment. We shall ask a simpler question. How does Christian faith lead us to see the environment? That may help to handle the complex questions.

Creation

In Christian language, the environment begins with creation. Creation often crops up in arguments between Christians and atheists. They disagree about whether the world came into being spontaneously, was always there, or whether it needed a God to make it.

This is an important question, but creation raises even more important questions about what kind of a world God has made for us, and how we can live well in it.

The Scriptures often speak of the world as a beautiful place. The Psalms, for example, celebrate the beauty and the richness of the world in which we live. The biblical stories of creation celebrate the wonder of the world we live in. The beauty and variety of nature remind us of the beauty of the God who made it.

The biblical writers also describe the world as a complex place. Like Indigenous Australians, the people of Israel knew in their bones the way everything is interrelated. They saw the relationship between the seasons and crops, between the rain and growth, and the need to live simply. These complex relationships reminded them of God's wisdom on which the world depends.

The Scriptures are most interested in the place of human beings in the world. God gives the world into our care. The Scriptures were written in an agricultural society. They thanked God for a world that feeds us and offers us shelter. In turn we are responsible for using it well and ensuring that it remains able to support future generations. Our care for the world should reflect God's governance of creation. Read more

Source

• Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ in Australian Catholics