“Unprecedented Initiative Asks Catholics
“Who Is Under Your Carbon Footprint?”
WASHINGTON, DC.(April 21, 2009)–As the nation marks Earth Day, the Catholic community is launching an unprecedented initiative, the Catholic Climate Covenant, to bring together in new ways religious obligations to care for creation and care for “the least of these” as a distinctive Catholic contribution to the climate change debate.
Leading national Catholic organizations are calling on Catholic individuals and families, parishes and schools, religious communities, colleges and hospitals and other Catholic organizations to take a unique St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor.
Organizational partners and sponsors of the Covenant Campaign reach into every corner of Catholic life here and abroad, including:
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Catholic Charities USA serving nearly eight million people in more than 1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies and institutions
The Catholic Health Association of the United States serving one in six Americans in hospitals
Catholic Relief Services reaching more than 80 million people in more than 100 nations
The National Catholic Education Association, the largest private education system in the world
The Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious representing hundreds of religious communities who lead with a sense of mission and real world examples of how to care for people in poverty and for God’s gift of creation.
Participants also include: the Franciscan Action Network, the National Council of Catholic Women, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, the National Federation of Priests Councils, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, and many others.
The effort responds to and builds upon the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, the U.S. Catholic Bishops, and many Catholic religious communities who believe that our response to climate change must be guided by the exercise of prudence, the pursuit of the common good and a priority for the poor.
Pope Benedict most recently referenced “troubling climate change” in his Easter message to the world. Before Easter, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change sent resource packets (in English and Spanish), including the St. Francis Pledge, to all of the 17,000 Catholic parishes and 6,300 Catholic elementary schools in the nation. The Campaign and Pledge are also being promoted by a wide range of other Catholic organizations to reach deeply into every part of Catholic life.
Pressing the issue of responsibility for the impacts of climate change, the Campaign asks the haunting and provocative question “Who is Under Your Carbon Footprint?” in mailings to every parish in the nation, posters, and print ads in Catholic publications, and in major newspapers across the country.
A new website (www.catholicclimatecovenant.org), offers concrete help in carrying out the St Francis Pledge.
“The St. Francis Pledge is at the heart of this effort,” says Dan Misleh, Executive Director of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. “By linking prayer, reflection and learning to assessment, action and advocacy, many more Catholics will become aware of the moral implications of climate change, make the connections between their own carbon footprint and their obligation to the poor and take private and public action to address the causes and consequences of climate change.”