Canada must step up to environmental challenge: Bolen

The STM Just Youth Group hosted the first ever Development and Peace Extravaganza on Sept. 14 at St. Thomas More College.

The goal of this event was to launch Development and Peace – Caritas Canada’s annual education campaign which, this year, focuses on the theme: For our Common Home: A future for the Amazon, a future for all. 

Facilitated by Priva Hang’andu, Regional Development and Peace/Caritas Canada animator, the Extravaganza also included workshops on the spirituality of Laudato Si’ (Dr. Chris Hrynkow), Science of the Amazon (Norm Lipinski), and A Call to Solidarity with the People of the Amazon (Priva Hang’andu).

The Extravaganza concluded with an ecologically friendly dinner prepared by Chef Chris Daniels-Jones and his Choices team, followed by a Coffeehouse co-hosted by the Newman Centre and the STM Just Youth Group.

“I was delighted to see over 80 people gather at STM from every corner of the province for the first ever Development and Peace Extravaganza,” said Gertrude Rompré, Director of Mission and Ministry at St. Thomas More College. “Together we explored the theme of Development and Peace – Caritas Canada’s upcoming education campaign: For our Common Home: A future for the Amazon, a future for all. Thanks to the STM Just Youth Group and the Newman Centre for helping pull together this celebration of our care for the planet and its people.”

The campaign theme aligns with the theme of the upcoming Synod of Bishops which will take place from Oct. 6-27 in Rome.

The highlight of the Extravaganza was a keynote address by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Regina, the Most Reverend Donald Bolen, who has been chosen as a North American delegate to the Synod on the Amazon.

He shared with the audience his experiences of preparing for the Synod at a conference at Georgetown University on Integral Ecology and the Amazon, as well as the key questions the bishops will be discussing at the Synod.

“In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis calls for an integral ecology, which is a fundamental proclamation of the gospel,” said Archbishop Bolen. “He talks about the interconnectedness of all creation. A call to love and care for the Earth. The call to love and care for those who are in greatest need. And he draws special attention to indigenous communities and their cultural traditions. And he calls us to learn from indigenous people and to walk with them. So, the synod on the Amazon is an effort to do both of those.”

“I came out of that conference with four basic questions. And I would suggest that these questions provide a process by which we can engage in this country and this church, with the synod.”

Those questions are:

• What is happening in the Amazon, both to the environment and the indigenous peoples.
• What do we need to be paying attention to here? What are the parallel challenges, or issues, in Canada and our environment and for our indigenous people?
• How are we affected by the current crisis in the Amazon? And how are we implicated in that crisis?
• What can we do as a church, what can we do as a society, what can we do as families, and as individuals?

The conference helped attendees from developed nations like Canada turn an introspective eye on their own failing and challenges, he said.

“It’s a political hot potato, but I think it’s clear Canada is not doing its share in terms of climate change. And when wealthier nations are not meeting their climate change targets it makes it impossible for us to have any moral integrity in challenging other nations to do likewise.”

 Archbishop Bolen pointed to the words of the Holy Father at the beginning of Laudato Si’, when he said:

“I urgently appeal for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing and its human roots concern and affect us all.”

He also said the work of Development and Peace on these issues has been inspiring and prophetic and is pointing us to a constructive, healthy response to the challenges faced by our environment and by our struggling people, by our indigenous people and by the poor.

“I’m looking forward to the next step in this process, which is a mystery to me but is going to be about mapping out a commitment from ourselves.”