In January 2022, the Vatican informed Loyola University Chicago that Pope Francis wanted to join their “Building Bridges North-South” synodal listening session event on February 24th. Loyola reached out to fellow Catholic schools in the Americas, dividing them into seven regional groups, each of which chose 4 representatives to present for 90 seconds to Pope Francis.
The central U.S./Canada regional group was composed of around 30 undergraduate and graduate students. They held three 90-minute group meetings and an online discussion forum and chose Creighton alumna Emily Burke and Creighton junior Henry Glynn to deliver remarks to the Pope on one of its two proposals. (Emily and Henry also work for the Covenant.)
Burke and Glynn stated: “As young people, we told him climate change is our generation’s most pressing social issue — one that threatens our future, is a profound source of generational anxiety…”
- We also told Francis that our generation is frustrated with U.S. Catholic leaders who do not seem to grasp the gravity of our crisis and are unwilling to enact church teaching…
- [Here, they cited the study co-authored by Burke and DiLeo that in more than 12,000 diocesan publication columns written by U.S. bishops in in five years around Laudato Si’, fewer than 1% even mentioned climate change.]
- We told Pope Francis that U.S. Catholic leaders’ failure to share and enact the church’s own climate teachings is causing many in our generation to become disillusioned with the church…
- We told him that frustration with failed climate leadership also extends to elected officials…
- We told the pope that young Catholics recognize a need for a new strategy. Following Catholic and Christian precedents, we proposed active nonviolence that expresses Christian love as a missing complement to existing climate actions…
- To catalyze adequate climate action, we proposed to Francis creation of comprehensive active nonviolence education and training centers. .
After the event, 10 U.S. bishops expressed interest in hearing from the students. On March 24th, 10 small group meetings were held between 3-4 workgroup members and one of the bishops. Loyola University Chicago will be submitting these findings into the synodal process.
The “Building Bridges North-South” synodal listening session with Pope Francis can be seen here. (Emily Burke’s and Henry Glynn’s contributions begin at minute 9:45).