Catholic Climate Covenant Updates

ACTION OF THE MONTH:

Take “My Laudate Deum Action Pledge.”

In Laudate Deum, Pope Francis urges all people of good will to take action on the climate crisis and “move beyond the mentality of appearing to be concerned but not having the courage needed to produce substantial changes.” He particularly calls on us in the United States to change our consumerist lifestyles, reduce our fossil fuel use, and advocate for systemic actions.

When you take the “My Laudate Deum Action Pledge” you’ll commit to take concrete actions in three areas, such as:

• Your personal and family life (such as eating less meat) 
• Within our Church community (such as reaching out to your priest)
• Advocating for systemic change at the national and global levels (such as asking for U.S. climate action policies)

Join with other Catholics in the United States and take the “My Laudate Deum Action Pledge.” After you take it, share the pledge with family and friends in your community. Together, our U.S. Catholic community can help transform our world.

Advocacy - Debt forgiveness letter delivered to the Administration ahead of COP28

Last week we sent our first batch of signatures to the Biden Administration, asking them to include debt forgiveness and restructuring as key components of their agenda for #COP28. But don't worry, there's still time to add your name! You can sign the letter here, live #LaudatoSi, and urge our national leaders to stand up for ALL creation.

Teach In - Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2023

Catholic Climate Covenant  young adult mobilization program manger Diana Marin and youth mobilization program manger Kayla Jacobs attended the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2023 in Washington, DC at the end of October. We hope you were able to visit our table, chat about creation care, and play eco-trivia for prizes! Kayla presented "Responding to Climate Anxiety with Active Hope: Moving from Individual Anxiety to Community Action," and thanks to Riley Talbot, our Policy and Outreach Associate, who also led an ecology policy briefing at the gathering. #PolicyChangeNotClimateChange #EcoCatholic

Support our work - Save the Date for Giving Tuesday!

Catholic Climate Covenant is responding to the climate crisis by mobilizing intergenerational groups of U.S. Catholics - including 400 Creation Care Teams, 34 dioceses, young adult leaders in faithful formation across the country, and high-school aged youth leaders - to move hearts, minds, actions, our Church leaders, and our elected officials toward climate solutions. With Catholic resources, education, prayers, a community of other faith-led activists and HOPE, we know that together we can make a difference.

We count on your support for our collaborative work. This Giving Tuesday, please give what you can. www.catholicclimatecovenant.org/donate

Vote - Today is Nov. 7th, Election Day

Have you voted yet? Remember that as in every election, this is an opportunity for participation in public life that can help Catholics express support for peace, justice, and the protection of creation. See our past webinar Putting our Faith in Action: Voting to Protect our Common Home.

Advocacy - Encounter campaign update

Thank you for being part of our ever-growing Encounter for Our Common Home community. We gathered last month for our October community gathering, with record attendance and great conversations about the small victories in the climate crisis. We had robust conversations on labor and the just energy transition.  You can find the notes and Zoom recording by following this link.

Encounter Advocacy actions for November:  

• Sign up for Catholic Labor Network’s Newsletter to stay up to date on labor issues; 
• Watch this webinar on the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program for solar installation;
• Ask your Representative to Co-Sponsor the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act; and
• Sign Up Here for Citizens Climate Lobby Lobby Day - November 6th 

If you are not a part of it yet, you can join the Encounter campaign here and meet other faith-led Catholics advocating for creation!

Resource - Our Common Home: A guide to caring for our living planet

This guide, a joint initiative of the Holy See and the Stockholm Environment Institute, sets out essential facts and solutions on key topics, along with advice on how communities can respond.  It is inspired by Pope Francis’ second encyclical, Laudato Si’, which explores our ecological crisis and its roots in over-consumption and current models of economic development. You can find the guide on Catholic Climate Covenant’s website here.

Catholic Climate Covenant in the News 

• Jose Aguto, executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant, was among the panelists featured at a Georgetown University discussion of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Laudate Deum. 

In the eight years since the pope’s encyclical “Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home,” “we’ve not seen significant progress,” said Aguto at the event hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. The document is “clear that caring for the environment is integral to our faith. This should not be a partisan issue. It’s an issue of our faith.”

You can read more about the panel here and watch a video recording of the discussion here. 

• Catholic Climate Covenant founder Dan Misleh was among the leaders offering a response to Laudate Deum in an OSV News piece. 

"My thoughts are that Pope Francis is heartbroken," Misleh said. "He wrote 'Laudato Si'' eight years ago. And here we are in 2023 … and he's saying, 'We just need to do more. We have no more excuses for inaction.'"

