CATHOLICS in Brisbane have been reminded that caring for creation is a central part of their faith.
Brisbane auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell stressed the point when speaking at a Living Laudato Si’ forum hosted by Stafford parish last weekend.
Bishop Howell was sharing his insights on the call to ecological conversion made by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home).
In explaining that the conversion was based on “a genuine spirituality”, the Pope quoted what his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI said at his inauguration: “The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast”.
Bishop Howell said Pope Francis taught that Christians who remained “passive” and chose not to change their habits to care for creation needed an ecological conversion.
The Pope said that, with ecological conversion, “the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ (will) become more evident in their relationship with the world around them”.
“And I think that’s such a key thing,” Bishop Howell said.
“We can’t say that we have faith in Christ and ignore the world around us.”
He said Pope Francis was saying “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork … is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience”.
“It’s not just a little side thing that we might get interested in some time; it’s not a secondary experience; it has to be up there,” Bishop Howell said.
“It’s right in the midst of our lived faith.”
Bishop Howell, who chairs the Living Laudato Si’ steering committee in Brisbane archdiocese, was opening speaker at the Care for Our Common World: Living Laudato Si’ – Think Globally, Act Locally forum.
More than 60 people attended and among them were parishioners from Victoria Point, Burleigh Heads, Banyo-Nundah, Kedron and Bracken Ridge, as well as Stafford.
Other speakers Bernard Holland, who is Catholic Earthcare director, and Franciscan Father Joe McKay, also stressed the need for ecological conversion.
Mr Holland is working to build a network of parishes and schools living Laudato Si’.
“For our Catholic Earthcare schools and Catholic Earthcare parishes, formation of the heart is absolutely crucial,” he said.
“If you don’t have the heart for something and you don’t have the emotional connection with something then … why would you care for it?”
Sound formation was important in ensuring faith underpinned caring for creation.
Fr McKay recommended striking a balance between “over spiritualising” caring for creation and “completely institutionalising” it.
He said there could be the tendency to “get our little lists of things that we have to do”.
“I check that I’m using the right lights, I’m checking that I’m using all the water, I check the gas bill’s alright …, and it becomes just a very institutionalised thing, and in many cases it becomes the responsibility of one person to make sure that all happens within the institution, but that’s not what Laudato Si’ is talking about,” he said.
“Institutionalising things is important but it can’t be the be all and end all of things.
“Because what we are talking about … is that conversion of heart, and the conversion of the world around us.”
Fr McKay stressed that “we always maintain that sense of the Christian focus of what we do in Laudato Si’ – that it doesn’t just become a politicised act or an institutionalised act; that it becomes an act of conversion and of love and of care for our common Earth and common home”.
