Archdiocese of Cincinnati | Catholic Social Action Office 

St. Francis Pledge Newsletter Summer 2021 a newsletter from the Care for Creation Task Force

Summer is here! We hope this newsletter finds you safe and having a great start to summer. The chirping birds, blooming flowers, and cicadas are all around reminding us of the glory of God's creation and the birth to new life that comes after the resurrection. Praise be to God! We have just finished up Laudato Si' week, and during that week the new seven-year roadmap for our journey to total sustainability in the spirit of Laudato Si’ was released. You can see the full platform here, the roll out video and additional resources here, and more from the Vatican here. Our task force plans to utilize this resource as we move forward in our work. We are actively seeking new Laudato Si' Communities. If your community (parish, school, etc.) is interested in learning more about this powerful process, check out the information below.  We wish a wonderful summer full of fresh air, time in nature, and continued work to care for all of God's creation. Pace e bene, Archdiocesan Care for Creation Task Force

Advocate

HB 6 (and it's various components) continues to be dismantled, piece by piece. Just recently the subsidies for most of the coal plants were removed. Unfortunately, there has been no reinstatement of the environmental protections that were removed. Check out a more detailed run down of the components of the bill and what you can do. USCCB chairmen support the “Trillion Trees Act” The chairmen of the U.S. bishops’ committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development and International Justice and Peace sent a letter to congress supporting the bipartisan effort to promote natural carbon sequestration while protecting old growth forests and ecosystems. Read the full letter and learn how the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is supporting work for environmental justice.

The City of Cincinnati has recently broken ground on its new massive solar array, the largest municipally led array in the country. It is expected to be up and running by the end of the calendar year. Hooray! You can read an article about it here. We encourage you to reach out to the mayor and other city officials to express your gratitude for this wonderful initiative and insist that they stay the course on finding more and more ways for the city to take care of the Earth.

Act

SOLARIZE CINCY 2021 Sign up today to go solar and save money Join the coop here. solarizecincy.org 

Helpful Hints If you're looking for some practical ways to make an impact right now, check out these ideas! Plant a tree. A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Resolve to celebrate “new life” by nurturing your trees and planting new ones!   Turn down your water heater; 120 degrees is usually hot enough. Wrap your water heater in an insulating jacket if the water heater is over 5 years old or has no internal insulation.   Adjust your thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and 2 degrees up in summer, and you’ll fast from about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.   Drive less. You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive! Walk or bike during Lent this year, and watch as nature shows its magnificence around you! If you drive 20 miles less each week this summer, you will have fasted from 280 pounds of carbon dioxide.   Obey the speed limit when driving. Every 10 mph faster reduces fuel economy by about 4 mpg, a figure that remains fairly constant regardless of vehicle size.    Encourage your parish leaders to save energy. Contact your local utility for information on getting an energy audit for your church, or calculate your carbon footprint using the online resources available at www.coolcongregations.org.

Laudato Si' Communities - Highlight Each season, we're celebrating one of our 2020 recipients. For this summer newsletter, we're focusing on Our Lady of the Visitation. For their project, they shared the entirety of the encyclical Laudato Si', piece by piece, in their parish bulletin over the course of four years. They also hosted a special speaker who spoke on "The Glory of God in Creation: Pope Francis and Our Call to Care for Our Common Home", as well as four workshops on the Laudato Si'. In addition, they regularly put suggestions in their weekly bulletins on how to conserve energy and lower your household's carbon footprint. Congrats to Our Lady of the Visitation Parish on becoming a 2020 Laudato Si' Community!!

Laudato Si' Communities - You can do it! We want to recognize Catholic parishes and schools that live out Pope Francis' Laudato Si' message of caring for God's creation. Qualifying parishes or schools will: Earn the title "Laudato Si' Community" at an annual recognition event; Receive an eco-friendly banner to display in or outside their building Be featured on the Archdiocesan website, Facebook page, and in other Archdiocesan media outlets and communications. To earn this designation, parishes/schools should: 1. Complete a facilities assessment and meet a target score for environmental stewardship practices 2. Have 10 percent of its member-households complete their own household assessment 3. Host or provide a Care for Creation formation program to parishioners/students We are accepting applications through May 1. Qualifying communities will be recognized on the anniversary of Laudato Si', June 18th. For more information, check out the website. If you have any questions, let us know. 

Volunteers needed! The new Cincinnati Recycling and Reuse Hub could use your help. Check out this link - https://www.cincinnatirecyclingandreusehub.org/volunteer - to find out when you can support their work. This is a wonderful new Earth-loving place in Cincinnati, and we should all do our part to support their success.

Pray

The following items are provided by the Archdiocesan Care for Creation Task Force Prayer and Learning Teams for use where appropriate in parish liturgies and bulletins during the coming months.