The direct tone of "Laudate Deum" speaks to people who reject scientific evidence supporting global warming, Dan said, adding that it evokes the words of the Lord, spoken through Moses, in Deuteronomy 30:19: "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live."

• Grist spoke with Jose Aguto about how important climate change is to Pope Francis.

“This is not a secondary aspect of the Catholic faith; it’s an integral aspect,” he said. Laudato Deum also reveals the Holy Father’s personal investment in the issue. Where Laudato Si’ was likely shaped by “a lot of consultation and a lot of authors,” years of preparation, and appeals to Catholics across the political and theological spectrum, Laudate Deum has “a very personal tone to it,” Aguto said. “You feel Pope Francis’ direct voice in this,” Jose told The Grist. Read the whole piece: 

• U.S. Catholic highlighted the work of Teresa Rojo Tsosie, director of religious education at St. Jude Parish on the Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona and a co-creator of our Wholemakers curriculum for young adult Catholics. 

Growing up with a Mexican Catholic mother and a Navajo father, Teresa Rojo Tsosie says she always felt her Catholic faith and native traditions were intertwined, with ecological spirituality being a natural part of life.

“You cannot have this type of work without an Indigenous person in it,” says Tsosie. “I am doing this for future generations.”

Tsosie joined forces with Anna Johnson (now at Laudato Si’ Movement) and two other women—Emily Burke and Anna Robertson at Catholic Climate Covenant—to create the Wholemakers curriculum, designed for youth and young adults to deepen their understanding of creation care and climate action through insights from science and Catholic tradition. 

Check out the Wholemakers curriculum here. 

• Diana Marin, Catholic Climate Covenant’s program manager for Young Adult Mobilization, participated in a virtual conversation hosted by Pax Christi USA,the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and Casa Esther Catholic Worker.

The topic was “Young Catholic climate activists on the frontlines of advancing nonviolence.” The conversation was part of the Called to Care series, which seems to explore why nonviolent strategies are the only way to achieve sustainable ecological integrity. Watch the informative discussion here!

Events

Food Choices Matter: How What You Eat Affects You, Others, and the Environment

On November 13, 7:00 pm ET, the Care for Our Common Home Ministry at St. John Neumann in Reston, Virginia, invite you to attend this online webinar on “Food Choices Matter: How What You Eat Affects You, Others, and the Environment”. See the program flyer (here) for additional details, and register online (here) to receive the Zoom link. Our individual and collective dietary choices--particularly our consumption of meat, dairy products, and eggs--have a significant impact on our health, global food security, and the environment. Presenter, Dr. Mary E. McGann, RSCJ, is on the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California. To receive the Zoom link, register here by November 12. A recording will be sent to all registrants. Captions in Spanish will be available.

Seeking Asylum: A Mother’s Journey

On November 14 at 6:30 pm Franciscan for Earth will host a  viewing and discussion of a new documentary “Seeking Asylum: A Mother’s Journey.” Register today for this free opportunity at www.fsolph.org/events/ This film bears witness to the deterrents migrants face when petitioning for asylum in the United States.

More Creation Care News

Report: Pope says he will attend COP28 in Dubai 

Pope Francis said he will attend the COP28 climate conference starting next month in Dubai, the first time a pontiff will be at the U.N. environmental meeting since they began in 1995. "I will go to Dubai. I think that I will leave on December 1 through the 3rd. I'll spend three days there," the pontiff told Italy's Rai 1 television.The climate change summit will take place at the Expo City Dubai Nov. 30-Dec. 12.

Thank the Pope, embolden the President

People of faith across the globe continue to speak loud and clear for a healthy planet. Faith leaders across traditions have sounded the alarm. Many of us have been particularly encouraged by Pope Francis’ latest exhortation, Laudate Deum.

Join Interfaith Power and Light in asking the Biden administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to follow-through on their proposed rules for power plants, oil and gas operations, and transportation. 

Thank the Pope and tell President Biden to take bold climate action.

The letter will be delivered to representatives of the Vatican, the White House, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Surveys say: Fewer religious believers believe humans cause climate change 

Despite Pope Francis’ strong climate advocacy, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that just 44 percent of American Catholics believe in human-caused climate change, while 29 percent believe the warming climate is due to “natural patterns” and 13 percent don’t believe Earth is warming at all. 

A separate survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that the higher someone valued their religious beliefs, the less likely they were to believe that Earth is warming because of human activity. 

Bishop says diocese will incorporate Laudate Deum into VA diocese 

Bishop Michael Burbridge of the Diocese of Arlington (VA) called attention to Laudate Deum, the Pope’s new apostolic exhortation, in his diocesan newspaper, The Arlington Catholic Herald.  

