The Season of Creation, which ended last weekend, prompted global Church initiatives, inspired by Laudato Si’.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, presided over a Mass at Manila Cathedral last Sunday on the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
“Let us be grateful, open our eyes to how God loves us especially through other people and through creation,” he said. He echoed Pope Francis’ call to end the “throwaway culture.”
Parishes throughout the Philippines have run campaigns for agroecology, food security, and ecological conversion. Many wanted support for the rights of nature and to name environmental destruction as “sinful”.
Fr Edwin Gariguez, a former Executive Secretary of National Secretariat for Social Action of the Filipino bishops, said the Season was a time “to allow our overly abused and stressed nature to breathe, recover, regenerate, and in the process continue to bless us with provisions for our daily essential needs such as food and water.”
Columban Sisters in Hyderabad, Pakistan, organised presentations on ecology and faith during Sunday Masses last weekend. Afterwards, children highlighted the story of creation and problems such as pollution, global warming and polar ice melting.
In Africa, more than a thousand young people marched for the climate last weekend in Tanzania and Burundi. Laudato Si’ clubs in Dar Es Salaam participated and Catholic scouts throughout Burundi.
In North America, Jesuits in Canada offered Earth Sessions, designed to use Ignatian spirituality to engage with creation and nature. San Diego Diocese in the U.S. was among many that live-streamed a St Francis Mass last weekend.
In Latin America, Peru’s Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Maldonado deplored September’s assassination of environmental leader Roberto Pacheco Villanueva.
International webinars organised by the Global Catholic Climate Movement since 1 September have attracted thousands. Speakers included Fr Leonardo Boff from Brazil who urged politicians to listen to indigenous people, saying, “if anyone knows how to protect the Amazon it is indigenous people”. He urged that mining companies be stopped from invading indigenous lands and plundering resources.
At another, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva in Fiji, called for the Church to tackle debt, extractive industries and the climate crisis. He suggested that Covid-19 “has slowed down globalisation and given us space for change.” Last Sunday’s international closing ecumenical liturgy called for a “Jubilee for the Earth”, and for expenditure on war to be devoted to environmental and social spending. Sr Sheila Kinsey of the International Union of Superiors General said the Season has been “a great opportunity to explore inter-connectedness and bring together ‘sowers of hope’”.
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