The installation has been commissioned by Bats in Churches, a £5m five-year partnership between Natural England, Bat Conservation Trust, the Church of England, Churches Conservation Trust and Historic England - funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Created by a professional artist and Bats in Churches volunteer, Ilene Sterns, On A Wing and A Prayer is an immersive and multi-layered artwork set to recordings of bats inside churches, slowed down to be audible to the human ear.

Sterns said that as an artist, she has always found inspiration in nature and history and has spent many hours marvelling at the remarkable winged mammals that make these ancient buildings their homes. Read more

We have to modify our lifestyles. The earth is suffering. Excessive consumption of the earth's resources has to stop. Or at the very least, change. Modify, says Pope Francis.

A major new international report shows 2021 record-breaking greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite that, international travel has been taking off.

Air New Zealand expects to be back to 90 percent of all its flights by 2025.

The world is set to reach pre-pandemic levels of air travel by 2024.

One way we in New Zealand can help is to re-think the way we travel. Our climate experts suggest canceling or cutting down on our trans-Tasman getaways especially. Have fewer, stay longer perhaps.

Transport and freight are major carbon contributors. Governments need to "do the heavy lifting to bring about change and decarbonise societies" climate experts say.

In his message for last Thursday's World Day of Prayer for Creation, Francis said the climate crisis is a call for everyone, especially Christians. We must "repent and modify our lifestyles and destructive systems".

Our common home's state of decay merits the same attention as other global challenges, he said.

Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue. "It is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience."

The earth has fallen "prey to our consumerist excesses" and an attitude where people are at the centre of the universe is evident.

This has led to the extinction of many species and the loss of biodiversity. It greatly impacts the lives of the poor and vulnerable indigenous populations. Their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, Francis said.

Younger generations feel "menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions". They are "anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet's ecosystems".

Francis hopes 21st century people will be remembered for generously shouldering their responsibilities.

Limiting global warming is a "call for responsible cooperation between all nations" to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

Francis hopes new agreements will "halt the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species". He is hopeful these will come about when world leaders meet at this year's COP27 and COP15 summits on climate change and biodiversity.

We need to modify "models of consumption and production, as well as lifestyles". Then we must transform them into something respectful of creation and integral human development, he says.

This requires "a covenant between human beings and the environment".

For believers, the environment is "a mirror reflecting the creative love of God, from whom we come and toward whom we are journeying."

Justice, especially for workers most affected by climate change, must be met as well, Francis says.

To prevent "the further collapse of biodiversity" he says the mining, oil, forestry, real estate and agribusiness industries must "stop destroying forests, wetlands and mountains, stop polluting rivers and seas, stop poisoning food and people".

Source

• Catholic News Service
• 1News

Among the movement is a group of doctoral students and young activists in Belgium.

In common with young people in other countries, they're concerned about the various crises the institutional Church is facing.

It is also intended to oppose the "Christian identity" embodied by one of France's most far-right politicians, Éric Zemmour.

Despite his failed bid to become president in recent elections, he attracted the support of many practising Catholics.

Posing the question "What can Christians do to work for the common good?" the Belgians are organising a summer seminar to discuss the question.

The three-day gathering at the end of this month will be held outdoors at a retreat centre created in the spirit of the Communion de La Viale, a group founded in 1968 by the Belgian Jesuits.

The programme of planned events includes conferences on capitalism and liberation theology.

Attendees will also share "moments of fraternity and prayer" and have the opportunity to forge links with other believers committed to social justice.

A big issue will be the systemic dimension of clergy abuse and the "tenacious misogyny embedded in the institution".

The idea for the gathering came from a group of friends. They saw something "lacking" in the Church's proposals and wanted to help.

"In retreats or camps, there may be topics on moral commitment in society, but that's as far as it goes," says one.

He and his friends are deeply concerned about the "structural origin of poverty and the ecological crisis".

They believe there are Christian resources that can provide conceptual tools for building a coherent critique of the "capitalist system".

Their challenge is to "think how the Church can reconnect with its social tradition while it is becoming gentrified".

One driver for their initiative was the magnitude of the clergy sex abuse crisis revealed last October by an independent commission in France (CIASE).

"I feel like the scandals have uninhibited me," one of the friends says.

"Before, I didn't feel right opening certain debates, but I think that from now on the laity must speak up, we can no longer leave governance of the Church to the clergy alone.

"We no longer want to collaborate with a guilty institution without being heard."

While the majority of the organisers are Catholic, one of them is Protestant. All are driven by the same desire to raise their voices.

It is an ecumenism that is more obvious for the Belgians than for their French neighbours, says one.

"We don't have a large enough Catholic community, as in France, for events of this type to gather only practising Catholics," he explains.

Source

• La Croix