Environment

GoodLands, a U.S. nonprofit digital mapping and consulting firm focused on using Catholic land resources to do good for people and the environment, prepared to release more than 100 maps and data sets for free online on the new Catholic GeoHub.

Understanding and putting into practice Catholic social teaching is vital to address the challenges of creation stewardship without falling into the environmental activism today that often mimics religious apocalypticism. 

Building on previous church teachings, St. John Paul II’s concept of “human ecology” and Pope Benedict XVI’s “ecology of man,” Pope Francis goes one step further with his vision of integral ecology.

“We have caused a climate emergency that gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own,” the pope said in his message for the Sept. 1 ecumenical day of prayer.

In May, Catholic bishops in Washington responded to the new legislation with a statement reminding area Catholics that bodies of deceased loved ones are to be treated with respect.

At the start of a mid-March gathering at Georgetown University, organizers asked church leaders, activists and members of indigenous communities to think of a person they knew who had worked in defense of the environment and to call out his or her name.

The document aims to help Minnesotans understand Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’: on Care for Our Common Home” on a more local level.

The group was meeting at the Vatican March 7-9 to discuss the contributions religions can make to achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in a way that responds to the needs of the poor and respects the environment.