 | Andrew Conradi, ofs acknowledges and thanks the Lkwungen People, (of the place to smoke herring) also known as the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, for allowing me to live, pray, work, and play on their lands. April's 2021 Blog |  |
Did you fast during Lent?
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” From Gospel to Life: Isaiah 58:6
Non sola scriptura sed magisterium: Pope Francis, Laudato si’, 217:
“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
As Pope Francis has written: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” (Laudato si’, 139). This is clearly exemplified by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who reflected on the health and humanitarian consequences of climate change in a humanitarian policy brief published as part of The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change 2020.
“Studies from 2015 to 2020 have shown that climate change had a role to play in 76 floods, droughts, storms and temperature anomalies” said two of the MSF co-authors. Specialists warn how human-caused disruptions to the environment will exacerbate existing medical and humanitarian needs, particularly in climate hot spots.
Re Climate change and covid-19 - consider this:
“But we must not suppose that all the trials and hardships of life are punishments. Many of these are tonics for the soul, and remedies for its deficiencies. The physician who requires his patient to swallow bitter medicine or to undertake painful exercise, is not punishing the patient, but assisting him to health. The physician is not inflicting penalty, but conferring benefit. So it is with many of the pains and distresses which we endure in life; these are medicines prescribed by God for our eternal welfare.”
So said St Thomas Aquinas, OP READ MORE...
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” From Gospel to Life: Isaiah 58:6
Non sola scriptura sed magisterium: Pope Francis, Laudato si’, 217:
“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
As Pope Francis has written: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” (Laudato si’, 139). This is clearly exemplified by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who reflected on the health and humanitarian consequences of climate change in a humanitarian policy brief published as part of The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change 2020.
“Studies from 2015 to 2020 have shown that climate change had a role to play in 76 floods, droughts, storms and temperature anomalies” said two of the MSF co-authors. Specialists warn how human-caused disruptions to the environment will exacerbate existing medical and humanitarian needs, particularly in climate hot spots.
Re Climate change and covid-19 - consider this:
“But we must not suppose that all the trials and hardships of life are punishments. Many of these are tonics for the soul, and remedies for its deficiencies. The physician who requires his patient to swallow bitter medicine or to undertake painful exercise, is not punishing the patient, but assisting him to health. The physician is not inflicting penalty, but conferring benefit. So it is with many of the pains and distresses which we endure in life; these are medicines prescribed by God for our eternal welfare.”
So said St Thomas Aquinas, OP READ MORE...
Belated Happy 85th Birthday to
David Takayoshi Suzuki, CC, OBC, FRSC
and many thanks!
David Takayoshi Suzuki, CC, OBC, FRSC
and many thanks!
| In June 2018, Pope Francis hosted oil and gas executives on “Energy Transition and Care for our Common Home.” He said: “Yet even more worrying is the continued search for new fossil fuel reserves, whereas the Paris Agreement clearly urged keeping most fossil fuels underground… Civilization requires energy, but energy use must not destroy civilization!” |  |
[PM Justin Trudeau; Conservative leader Erin O’Toole & Premier Jason Kenney are Catholic. And yet …? Then there is the mind boggler from the recent Conservative Party resolution – see below]
| Fast from the silence... We must speak up! See video 37 sec | |
“The businesses, national or international, which harm the Amazon… should be called for what they are: injustice and crime.” Pope Francis, 2020, Querida Amazonia
OFS Canada National Fraternity and Franciscan Voice Canada recently co-signed a letter by The Special Commission on Integral Ecology and Mining for the Brazilian Bishops' Conference (CNBB), the international Catholic network Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and the German Catholic Church Bank: Bank für Kirche und Caritas (BKC) to Brazilian government officials with clear demands to protect the Amazon and the indigenous people living there. By supporting this letter as a co-signatory, we give more weight to these demands and joined the first Catholic engagement in this dimension.
I asked the three OFS First Order Franciscan Spiritual Assistants if their Provinces had co-signed. Thank you Br Ben Ripley, OFM for passing on the suggestion to his Provincial; from the list of co-signers I see the Franciscans of Canada co-signed. I know all Spiritual Assistants are busy but I did not hear back from the Conventual and Capuchin SA’s if they asked their Provincial before the deadline of 25 March; but I wonder: if not, why not?
Daniel DiLeo of Creighton University told an online audience that the U.S. Catholic church is failing to respond to the climate emergency. He said: “"The U.S. Catholic response has not been anywhere near what is commensurate with the science and the magnitude of what [Pope] Francis describes as the climate emergency. So we've done some things, but it's not anywhere near commensurate with what's required."
