Movement on Laudato Si
Archbishop Christopher recently met with a group of representatives from several Canberra parishes to consider the growing interest in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home.
The Archbishop invited the group to propose a way forward to reflect and respond further to the Pope’s teachings during the special anniversary year announced by the Vatican back in May.
The meeting acknowledged the particular interest outside Canberra to Care for Our Common Home, given the unprecedented drought, bushfire, and biodiversity losses.
Parishioners spoke of personal experiences and stories of the Spirit moving them to draw from the depth of the “Gospel of Creation” as outlined in the encyclical.
Professor Knox Peden, a parishioner from St Joseph’s, O’Connor described his conversion experience as being deeply inspired by Pope’s “perspective” regarding the climate crisis and his teaching in general
“Ecological conversion is a matter of opening and expanding our sense of dependency. Spiritual conversion tells us we depend on God; ecological conversion extends the idea to tell us we depend on creation, what God has made, said Professor Peden. ”
Vikki Donough (far right) displays the handmade scarf
Vikki McDonough from Parish of the Transfiguration, North Woden, told her family’s experiences during last summer’s bushfires. Vikki showed the group a long handmade scarf comprising many colours, showing the pace of greenhouse warming over the previous 100 years. Her own life story began at a time of mild temperatures- light blue thread – contrasting with that of her grandson’s arrival during some of the hottest years now being experienced -red thread).
Archbishop Christopher noted that the breadth of Pope Francis’ worldview and the depth of his teachings was very evident during visits by the Australian Bishops to Rome. And the needs presented by his fellow Bishops in our region of Oceania were particularly pressing.
A Laudato Si Centre? The planners of Canberra had by 1946 allocated two spectacular sites for what were envisaged as two mighty cathedrals for the national capital – the Anglican at the southern end of King’s Avenue Bridge and the Catholic at the northern end of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. The Cathedrals were never built, and the two sites are now both somewhat underwhelming in their contribution to the city’s identity. The Anglicans developed some of their large site into an ecological space intended to be reverent towards the environment, while placing St Marks College, then the Theological Faculty of Sturt University, and the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture there as ‘national’ institutions.
The Catholics only put the Archbishop’s house there, as if waiting for some timely opportunity to make a real contribution to the city and the nation. Could that time be now, and could a conversation begin about a national monument to Laudato si in the Australian context, with due reverence to the indigenous inheritance of this sacred land and to the urgency of action to protect it?