Sunday, May 24, 2015

Progressive Catholics Organize to Promote Pope Francis’s Climate Change Message

Francis

NEW YORK (AP) — There will be prayer vigils and pilgrimages, policy briefings and seminars, and sermons in parishes from the U.S. to the Philippines.

When Pope Francis releases his much-anticipated teaching document on the environment and climate change in the coming weeks, a network of Roman Catholics will be ready. These environmental advocates – who work with bishops, religious orders, Catholic universities and lay movements – have been preparing for months to help maximize the effect of the statement, hoping for a transformative impact in the fight against global warming.
“This is such a powerful moment,” said Patrick Carolan, executive director of Franciscan Action Network, a Washington-based advocacy group formed by Franciscan religious orders. “We’re asking ourselves, `What would be the best way for us to support the faith community in getting this out and using it as a call to action?'”
Francis is issuing the encyclical by the end of June with an eye toward the end-of-year U.N. climate change conference in Paris. While previous popes have made strong moral and theological arguments in favor of environmental protection, Francis will be the first to address global warming in such a high-level teaching document.
The pope, who will address the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 25 when he visits the U.S., has said he wants the encyclical to be released in time to be read and absorbed before the Paris talks. Advocates are pressing for a binding, comprehensive agreement among nations to curb rising global temperatures, which scientists say are largely driven by carbon emissions.
“People are really putting a lot of weight on this,” said Nancy Tuchman, director of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago. “I think the real hope is that he says it like it is and tells us there has to be a call to action and it has to be immediate.”
The institute, which has been working to unite 28 U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities as a common voice on climate change, plans to collect papers from students, faculty and staff with their reflections on the document and how they can be “one of its champions,” Tuchman said. A school colloquium on the papers is planned for Sept. 9.
Carolan was among about 40 Catholic leaders who gathered in Rome this month for a strategy meeting organized by the Global Catholic Climate Movement, a network he co-founded which includes organizations representing religious orders, church aid agencies, Catholic social justice advocates and others. The movement started a petition that urges political leaders to take action to curb global warming and plans a prayer vigil in Washington the night before Francis’ Sept. 24 address to Congress, where he is likely to touch on environmental protection.
His audience at the Capitol will include skeptics on climate change, and like-minded groups are preparing a response to the encyclical.
The Heartland Institute, a conservative Chicago-based think-tank that sent a team to Rome last month to warn the pope against the U.N.’s climate change agenda, says it is building relationships with Catholic leaders and planning to distribute reports on sustainable development and challenges to climate science to a Catholic audience.
Jim Lakely, a Heartland spokesman, said since the Rome event, the institute has heard from Catholic groups, bloggers and others “who share our concern that the pope is being misadvised by the United Nations on this complicated scientific issue.”
At the same time, however, other Catholics worldwide are mobilizing to echo the pope’s words among the faithful.
Catholic Earthcare Australia, the ecology agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, plans an event on the encyclical at the Australian Parliament and will publish a book on the encyclical for use in parishes.
In the Philippines, the Archdiocese of Manila’s decade-old ecology ministry is asking bishops to encourage all parishes to ring their church bells when the encyclical is released, among other efforts to highlight the pope’s statement, ministry director Lou Arsenio said. Each September, the Manila ecology ministry holds a month of liturgies and church activities on environmental protection called a “Season of Creation.”
“The big issue here is that environmental issues are not just about science but about ethics and moral values,” said Pablo Canziani, an atmospheric physicist who works with the Argentine bishops’ conference.
Canziani, who worked with then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires before he became Pope Francis, recently led a two-day environmental seminar organized for Argentine diocesan priests. Canziani said he and others also hope to incorporate prayers related to the encyclical in the many upcoming Argentine pilgrimages to shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
In the U.S., Dan Misleh, director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, an education and advocacy network that works with the U.S. bishops, is preparing model sermons on the expected themes of the encyclical.
Over the last 15 years or so, Catholic and other faith traditions have been increasingly taking up environmental protection, or what they call creation care, as a moral issue, emphasizing the impact not only on nature but also on poor people who struggle for access to clean water and farmable land and are often the most vulnerable in natural disasters.
However, theologians and secular environmental activists say this stunningly popular pope, who has captured the world’s attention, can bring into focus the human toll from climate change in a way few other leaders can.
“The social justice aspect, and the way climate change is going to affect the poor and underprivileged and less privileged – that’s not the first thing people think about when they think about climate change,” said Lou Leonard, a World Wildlife Fund vice president who specializes in climate change issues. “For those who see this primarily as an issue of polar bears or other impact on species – which is all really important – this is an opportunity to say this is as much a human issue as anything else.”
The church, given its reach and structure, also provides an unparalleled network for amplifying calls to reduce global warming.
Bishops’ conferences in many countries, including in the U.S., have social justice programs that focus on the environment. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, head of the U.S. bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, speaks frequently about Catholic teaching on preserving creation and the impact of climate change on the poor.
Global warming has also emerged as an issue for Caritas International, a confederation of Catholic charitable groups who play a major role in development and disaster relief in more than 160 countries. Caritas leaders worldwide said in a survey released this month that climate change was a top contributor to food insecurity.
Major environmental organizations are also abuzz about the encyclical and have been contacting Catholic groups for guidance. In webinars for them, Carolan has been explaining what an encyclical is. Misleh has cautioned the groups that the pope will be making a theological statement and speaking “as a Catholic, not a member of the Sierra Club.”