This prompted a mea culpa from Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, in his response to the lecture. Can we say the same for the Canadian Catholic Church and the Franciscan Family as a whole, with only a few exceptions, in Canada? Are some more mea culpa’s due? As the Bishop of Rome wrote (Laudato si’, 161): “The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences.”
I continue to ask: can you imagine the positive effect on youth “who will have to endure the dire consequences” if they saw a Canadian Bishop or a religious Provincial at a Fridays for Future demo?
Cardinal Hollerich invites us to celebrate the #SeasonOfCreation
OFS Canada National Fraternity and Franciscan Voice Canada recently co-signed a letter by The Special Commission on Integral Ecology and Mining for the Brazilian Bishops' Conference (CNBB), the international Catholic network Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and the German Catholic Church Bank: Bank für Kirche und Caritas (BKC) to Brazilian government officials with clear demands to protect the Amazon and the indigenous people living there. By supporting this letter as a co-signatory, we give more weight to these demands and joined the first Catholic engagement in this dimension.
I asked the three OFS First Order Franciscan Spiritual Assistants if their Provinces had co-signed. Thank you Br Ben Ripley, OFM for passing on the suggestion to his Provincial; from the list of co-signers I see the Franciscans of Canada co-signed. I know all Spiritual Assistants are busy but I did not hear back from the Conventual and Capuchin SA’s if they asked their Provincial before the deadline of 25 March; but I wonder: if not, why not?
Daniel DiLeo of Creighton University told an online audience that the U.S. Catholic church is failing to respond to the climate emergency. He said: “"The U.S. Catholic response has not been anywhere near what is commensurate with the science and the magnitude of what [Pope] Francis describes as the climate emergency. So we've done some things, but it's not anywhere near commensurate with what's required."
This prompted a mea culpa from Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, in his response to the lecture. Can we say the same for the Canadian Catholic Church and the Franciscan Family as a whole, with only a few exceptions, in Canada? Are some more mea culpa’s due? As the Bishop of Rome wrote (Laudato si’, 161): “The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences.”
I continue to ask: can you imagine the positive effect on youth “who will have to endure the dire consequences” if they saw a Canadian Bishop or a religious Provincial at a Fridays for Future demo?
Cardinal Hollerich invites us to celebrate the #SeasonOfCreation
 Pope meets Greta Thunberg 17 April 2019 and supports the Fridays for Future climate strike. https://youtu.be/cj-ErzvbLfk |  Montreal high school students march 27 Sept 2019 as part of a worldwide day of protest against climate change. (Louise Gravel/Radio-Canada) |
| INFINITE GROWTH FINITE PLANET |  |
The financial sector is at the heart of an economic model that is killing us and irreparably damaging the planet we inhabit. Failing to act now will have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. Yet big banks have funded the fossil fuel industry to the tune of 2.7 trillion dollars since 2016. What drives this suicidal behaviour is our economic system. Addicted to infinite growth and ever-increasing profit extraction, this system requires more burning of fossil fuels, more resource extraction, more deforestation and more consumption.
We need an economic system that prioritises human welfare and flourishing, not infinite growth on a finite planet.
DEMANDS
We demand governments, banks, and other political, economic and financial institutions:
Tell the truth about our global economic system which creates staggering inequity, distorts priorities and causes harm. Financial institutions must fully disclose the social, climate and ecological impacts of funding, so it is clear who is paying the true cost.
Act now to stop financing death, destruction and social collapse. Start repairing damage, and make the necessary investments to prepare for the climate, ecological and health crises.
Champion Citizens’ Assemblies at all key levels, including global, with legally-binding mandates to design a fair and just economy in service to all people and life on earth.
Programs in Earth Literacies are about igniting our connection with the living Earth and the profound connection of all life that emerges on it. But did you know that our work promoting Earth Literacies goes beyond our workshops? Read more...
We demand governments, banks, and other political, economic and financial institutions:
Tell the truth about our global economic system which creates staggering inequity, distorts priorities and causes harm. Financial institutions must fully disclose the social, climate and ecological impacts of funding, so it is clear who is paying the true cost.
Act now to stop financing death, destruction and social collapse. Start repairing damage, and make the necessary investments to prepare for the climate, ecological and health crises.
