A common thread in the conversations I have with Creation Care Team members is the need for easily accessible bulletin blurbs and tips. I hope you have explored the two bulletin resources available to you:
1) Weekly Bulletin Inserts: “A Weekly Tip on Caring for Our Common Home” are intended to be put in your church bulletin each week and are a good way to remind people of how their actions can have a huge impact for our Earth.
2) Creation Care Corner, a print-ready weekly placement for church bulletins to keep the message of Laudato Si’ and Catholic teachings on Creation Care in front of parishioners.
The Special Synod for the Amazon is underway. Below you will find some resources to help your community learn about the Synod. Also remember that this year’s Feast of St. Francis program, We Are All Connected: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor has material to unpack the issues that will be discussed during the Synod.
The Season of Creation was a busy time for many of you. Don’t forget to let me know how you celebrated! Photos and summaries of your activities are always welcome!
Finally, has your CCT and community signed the Catholic Climate Action petition? Below you will find information on how to gather signatures. I hope you will participate in this important effort.
Blessings,
Paz
How will you take action?
Reflect
Everything is Interconnected
~by Cireneu Kuhn, SVD
Everything is interconnected as if we are one.
Everything is interconnected in this common home.
We care for the flowers,
the forests, rivers and springs, the air and the biomes,
the land and the animals.
We care for the being in gestation, with special love for the children.
We care for the sick and the elderly, with a preferential option for the poor.
[English translation of the original Portuguese. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1do_VBZG9Ps]
Act Together
Ten Minutes
Put Your CCT on the Map
During the summer, you received an email/phone call from Gail Anderson, one of our wonderful interns, requesting information about your CCT and specifically asking if we could “put your CCT on a map” on our website. We are excited to announce that the CCT map is up and running! We hope that this map will help you find other CCTs in your area or region and will facilitate you connecting with others doing creation care work.
If you don’t see your CCT on the map (yes, we are missing many of you), please send me an email noting if your CCT can be listed, and who (if anyone) should be the contact person. We would like to have as many CCTs as possible on the map!
Half Day
Petition Signature Gathering
So far, we have gathered over 6,000 signatures on the Catholic Climate Action Petition. In order to reach as broad an audience of Catholics as possible, we need your help. You and your CCT can assist us by sharing the petition with your parish or community. To help you, here is a toolkit with ideas on how to share the petition widely. You could table after Sunday Masses, or have volunteers hold clipboards with petition forms ready to sign, standing outside the church exits after each Mass and ask parishioners exiting the church to sign the petitions, and/or get an announcement in the bulletin.
The deadline to gather petitions is October 27th.
Ongoing
Tree Planting: One of the recommended activities in this year’s Feast of St. Francis program is tree planting. A recent studyfound that planting more than 500 billion trees could remove around 25 percent of existing carbon from the atmosphere, thus making reforestation "the most effective solution" for mitigating the climate crisis.
The 2019 Feast of St. Francis program (see pages 3-4 of Facilitator Guide for more information) gives several options for tree-planting:
- Plant a tree (or trees) on your church or school grounds, or somewhere in your local community (perhaps a local park).
- If tree planting in your community is not possible you may wish to consider donating to TIST- the International Small Group and Tree Planting Program, an organization dedicated to planting trees and transforming lives in Africa. To donate to TIST, go here. Every $1 donation = one tree planted.
- Give tree seedlings to parishioners/members of your group or to school students to plant at home.
- If your parish, school, or religious community plants a tree (or trees), please let us know here so we can keep track of how many trees the U.S. Catholic community is planting.
Recommended Resources:
- Synod for the Amazon: The Inter-religious Working Group on Extractive Industries, a Washington, D.C. based coalition of faith, human rights, and environmental organizations concerned about the negative impact of extractive industries on creation has compiled a list of resources and statements to help the U.S. Catholic community walk in solidarity with the Synod participants and understand how the issues discussed during the Synod also have implications for our nation.
- A great article to share with parents: Care and Repair of Nature: Helping Children Becoming Aware of the Gift of God’s Creation, Anne Neubuger, Ignatian Solidarity Network Blog, October 1, 2019.
- This Canadian resource, WHAT WE CAN DO NOW, includes ideas of things you can do right now about climate change: watch what you eat, reduce your carbon footprint at home, make responsible investments, reduce air travel, talk to your kids (section by Katherine Hayhoe), be climate aware when you vote, maintain hope.
- Plastics: “What’s Recyclable and What Isn’t?”, an interactive resource from NPR , does a good job in helping navigate the sometimes tricky plastics recycling do’s and don’ts.