On Care for Our Common Home, Part 1

Our parish study of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s letter on care for the Earth, has reached its halfway point.  We have two groups meeting, on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.  If you would like to read or download the pope’s letter, you can do so on the Vatican website here (+).

In our first session, we began with prayer: St. Francis’s “Canticle of the Creatures.”  Then, as an introduction, we watched a brief video from Sr. Sallie Latkovich, CSJ, of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.  The video places Laudato Si’ in the context of the tradition of Catholic social teaching.

We then began reading Bill Huebsch’s summary reading guide to the letter, stopping from time to time to consult the pope’s original text, and to discuss the Pope Francis’s ideas and our own experiences and reflections.

Pope Francis addresses the letter to “every living person on the planet.”  He summarizes the strong words of his predecessors, Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, on the need to change our behavior and social structures to respond to threats to our environment.  And he cites the words of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (of the Orthodox churches) who has written: “For human beings… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.” (8) [Note: numbers cited in parentheses are the paragraph numbers of Laudato Si’.]

The pope recalls the life of St. Francis who, during the Middle Ages, identified with the poor and praised God for the elements of nature, which he spoke of as our sisters and brothers.  Pope Francis writes: “If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs.” (11)

“The urgent challenge to protect our common home,” Pope Francis writes, “includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.” (13)

We watched another CTU video, this one from Fr. Stephan Bevans, SVD, on how the pope’s call to care for the earth fits with his previous challenge for Catholics to pursue the mission of the Church.

Check this blog in the future for more information on Laudato Si' and on our study!

The Anawim--and Us

      You may have heard Fr. Ken's homily last weekend on the "anawim"—the little ones of God—widows, orphans, strangers in the land, the poor. [If you missed the homily, you can find it below.]
      Fr. Ken told of his experience of shopping for cargo shorts, only to discover that they were made in Bangladesh. He wondered if any of the 1100 women who were killed in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh on April 24 had stitched those shorts.
      The Bangladesh disaster raises the question of the moral significance of our involvement in an economic system that supplies cheap goods to the West at great human cost here and abroad. It is certainly a huge and complicated question. There is a danger that we will see it as so big and our own potential contribution as so small that we do nothing. In doing so, we risk turning our backs on the anawim—the very ones our Lord calls us to serve.
      We may not be able to do a great deal, but we can do something. If you have an Internet connection, you have the means to make a difference. Here are some places you might start: The Clean Clothes Campaign is dedicated to "improving working conditions and supporting the empowerment of workers in the global garment and sportswear industries.You can find them online here.
      One of the principles of Catholic doctrine in relation to the economy is that people who work deserve—by their God-given human dignity—to be paid a just wage, a wage that supplies what is needed for a decent life. You can learn about efforts to support a living wage for Asian factory workers by checking out the YouTube video "Asia Floor Wage—the animated story" or by visiting the Asia Floor Wage site here.
      One of the main ways that workers around the world try to improve their condition is through unions. Catholic doctrine supports these efforts.  LabourStart is an excellent British site where you can learn about and support the efforts of workers all over the world to defend their human right to join unions and gain fair wages and better working conditions.
      If you would like to learn how all of these efforts are related to our Catholic faith, visit the site of the Human Life and Dignity page of the website of the United States bishops.  The links on that page will take you to information on many areas including "Economic Justice."
      The U.S. bishops also sponsor an organization called Catholics Confront Global Poverty that focuses more on issues of trade, international aid, and migration than on workers' rights.
      If you are interested in joining with others at St. Scholastica who want to make a difference for the anawim of our day, please send me your email address. No meetings (unless we want to later on)—just trading information and support. We can, by the grace of God, be the hands of Christ reaching out today—even through our computer keyboards!