Champion Citizens’ Assemblies at all key levels, including global, with legally-binding mandates to design a fair and just economy in service to all people and life on earth.
Programs in Earth Literacies are about igniting our connection with the living Earth and the profound connection of all life that emerges on it. But did you know that our work promoting Earth Literacies goes beyond our workshops? Read more...
The world needs climate justice, and we need it now. Our politicians, corporations, and leaders have been promising a greener, better future for years, but the world continues to spiral into climate chaos, jeopardizing the present of many, and the future of all. As the end of the fossil fuel era approaches, it is necessary that we move forward from this pivotal point in history through a Just Transition that will ensure the security of our futures. This "Just Transition", as called for by the international trade union movement, must be at the heart of solutions as we work towards a greener economy.
The youth movement is here, more than ever, and we are demanding that Canadian government stop abandoning the promises they have made. Because there is still hope for a better future, once we act.
We as grassroots groups from across Turtle Island [the name used by some First Nations for North America], unite in calling on the pillars of the fossil fuel industry, the government, banks, and insurance companies to #ActOnYourPromises in order to build a safe and healthy planet for all.
Go here to find out more about telling our banks to divest from fossil fuels.
The youth movement is here, more than ever, and we are demanding that Canadian government stop abandoning the promises they have made. Because there is still hope for a better future, once we act.
We as grassroots groups from across Turtle Island [the name used by some First Nations for North America], unite in calling on the pillars of the fossil fuel industry, the government, banks, and insurance companies to #ActOnYourPromises in order to build a safe and healthy planet for all.
Go here to find out more about telling our banks to divest from fossil fuels.
| Laudato si’, 13: “for we know that things can change” This is what the major Canadian banks have invested and need to change..... |  |
If you are a Secular Franciscan ask your Franciscan First Order Spiritual Assistant to ask their local Minister and Provincial what bank they deal with and join this campaign. Refer to Caritas in Veritate & Laudato si’! Pope Benedict XVI in his social encyclical Caritas in Veritate wrote that...
| the economy - and by extension finance too –“needs ethics in order to function correctly— not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred” (CiV, n 45) and... |
Pope Francis calls in Laudato si’ for a renewed sense of responsibility on the part of all for the common good and for our brothers and sisters worldwide, and this in a spirit of fraternity. (nn 25, 189 & 190)
Individual actions, necessary though they are, are not enough alone and need to be accompanied by government and corporate action. We can Raise Our Voices to make that happen:
The Royal Bank of Canada is the fifth largest fossil fuel funder in the world and the biggest one in Canada. Since 2016, when the Paris climate agreement was signed, RBC has poured over $200 billion into dangerous fossil fuel projects that threaten the very existence of our planet.
Sign now: Tell RBC to stop funding climate destruction and respect Indigenous rights.
Individual actions, necessary though they are, are not enough alone and need to be accompanied by government and corporate action. We can Raise Our Voices to make that happen:
The Royal Bank of Canada is the fifth largest fossil fuel funder in the world and the biggest one in Canada. Since 2016, when the Paris climate agreement was signed, RBC has poured over $200 billion into dangerous fossil fuel projects that threaten the very existence of our planet.
Sign now: Tell RBC to stop funding climate destruction and respect Indigenous rights.
Here is a way we can celebrate Earth Day 22 April
 |  |
The For the Love of Creation faith-in-action campaign is calling on the Hon Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, to commit to:
It will be automatically copied to the Prime Minister as well as to your local Member of Parliament.
Go to the letter here.
- reduce Canada's national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 60 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and
- invest in a just transition to a fair, inclusive, green economy that creates good secure jobs, and promotes the well-being of everyone in Canada.
It will be automatically copied to the Prime Minister as well as to your local Member of Parliament.
Go to the letter here.
A mind boggler or what?
Conservative party members vote down resolution to officially recognize climate change (20 Mar 2021)(Global News)
Though the party’s policy declaration already contains a lengthy section on that subject, 54 per cent of delegates voted against expanding it to include the sentence “we recognize that climate change is real. The Conservative Party is willing to act.”
Ahead of the convention, the anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition had circulated a “voters guide” to the resolutions and had urged its membership to vote down the one on the environment, saying “global warning alarmism” was being used to justify population control and abortion.
[I can only ask should they not also care about pollution which according to an article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet (19 October 2017) reports that pollution overall accounts for an estimated 9 million premature deaths each year? And how many lives is climate change causing?]
