Season of creation a chance for people ‘to make their voice heard’

Two major United Nations’ conferences on climate change are taking place in Autumn 2021. The first one, on biodiversity, takes place in early October in China. The second, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) takes place in Scotland in November, with Pope Francis in attendance. The Pope has frequently expressed the importance of care for creation, most recently in a message to the UN where he criticised the way we “exploit nature to the point of sterilising it”.

With this in mind, the Bishop of Kilmore Dr Martin Hayes is encouraging every parish and diocese to make of the most of 2021’s Season of Creation, running from September 1-October 4.

“It’s a way for people to get involved and make their voice heard as we move toward COP26,” Bishop Hayes told The Irish Catholic. “The resources are there, we would just ask people to look at them now with a view to having something in place for September. What often happens is, September 1 comes and we’re in a rush and breathless. The reason we have them out there now, is so that people can look at them, pick and choose what they would like to do, and set up a group in their parish or diocese.”

Bishop Hayes is the Laudato Si’ coordinator for the Irish Bishops Conference – his title is drawn from Pope Francis encyclical, which encouraged Catholics to take care of creation seriously – and he is keen to promote the “amazing” amount of resources available to facilitate parishes during the Season of Creation.

“You’ll be absolutely amazed – I’m flabbergasted – by the amount of resources that are there and the amount of options people have,” Bishop Hayes said. “All these resources have gone out to every diocese and every diocese has been asked to implement it. One of the key things is that every diocese would set up their own group, be it a Laudato Si’ group, integrity of creation, whatever they call it – but that they look at the resources that are there.

“There are notes for each of the five Sundays, there are homily notes. Also, one of the initiatives then, a practical one, is that we’re asking parishes to identify areas on their parish grounds that can enhance biodiversity by not cutting lawns, for example, not using herbicides and by planting trees.

National tree day

“It’s a little early at the start of September to be planting a tree, but there is a national tree day on October 1,” he continued. “We’d be encouraging every parish and every diocese to plant a tree and indeed to engage with their local nurseries to plant more trees. That’s just one of the practical things. There’s a group, Easy Treesie, who have been very helpful and who will help parishes to source trees. We prefer people to source their trees in their own locality. The more trees we plant, the more carbon is absorbed and oxygen is produced.”

Speaking about the reception of Laudato Si’ on the ground in Ireland, the bishop of Kilmore said it “varies from place to place”: “The reality is that many parishes, they do not see care for the environment as part and parcel of what they are about. It is an agenda which is part of young people’s lives – they’re ahead of us in this regard.”

He echoed Francis in urging Catholics in Ireland “to take care of the environment as part of their mission”. He hopes that every parish in Ireland will set up a group dedicated to the environment, adding that a great stimulus for this goal was Trócaire’s commitment at the time of the World Meeting of Families that “climate change is a reality and all of us as Catholics have an obligation to respond to it”.

“One of my purposes as coordinator is to ensure the full implementation of the principles of Laudato Si’,” Bishop Hayes continued. “One of the things I’d be starting out with is, I’d be asking all diocese to set up a group in their diocese, with a view then to their parishes having a group.

“I’m familiar with this from my dealings back in Cashel, whereby we had an eco-spirituality group in the parish, as part of one of the groups alongside the bereavement, alongside the liturgy, and the like. The ideal would be that every parish would have an eco-spirituality or a justice and peace or integrity of creation group.”

Bishop Hayes believes that young people are ahead of us in this regard, and that the Church should work to meet them where they are: “I see it as Church going to them, Church meeting them. I’m a little tired of the line of bringing young people into the Church, I think Church has to move to where people are.

“Indeed, the whole message of Laudato Si’ has to be there at the front of what we’re about with our synodality process,” Bishop Hayes continued. “The message of Laudato Si’ really is about our interconnection with each other, and our interconnection with creation. Not only our interconnection, but our interdependence. When you take that and Fratelli Tutti, and Pope Francis, whole emphasis on our connection with each other, our need to respect the different aspects of creation – human, animal, plant, sea – that’s where we’re at.”

Fallibility and dependence

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted this connection, Bishop Hayes believes, and reminded us of our fallibility and dependence.

“There’s a line in Laudato Si’ at the start of paragraph 67, just four words – ‘We are not God’,” he said. “One of the things we have to realise, and we realise a little more in the context of Covid, is we’re not in charge. And we have to respect the resources we have, ie. creation.

“There’s no doubt about it, when we overuse certain resources, we are pushing native peoples out of their places. By burning the fossil fuels, we’re affecting weather patterns, we’re making hot weather hotter in the developing world and we’re thereby affecting the poor.

“That’s one of the key messages of Laudato Si’, that climate change affects the poor the most. Overall, the message of Pope Francis is that, as Catholics, as Christians, we don’t have an option except to embrace a whole ecological conversion.”

For more information on and resources for the Season of Creation, visit www.catholicbishops.ie.