“In the weeks ahead, we will be processing Pope Francis’ most recent teaching, considering ways to incorporate it into our diocese,” Burbridge wrote. “Additionally, I take this opportunity to encourage all the faithful to read Laudate Deum as well as Laudato Si’.

“Inspired by our Holy Father’s teaching, may we, in our efforts to bring about ecological conversion, first be grounded in the theological and spiritual conversion God desires for each of us. Burbridge wrote. 

Orthodox deacon praises Pope Francis’ direct message 

Deacon Sergei Kapral of Holy Resurrection Orthodox Cathedral and the Orthodox Church in America, wrote about Laudato Deum in an opinion column in the Times-Tribune of Scranton, PA. 

“As a deacon in the Orthodox Church, I see leaders from across faith traditions sounding the same moral alarm bells. Pope Francis is remarkable not only because of his huge platform, but because of his directness,” Deacon Kapral wrote.  “The science is clear. The morality is clear. The public is clear. We do not have time for our politics to slowly catch up.”  

https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/justice/caritas-voices-climate-change-migrants-can-be-blueprint-change

Caritas: Voices from climate change migrants can be 'blueprint for change'

The voices of people fleeing their homes due to climate change and extreme weather patterns are often overshadowed by scientific data. The Vatican-based Caritas Internationalis released a report drawn from the experiences of individuals and countries most affected by climate change. A confederation of 162 national Caritas organizations in 200 countries and territories, Caritas collected the evidence from its member organizations, which are serving people displaced within and across country borders due to climate change.

Titled "Displaced by a Changing Climate: Caritas Voices on Protecting and Supporting People on the Move," the report can be read here. 

Catholic U president praises record-breaking new urban solar project 

Catholic University President Peter Kilpatrick wrote about Laudate Deum and his school’s  Commitment to Sustainability.  The president praised his school’s construction of a solar array that will be the largest in the District when it goes live next spring. The project will provide locally generated, renewable energy to campus, and to local residents and businesses, saving an estimated 7.115 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, Kilpatrick wrote. 

An interfaith push for a fair and just Farm Bill 

Interfaith Power & Light is joining together with Creation Justice Ministries to urge Congress to pass a Farm Bill that ensures reliable access to healthy food, prioritizes sustainable farming practices, and offers dignified treatment for those who work the land. The Farm Bill determines what food is grown in the U.S., how it’s grown, and how affordable it is. It also determines international food aid. Help call on lawmakers to invest in climate-smart agriculture, support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and by Contacting your Member of Congress today! 

A contest for ‘cool congregations’ 

Interfaith Power & Light is also accepting applications for its Cool Congregations Challenge, a contest for congregations becoming sustainable leaders in their communities. The top winner in each category wins $1,000, and three runner-ups in each category will receive $500! Projects can take place inside the worship space or other buildings, on the grounds, in congregants’ homes, or in the community.

The deadline to apply is December 15. Read more about the Challenge and download the preview of the application questions here.

Interdiocesan Creation Care Network & Creation Care Teams

The Holy Name of Jesus in Redlands, CA partnered with a local conservancy to bring volunteers to the San Timoteo Nature Sanctuary where they gathered native plant seeds.  They also wanted to recommend biologist Doug Tallamy’s  “Restoring Nature’s relationships,” a Youtube video about the native plant movement. 

St Theresa, Palatine, IL is continuing with its regular Creation Care Corners printed in the parish bulletin.  November’s features are:  Creation friendly autumn leaf management and reducing Paper usage. They also displayed Creation Care Hand-outs at the October Right to Life fair.  

Saint Clement Parish, Chicago, celebrated the feast of Saint Francis by inviting everyone to celebrate the saint with a blessing at our LaudatoSi garden, which has become a thriving pollinator garden.  Their CCT leader made tea bags filled with herbs from the garden.  Children were invited to taste, see and smell the herbs growing there.

St. Francis Creation Care Team-Traverse City, Michigan started a successful Season of Creation starting with the planting of almost 4,000 native plants in 11 gardens This project was made possible through the Au Sable Institute and a National Wildlife Foundation Grant. The team also held a Season of Creation Mass led by Bishop Walsh from the Diocese of Gaylord. Following the mass the Bishop blessed the gardens.

Environment Ministry at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan, NY. conducted a short survey regarding the use of plastic  in parishioners daily lives, organized a tour of the city’s recycling center and will continue to focus on plastic by offering alternative products during Advent and advocating for two state bills related to the issue.

Well, done all!