However, according to CBC, 22 Mar 2021, despite Conservatives voting against climate motion, O'Toole says he'll have a climate plan before election and hints at targeting big emitters rather than households.
About time! But actually everybody - all of us - will have to pay our fair share.
What is our fair share?
Conservative party members vote down resolution to officially recognize climate change (20 Mar 2021)(Global News)
Though the party’s policy declaration already contains a lengthy section on that subject, 54 per cent of delegates voted against expanding it to include the sentence “we recognize that climate change is real. The Conservative Party is willing to act.”
Ahead of the convention, the anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition had circulated a “voters guide” to the resolutions and had urged its membership to vote down the one on the environment, saying “global warning alarmism” was being used to justify population control and abortion.
[I can only ask should they not also care about pollution which according to an article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet (19 October 2017) reports that pollution overall accounts for an estimated 9 million premature deaths each year? And how many lives is climate change causing?]
However, according to CBC, 22 Mar 2021, despite Conservatives voting against climate motion, O'Toole says he'll have a climate plan before election and hints at targeting big emitters rather than households.
About time! But actually everybody - all of us - will have to pay our fair share.
What is our fair share?
Belarus, Hong Kong, Syria, Honduras plus many others
& now Myanmar
& now Myanmar
Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, OFM Cap wrote a book (2021) entitled:
Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living
Things Worth Dying For? Good question! Consider this:
Sister Ann Rosa Nu Tawng, of the Sisters of St. Francis Xavier congregation in Myitkyina in Myanmar is speaking out after photos spread around the world of her kneeling in front of security officers in a desperate bid to shield anti-coup protesters from violence, 28 Feb 2021. The 45-year-old told the UCA News that she had prepared herself to “give my life for the Church, for the people and for the nation.”
Notice the three finger sign pictured below. The Hunger Games salute became commonplace early after the May 2014 military coup d’état in Thailand. Days after then-General Prayut Chan-o-cha assumed power, protesters began flashing the three-finger salute in defiance. Many early on saw the salute as emblematic of the French Revolution, a gesture of liberty, equality and fraternity. Others viewed it as meaning freedom, election, democracy. It has since been used in Hong Kong and now Myanmar.
Could it also mean justice, peace and care of creation?
Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living
Things Worth Dying For? Good question! Consider this:
Sister Ann Rosa Nu Tawng, of the Sisters of St. Francis Xavier congregation in Myitkyina in Myanmar is speaking out after photos spread around the world of her kneeling in front of security officers in a desperate bid to shield anti-coup protesters from violence, 28 Feb 2021. The 45-year-old told the UCA News that she had prepared herself to “give my life for the Church, for the people and for the nation.”
Notice the three finger sign pictured below. The Hunger Games salute became commonplace early after the May 2014 military coup d’état in Thailand. Days after then-General Prayut Chan-o-cha assumed power, protesters began flashing the three-finger salute in defiance. Many early on saw the salute as emblematic of the French Revolution, a gesture of liberty, equality and fraternity. Others viewed it as meaning freedom, election, democracy. It has since been used in Hong Kong and now Myanmar.
Could it also mean justice, peace and care of creation?
 |  |
Naypyidaw, Myanmar 18 Feb STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-12/
https://www.ucanews.com/news/a-brave-nun-makes-a-stand-in-myanmar/91607
https://www.ucanews.com/news/a-brave-nun-makes-a-stand-in-myanmar/91607
 28 February 2021 |  8 March 2021 Pic: Myitkyina News Journal |
Sister Ann Rosa Nu Tawng's resolve to protect peaceful protesters 28 Feb 2021 drew global praise. Sister Ann Roza put herself in danger again just over a week later on 8 March 2021 as she tried to stop police using violence against protesters in Myanmar. Sister Ann Roza pleaded with police not to harm protesters. See Skynews and Aleteia
UCANews reported that hundreds of Catholic laypeople joined by priests and nuns marched in Mandalay, praying the rosary out loud and calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Let us pray for them! See Vatican and Catholic Register
By 8 April Al Jazeera reported over 600 protesters killed by the military. In a video message to an online prayer service March 14, Yangon Cardinal Charles Bo said the Feb. 1 military coup and the ensuing crackdown plunged Myanmar into "yet another chapter of darkness, bloodshed and repression." A "decade of reform and opening" has been replaced by a return to "the nightmare of military repression, brutality, violence and dictatorship."
Ucanews.com reported Cardinal Bo praised "the amazing courage, commitment and creativity of our people, demonstrating throughout the country in their thousands for many days."
