On September 5, Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the Vatican’s first ecological training centre in continued efforts by the Roman Catholic Church to address the climate crisis. As a former cradle Catholic myself, I can’t help but cheer from my little corner of the world.
Hear me out: being raised in the faith, I spent my childhood trying to make sense of the contradictory rhetoric that shaped my perspective of the world and of myself. As I discovered my queer identity, I found that the religion I knew wasn’t the only way to live. I spent my teens rooting out my truth, but as an adult, I find myself looking back on Catholicism and adopting a “two things can be true” perspective.
I always knew a part of my environmentalist values were grounded in the religious doctrines I was brought up with. Catholics are called to be stewards and protectors of the Earth, to tend to our Garden of Eden. As I get deeper into my Environmental Studies at UNC, I find myself marveling at how effective religious organizations throughout history have been at addressing the climate crisis. But given my history with religion, I shouldn’t be so surprised.
The major issue with tackling the climate crisis has always been changing our mindset from individualistic to community based. Those in power intentionally create this mindset to convince us that “parting lines” are moral indicators of “good” and “evil” rather than arbitrary lines drawn in sand. The 1% is threatened by a united constituency, especially in a country that relies on collective action to maintain democracy.
Because the climate crisis is a wicked problem, our ability to pull together and unite over a common cause will decide our level of success in healing our planet. Creating this kind of non-partisan collective action we need feels impossible in the face of corporations which capitalize on the division they sow. That is, until we begin to see allies in our supposed ‘enemies.’
See, the reason why religious organizations are drivers of change in the environmental movement is their skill for creating accessible, central, and effective sources of community. Take, for example, the 2015 water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Communities Stepped Up When the Government Wouldn’t
As a predominantly black community with sky-high poverty rates since the automotive industry left the city (effectively divesting the area), Flint’s residents were especially vulnerable to the impacts of the water crisis. Ignored, gaslit, and manipulated by government officials, residents knew they would have to get organized to get recognized.
Residents turned to one another and began collaborating with their churches and other community groups. Doing so allowed them to participate fully in the tools of democracy: parents could attend a protest while relying on community members to care for their kids; families shared resources to make ends meet while compiling evidence that the water was making them ill.
During this time, churches acted as communication hubs, a place where people could collect information from other churchgoers, create consensus, and represent themselves effectively to government officials. Churches also became central distribution centers for bottled water and water filters, though these were eventually found to be as effective as a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. With church facilitation, the community was even able to produce and distribute multilingual informational pamphlets to the immigrant population in Flint.
While the local churches helped drive the fight to address the crisis, it took national support from the greater religious community to tip the scales. Religious organizations from throughout the nation volunteered their “money, time, and water” to help Flint secure vital resources that the government locked up in bureaucracy and corruption. One of the organizations on that list of contributors? Catholic Charities USA.
Religion Might Have the Key to Fostering Non-partisan Communities
I’m not here to absolve nor condemn the Catholic Church, or any organized religion, for their sins. But I see the Vatican’s ecological training center as a win for the movement as a whole, and I’d like to take advantage of what they’ve done right. I want to model their ability to organize people regardless of background to achieve a goal that’s bigger than any of us.
We ought to take a page out of their book (not the Book, mind you), and widen our environmental activism horizons to include religious organizations that are making concentrated efforts to preserve and heal our planet. Colorado is home to many religious organizations with climate action as their goal. Some include:
- Family of Christ Presbyterian Church: Dedicates part of their stewardship to cultivate community gardens, bee hives, composting, and teaching sustainable/native gardening.
- Utilitarian Universalist Church of Greeley: Hosts an annual Earth Day Fair, collaborating with UNCO’s own chapter of Earth Guardians.
- GreenFaith: A multi-faith chapter in Boulder focused on influencing legislation to end fracking and push for divestment in the oil industry.
Perhaps if we can cross the “parting lines” we’ve been subjected to by corporations and the 1%, we can form a global community that acts on our shared understanding: that we only have one planet, and that it’s our responsibility to take care of our home and one another.