June Bulletin Prayer Gracious Father, You make the rain fall and the sun shine. Bless our gardens, crops and tillers of the soil during this sowing season as we strive to feed Your children and care for Your creation.         Intercession For all men and women who lovingly seek to teach others to care for God’s wondrous creation, we pray to the Lord…. Papal Quote On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself—God’s gift to his children—and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. (Pope Benedict XVI 2009)

July Bulletin Prayer Loving Father, as the beauty of the world that you created grows around us, help us to grow in our love for you.  Intercession For God’s children around the world, that during this season of growth we may learn to share with one another, we pray to the Lord…  Papal Quote “The vocation of being a “protector” however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live.” Pope Francis

August Bulletin Prayer Loving Father, you surround us in the beauty of your Creation. Help us to protect and preserve all that you have given to us during this season of growing.    Intercession For blessings on our land, the people who till it and all who will be nourished from its bounty, we pray to the Lord…  Papal Quote “The environment is a common patrimony of all humanity and is everyone’s responsibility. Whoever possesses a part of it should merely administer it for the common good. If we do not do this our conscience is burdened with the weight of denying the existence of others.” (Pope Francis)

Learn

Learn Ways to Lower Your Facility's Utility Bills June 7, 2021 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. Sign up for free at: www.greenumbrella.org/faith Speakers include: Andy Holzhauser - Donovan Energy Justin Kale - Energility Monica Niehaus - Melink Solar & GEO Chris Jones - Bricker & Eckler  Click here for flyer.

Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC) Native Plant Sale & Virtual Training Saturday, June 26, 8am - 1pm  (In-person sale or Pre-order for pick-up)   You can Care for God's Creation in your own yard by choosing native plants to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects to restore nature's biodiversity. View the native plant catalog and order form and other native plant gardening resources. Friends of MEEC Pre-order by Friday, June 11th.   Friday June 11th, 11am - noon: i-Naturalist (Virtual)Training: Learn how you can identify species using your cell phone camera and contribute valuable data to understanding the phenology and diversity of our native plants, insects and other wildlife. For more info and to register: https://meec.center/event/inaturalist-training   MEEC stewards 100 acres of natural area, nature trails and natural areas you can visit during daylight hours at Mount St. John in east Dayton (https://meec.center). email info@meec.center or sign up online to be added to the email list on ecological education and spirituality program offerings.

Laudato Si' and the U.S. Catholic Church Conference All Catholics in the U.S. who care about faithfully protecting creation are invited to attend the virtual LSUS conference: “Laudato Si’ and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home.” Registration is now open for the July 13-15, 2021 virtual gathering. Join us!   REGISTER FOR CONFERENCE   The LSUS conference opens July 13th with keynote addresses by His Eminence Blase Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, and Maureen Day, PhD, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society at the Franciscan School of Theology. Together, they will assess why the U.S. Catholic response to Laudato Si’ has not been commensurate with the urgency and gravity of the climate crisis. See full conference schedule. On July 14-15, the conference continues, featuring interactive breakout sessions in eight areas of the U.S. Catholic Church working to more faithfully incorporate Laudato Si’: Advocacy Colleges/Universities Communications/Media Creation Care Teams (especially at parishes and dioceses) Environmental Justice Homiletics Parochial School Education Youth & Young Adults Each ministry leadership team will share the strategies, plans, and resources being developed with members of their working group. Presentations will be followed by discussion with conference participants. You won’t want to miss these critical discussions! The conference concludes July 15 with a closing address by Sister Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. Sister Delio will consider Catholic spiritual and theological insights that can enliven a more faithful commitment to care for our common home. The conference is free, but registration is required, and a donation is encouraged to offset costs that include Spanish language interpretation.  We hope you’ll join us at the 2021 virtual LSUS conference! More about the LSUS Conference Series: “Laudato Si’ and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home” is a biennial conference series co-sponsored by the Covenant, its 20 Catholic partners, and Creighton University to convene, equip, and inspire Catholics who can more deeply integrate Laudato Si’ and its climate change teaching into the U.S. Church. The first convening was held at Creighton in June 2019 and the presentations were published in the Journal of Moral Theology. The second gathering will be held virtually July 13-15, 2021. In partnership with Creighton, the 2021 conference expresses Catholic Climate Covenant’s leading role coordinating U.S. Catholic enactment of the Vatican “Laudato Si’ Action Platform.”

Resources Laudato Si' Catholic Climate Covenant Catholic Climate Project UN Climate Change USCCB on Care for Creation CRS on Care for Creation Caritas et Veritate (Pope Benedict XIII, #48-52) NCR Our Common Home series Catholic Social Action Care for Creation Task Force

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