"They have shown their determination not to allow their hard-won democracy and freedoms, their hopes of peace, to be stolen from them. It was a beautiful sight to see and a great inspiration. The sense of unity and solidarity in diversity -- with people of different ethnicities and religions coming together for the same cause -- was remarkable. But that was met with bullets, beatings, bloodshed and grief. So many have been killed or wounded in our streets, and so many thousands have been arrested and disappeared."
UCANews reported that hundreds of Catholic laypeople joined by priests and nuns marched in Mandalay, praying the rosary out loud and calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Let us pray for them! See Vatican and Catholic Register
By 8 April Al Jazeera reported over 600 protesters killed by the military. In a video message to an online prayer service March 14, Yangon Cardinal Charles Bo said the Feb. 1 military coup and the ensuing crackdown plunged Myanmar into "yet another chapter of darkness, bloodshed and repression." A "decade of reform and opening" has been replaced by a return to "the nightmare of military repression, brutality, violence and dictatorship."
Ucanews.com reported Cardinal Bo praised "the amazing courage, commitment and creativity of our people, demonstrating throughout the country in their thousands for many days."
"They have shown their determination not to allow their hard-won democracy and freedoms, their hopes of peace, to be stolen from them. It was a beautiful sight to see and a great inspiration. The sense of unity and solidarity in diversity -- with people of different ethnicities and religions coming together for the same cause -- was remarkable. But that was met with bullets, beatings, bloodshed and grief. So many have been killed or wounded in our streets, and so many thousands have been arrested and disappeared."
Catholic priests joining Myanmar 's protests against the military coup, demanding the restoration of their elected government and leaders. Learn more
Did you wonder about the story of the woman and young girl
pictured in this Share Love Share Lent poster?
pictured in this Share Love Share Lent poster?
They are María Felícita López (31) and her daughter Hilda (8). María opposed hydroelectric project Los Encinos on Río Chinacla in La Paz, Honduras. Maria is the Coordinator of the Independent Indigenous Lenca Movement of La Paz, Honduras, (MILPAH) that defends mountains, forests and rivers and was born in response to the irregular concessions of rivers and territories to mining companies and hydroelectric projects in their lands. Maria and family have been harassed, insulted and their lives threatened because she defended her people against the building of a dam without community consent which is a breach of International Labour Convention 169. Instead, Global Witness claims that 600 people were bussed in from the neighbouring country of El Salvador to sign consent forms with the promise of employment and were then promptly bussed home again. Worse still, three indigenous activists have been killed and others have been victims of threats, intimidation and smear campaigns.
María’s home was raided by police and army claiming to search for weapons and drugs. Her husband fled to El Salvador after she says he was wrongly accused of murder.
Please support D&P/ Caritas Canada!
María’s home was raided by police and army claiming to search for weapons and drugs. Her husband fled to El Salvador after she says he was wrongly accused of murder.
Please support D&P/ Caritas Canada!
Christ is risen! Peace, all good & joy!
For Divine Mercy Sunday:
Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness (mercy), and to walk humbly with your God?
Rest in Peace: Swiss Catholic theologian who dared to ask difficult questions: Hans Küng (1928-2021)
“There was a bottom-up movement in Latin America to transform people’s lives,” says journalist Christopher Lamb [Rome correspondent of The Tablet], “and Pope Francis comes from that tradition. He’s not a liberal. He’s not a conservative.
He’s a radical.” [PBS, 2020, Inside the Vatican]
Radical just means going to the root of the problem.
Radical comes from Latin radix meaning root.
I too have been accused of being a radical, as if so being were bad,
and am guilty as charged!
I am happy to be in such good company!
Pax et bonum!
Peace & joy!
For Divine Mercy Sunday:
Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness (mercy), and to walk humbly with your God?
Rest in Peace: Swiss Catholic theologian who dared to ask difficult questions: Hans Küng (1928-2021)
“There was a bottom-up movement in Latin America to transform people’s lives,” says journalist Christopher Lamb [Rome correspondent of The Tablet], “and Pope Francis comes from that tradition. He’s not a liberal. He’s not a conservative.
He’s a radical.” [PBS, 2020, Inside the Vatican]
Radical just means going to the root of the problem.
Radical comes from Latin radix meaning root.
I too have been accused of being a radical, as if so being were bad,
and am guilty as charged!
I am happy to be in such good company!
Pax et bonum!
Peace & joy!
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