Join us at 10.00 am on Saturday 17 July at an online event to reflect on how we can work together to care for Creation.  Register here to join Bishop Mark and Sr Margaret Atkins for this exciting discussion and reflect on our Diocesan Environmental Policy.

In his 2015 encyclical letter, Laudato Si’ (‘Praise be to you’) Pope Francis challenges all people to praise and thank God for Creation, and to work together to protect our environment. In May this year, he renewed his challenge, launching the Laudato Si’ Action Platform (www.laudatosiactionplatform.org) – an invitation to all people of goodwill to take care of the Earth, our common home. “The current pandemic has now brought to light in an even stronger way the cry of nature and that of the poor who suffer most the consequences, highlighting that everything is interconnected and interdependent and that our health is not separated from the health of the environment in which we live.”

We need “a new ecological approach,” says Pope Francis: in this way we can “transform our way of dwelling in the world, our styles of life, our relationship with the resources of the Earth and, in general, our way of looking at humanity and of living life. Our selfishness, our indifference and our irresponsible ways are threatening the future of our children! Let us take care of our mother Earth; let us overcome the temptation of selfishness that makes us predators of resources; let us cultivate respect for the gifts of the Earth and creation; let us inaugurate a lifestyle and a society that is finally eco-sustainable: we have the opportunity to prepare a better tomorrow for all. From God’s hands we have received a garden, we cannot leave a desert to our children.”

Come along to our event  to explore these issues further. All welcome!

Thanks to Martin Davis, Laudato Si’ animator, for inspiring this reflection. If you would like to be a Laudato Si’ animator, you can find out more here.