Fossil fuel investments are officially off numerous Catholic groups’ financial portfolio lists. Catholic groups around the globe are divesting their financial interests in fossil fuels. Their decision came hours before the European Union voted to ratify the Paris Agreement. The Agreement sets up the global accord to address climate change to enter into force. Divestment Read more
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has launched a stinging attack on Cardinal George Pell’s views on climate change. In a lecture, Mr Rudd said the cardinal needed an “ecological conversion”. This was a phrase used by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’. Mr Rudd said the Cardinal’s view that the Church should stay out of Read more
In the last chapter of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis begins by acknowledging that “Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change.” The path to change comes through education and spirituality. “We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a Read more
“In Oceania, our survival and existence are at stake,” said Monsignor John Ribat, President of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania and the Archbishop of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Ribat was taking part in an emotionally charged press conference in Rome on Monday. Catholic leaders representing every continent on earth made an Read more
Last weekend the Pacific Climate Warriors, from several island nations in the Pacific, joined a Philippine led People’s Pilgrimage to highlight the impacts of climate change in the islands. Before setting out from Rome last week People’s Pilgrimage leader Yeb Sano had a short meeting with Pope Francis. ”He came up to me,” Yeb said, ”and took my Read more
A scientist famous for demographic doom-saying has criticised Pope Francis for not admitting population control is needed to tackle climate change. Paul Ehrlich said Pope Francis is simply wrong in trying to fight climate change without also addressing the strain on global resources from population rise. “That’s raving nonsense,” the scientist said. Ehrlich wrote on Read more
An English bishop has placed his diocese on “environmental alert” in response to Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth said Laudato Si’ should change the way Catholics think, act and pray. In a pastoral message for the first World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1, Bishop Read more
Back in 2009, I ran a very large event in the Ha’apai Islands of Tonga. We managed to motivate over 3,000 people (from a total population of 4,500) to clean up the coastline and shipped 50 tonnes of rubbish to a location with a proper landfill to make an example of how a waste management Read more
An Italian cardinal has said Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ is comparable to Leo XIII’s groundbreaking social encyclical Rerum Novarum. In a front page article in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti wrote that in 1891, Pope Leo “turned the maternal gaze of the Church” to the labour question. This was during the transition away from Read more
I got on to the train late on Friday evening a few weeks ago, the day after Laudato Si’ had been released. Working in Catholic media as I do, I had already had the opportunity to read it in full (I love my job!). When I stepped on to the train, I didn’t go up Read more