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Taken from: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/24/progressive-catholics-organize-to-promote-pope-franciss-climate-change-message/

Friday, May 15, 2015

Pope Francis and the Art of Joy

Image result for pope francis happiness

In the modern era, Europe has never had fewer practicing Christians. The United States, according to a Pew survey released this week, is trending in the same direction, led by millennials wary of pontifical certainty.
So why is Pope Francis smiling? For that matter, how did a 78-year-old man with only one working lung become perhaps the most radiant, powerful and humane figure on the global stage? It’s a paradox, but as much of the world has become less identified with organized religion, the leader of the most organized of religions is more popular than ever.
Whether he’s cleaning the feet of the homeless, dialing up strangers for late-night chats or convincing a self-described atheist like Raúl Castro to give a second look at the Catholic church, the pope who took the name of a nature-loving pauper is a transformative gust.

Image result for pope francis happiness


In advance of his visit to the United States later this year, Francis has a chance to move hearts and minds on a couple of intractable issues. He’s called out climate change skeptics and will soon unveil a major encyclical on the environment. Think about that: The church that put Galileo under house arrest for promoting sound science is now challenging the science deniers in power.
This puts him directly at odds with the Republican leadership, and the Koch brothers, who have funded a group that recently accused Pope Francis of “being misled by ‘experts’ at the United Nations.” Speaker John A. Boehner may find that he’s getting more than he bargained for, inviting the pope to become the first pontiff to speak before a joint session of Congress in September.
Francis’s predecessor, while a cardinal, once signed a letter saying homosexuality was “an objective disorder.” This pope would rather focus on the millions of poor clinging to a thin lifeline than talk about people’s sex lives. He speaks truth to power on Armenian genocide, on a Palestinian state, on the Islamic nihilists who behead people of other faiths.

But for all of that, something else explains why the world is so enamored of this pope. Long after we’ve forgotten what his position is on Catholic doctrine, we will remember the serenity of Pope Francis — his self-deprecating lightness of being.
His smile is just shy of goofy; it’s embracing, certainly not the tight facial clench of the seasoned diplomat. Rather than hide behind the trappings of power and empire, he projects a sense that he’s an average man who’s in on the joke. He’s the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics. Anything he says is parsed and taken apart for larger meaning. And yet, he shrugs and laughs, the body language behind the most memorable line uttered by a pope in our time: “Who am I to judge?”

Just after he was named pope, in a gathering of the Vatican elite who had selected him, he looked at the thicket of clerical power and said, “May God forgive you for what you’ve done.” He smiled. They laughed. In March 2013, humor took up residence in the corridors of St. Peter’s Square, and has never left.

“I was speechless,” Rabuffi told the Vatican newspaper, “but Francis came to my rescue, saying what happened was funny.”
In March, the pope visited Naples, a wonderful city, its ancient warrens torn apart by mafia corruption and poverty. He challenged the violent Camorra, calling for an end to “the tears of the mothers of Naples.” In words that only a former bouncer could use, Papa Francesco said, “Corrupt society stinks.”
Last year, he was asked about his secret to happiness. He said slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don’t proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don’t hold on to negative feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy art, books and playfulness.
Sadly, his reign may be less than five years in all, he predicted. As one orthodox cardinal told Mr. Allen, the author, “Bergoglio won’t be here forever, but we will.” Not true. The Vatican Spring of Pope Francis will outlive many a mortal in church vestments.

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Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/opinion/pope-francis-and-the-art-of-joy.html?_r=0

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Pope says environmental sinners will face God's judgment for world hunger



Image result for pope climate change

  • Francis declares ‘powerful of the Earth’ have obligation to feed the world
  • Pontiff to publish encyclical on environmental issues
Pope Francis leads a mass in St Peter’s basilica before the opening of the general assembly of Caritas Internationalis. ‘The planet has enough food for all, but it seems that there is a lack of willingness to share it with everyone,’ he said.
Pope Francis leads a mass in St Peter’s basilica before the opening of the general assembly of Caritas. ‘We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat,’ he said. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

“The planet has enough food for all, but it seems that there is a lack of willingness to share it with everyone,” Francis said at a mass to mark the opening of the general assembly of the Catholic charitable organisation Caritas.


“We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat, but we must also remind the powerful of the Earth that God will call them to judgment one day and there it will be revealed if they really tried to provide food for Him in every person and if they did what they could to preserve the environment so that it could produce this food.”
The striking comments from the Argentinian pontiff came ahead of the upcoming publication of a papal encyclical on the ethical aspects of environmental issues that is eagerly awaited by campaigners for action to address global warming.
An encyclical is a statement of fundamental principles designed to guide Catholic teaching on a subject. It is issued in the form of a letter from the pope to bishops around the world.


The pope is due to address the UN Special Summit on Sustainable Development in September and the international community will seek to reach a universal agreement on climate change at a summit in Paris in December.
Climate change sceptics have warned Francis not to take sides in the debate but all the signs so far are that he sees the problem as man-made and as one which can be alleviated by political action.
Caritas is a confederation of 165 Catholic charity and aid groups operating in 200 countries worldwide.
It holds a general assembly once every four years. This year’s meeting, the first under Francis’s papacy, runs to Saturday.
The archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, is tipped to take over from the Honduran cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga as the organisation’s president, the latter cleric having served the maximum two terms.

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Taken from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/12/pope-environmental-sinners-will-face-god-judgment