Parishes often take a certain pride in how neat and tidy their grounds are – but soon they will be more concerned about letting them grow wild and attracting bees and butterflies. Following their spring general meeting Catholic bishops’ said they were asking parishes across Ireland to give over almost a third of their grounds Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Laudato Si’
30 per cent of Ireland’s Catholic parish grounds to be ‘rewilded’ by 2030
Thursday, March 16th, 2023Emmy-winning director’s doco on Francis and the environment launched
Thursday, October 6th, 2022
A new documentary, “The Letter,” premiered at the Vatican this week. Available on YouTube, Emmy-winner Nicholas Brown’s doco is about the Pope’s 2015 encyclical (letter) Laudato Sì’ and how ordinary people can make his vision a reality. Francis addressed the encyclical to “all people of good will”, urging an interconnected vision for humanity and the Read more
Getting off a drowning island isn’t easy
Thursday, August 25th, 2022
For more than 13 years, Ursula Rakova has been battling to relocate her people from the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, which are slowly being swamped by the sea. They don’t want to give up the way of life of generations before them, but they have no choice. More than 3000 people are stuck Read more
Cruise ships are coming back to NZ – should we welcome them?
Thursday, August 25th, 2022
The return this month of the first cruise ship to Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour was accompanied by the sort of fanfare normally reserved for visiting foreign dignitaries: a tug boat decked out in bunting, a circling helicopter, even the mayor on hand to welcome the ship. Coming after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic and Read more
Floods and the Christian agenda
Thursday, August 18th, 2022
Like many people in the southern hemisphere of our planet, winter 2022 is the year of rain, floods and landslips. We have all heard about global warming and seen graphs and projections of changing temperatures, but it takes a constant and sometimes torrential rain for the statistics to become a reality. But has this anything Read more
Let’s not fail our biggest test
Thursday, June 2nd, 2022
Do you remember the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000? Did it make any difference in your life at the time? Has it had any lasting impact on your life and faith? Preparation for the Great Jubilee began on Nov. 10, 1994, when Pope John Paul II issued his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As Read more
Researchers show US Catholic bishops’ denialism on climate change
Thursday, November 4th, 2021A university in the United States has, in an environmental research paper, shown how US Catholic bishops’ diocesan communications have “collectively snuffed out the spark of Laudato si’.” The research titled “US Catholic bishops’ silence and denialism on climate change” was authored by Sabrina Danielsen, Daniel R DiLeo and Emily E Burke from the Department Read more
Most US Catholic bishops kept silent on Francis’ climate change push
Thursday, October 21st, 2021
This weekend, Pope Francis published a series of tweets that linked environmental and social crises. This connection embodies the “integral ecology” that is a refrain of his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’.” The publication of “Laudato Si’” was a landmark moment in the fight against climate change. Secular environmentalists were encouraged to see such a prominent global Read more
‘Laudato Si’ inspires young adults to faith-based action on climate change
Thursday, September 9th, 2021It was after reading Pope Francis’s encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” that Emily Burke began wondering what she, as a student at Jesuit-run Creighton University, could do to help protect the environment. “I was really energized,” Burke recalled after reading the teaching document. “That message informed my time at Creighton.” She Read more
Mammoth pastoral letter urges Catholics to tackle ‘climate catastrophe’
Monday, September 6th, 2021
In a 64-page letter, Dublin’s Catholic archbishop urges Catholics to tackle the planet’s unfolding climate catastrophe. This will require ecological conversion, he says. The pastoral letter is the first one Archbishop Dermot Farrell (pictured) has released since he was installed in February. Pope Francis had announced his appointment last December. “The purpose of this pastoral Read more