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Center for Spirituality in Nature
The Center for Spirituality in Nature is a center located in Arlington, Virginia, that offers spiritual experiences in nature with the aim to draw people closer to their relationship with God. They offer programs that explore the theological, spiritual, and ecological connections between the Earth and all its creatures. They are partners with the Wild Church Network and their work has been mentioned in The Washington Post and Interpreter Magazine. -
Profile: Marti Hunter
Marti Hunter is the Communications Consultant for Ohio Interfaith Power and Light. She has a background in both religious education and communications work.
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”-William Shakespeare -
Creation Justice Ministries Downloadable Resources
Creation Justice Ministries offers downloadable resources to help educate on faith and climate change. They have resources on climate and energy, Earth Day, environmental health, and land & water stewardship. There is also a free download on how to build a creation friendly church. -
Just Transition: Shrinking our Carbon Footprint While Leaving No One Behind
Just Transition: Shrinking our Carbon Footprint While Leaving No One Behind is a webinar offered by the Catholic Climate Covenant. It focuses on how the poor feels the greatest impacts and consequences of climate change, how to address the challenge of switching from a fossil-fuels based economy to a clean energy economy, and what Catholic social teachings have to say about a transition to a clean energy economy. -
Crown Point Ecology Center
Crown Point is an ecology center in Bath, Ohio. Their mission is to demonstrate the applications of ecology and connect them to spirituality, social justice, and environmental protection. They work to be a role model for food security and sustainable land use through farm stewardship, advocacy, and education. Their goals and mission are achieved by integrating their four core values into everyday life. Their four core values include community, justice, spirituality, and sustainability. -
Diocese of Southern Ohio goes Green
By the end of May, The Diocese of Southern Ohio will have all of their buildings powered by 100% renewable energy. These buildings include Procter Center, Diocesan House, Gabriel’s Place, and the Latino Ministry Center in Forest Park. The diocese will be saving over $1,400 annually along with reducing their carbon footprint. -
Creation Television Series
Salt + Light Media produced a free television series called Creation. It contains personal stories, clerical teachings, and Biblical truths. Its goal is to help answer the fundamental question, why do Catholics need to care about the environment? -
Catholicism and Veganism Presentation
On April 21st, the Columbus Veg Community is holding a Catholicism and Veganism presentation at the Columbus Metropolitan Library. The speaker, Madison Maholm, is a passionate Catholic Vegan who is a Worship Leader at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Grove City. In Madison’s presentation, she will speak about how religion impacts all areas of her life, including food. There will be free vegan food provided, and a Q&A session after the presentation. -
Care for God’s Creation: Make the World Better than You Found it
Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Grove City is holding an informative and interactive evening designed to provide practical ways to respond to the Catholic faith by caring for our common home. The meeting will be held on October 1st from 6:30 to 8:30 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Life Center, Grove City. There will be two speakers: Jerry Freewalt, director of the diocesan Office of Social Concerns, and Jason Cervenec of the OSU Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. -
Food Security: Dream of Feeding Hundreds Comes True
Brother Paul Kennedy, a member of the Dominican Order, grew up in Cincinnati with a dream of running a restaurant. Today, he is fulfilling that dream in an unexpected way. Every weekday, he is in charge of feeding the physical and spiritual hunger of more than 300 people at the Holy Family Soup Kitchen in Columbus. Brother Paul offers that, “What always was important to me about the restaurant business was the chance to communicate with people as much as the chance to feed them. But regardless of what I did, every job I’ve had in the past was focused on service to people. Here at the soup kitchen, I get the chance to do the kind of work I wanted to while growing up, while at the same time getting to know the people we serve and developing a rapport with them.” -
Beyond the Bin
St. Anthony Parish in Cincinnati, Ohio has starting their own recycling program. One of the parishioners had recently discovered that nearly 50% of all trash could be diverted by being recycled or composted. Their creation care committee launched the Beyond the Bin program by installing a 96-gallon bin in an alcove near the rectory. Word spread through the congregation, parishioners have started to bringing in their own recycling, and the program has been embraced by the entire church community. -
Profile: Jim Rogers
An A.B. graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and J.D. graduate of George Washington University, Jim Rogers has a varied background working in law and the non-profit and for-profit sectors, with notable tours as a Legal Aid Attorney, lobbyist and public relations staff for the ACLU of Ohio, and a program reviewer for United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
For the last four years he has served on the Green Team of the Community of the Good Shepherd Church in Montgomery Ohio and the Greater Cincinnati Archdiocese Task Force on Climate Change. For the latter, he has served as Chair of the Legislative Advocacy Committee which has built a relationship with several green businesses in Greater Cincinnati and has had meetings with legislators and government officials on both sides of the aisle in Columbus.
Though a life-long Christian, Jim is a committed ecumenist, believing that we will be able to address the environmental crisis and other challenges of our time only when we unite the forces of the world’s great religions. Jim serves several faith communities and supports his Christian walk with the regular practice of Yoga and “Light” energy through Sukyo Mahikari. -
Profile: Caroljean Willie
Caroljean Willie is a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, a Master’s Degree in Reading and a Ph.D. in Multicultural Education. She has extensive experience working cross-culturally throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. She is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences and has also given presentations in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. She recently completed two terms of office as the NGO representative at the United Nations for the Sisters of Charity Federation and currently serves as the program director at EarthConnection, her congregation’s environmental center in Cincinnati. -
Profile: Tony Stieritz – Honoring Faith Traditions and Shared Values
Tony is the director of Catholic Social Action of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He helped the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati form a network of climate change leaders. He inspired leaders by connecting their faith and climate solutions. Through a partnership with the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCA) 10 archdiocesan parishes, schools, and other facilities received over $290,000 in incentives to implement over $1.4 million in energy efficiency upgrades. Though Tony has had much success with climate change initiatives he still wants more people in the Archdiocese to make climate change a priority.
“We took climate change out of a political conversation and put it into a personal values conversation.” -
Sisters of Earth: Hopes and Dreams
How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy is the subtitle of Joanna Macy’s book Active Hope. The book was the inspiration for the Sisters of Earth gathering that took place July 12-15, 2018 at Mount Saint Joseph, home of the Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati was chosen as the location partly because of the ancestral inspiration of Sister of Charity Paula Gonzalez, who promoted solar power and sustainability projects and teachings throughout the Catholic world. This year, nearly 100 women from the United States and Canada gathered, in part, to remember Sister Paula and also to address concerns about the ecological/spiritual crises of our times by asking questions such as: Who are we? Where are we? How did we get here and what is possible? And — where do we go from here? -
Religion-Environment Photo Contest Winner: Tony Losekamp Winner
Tony Losekamp is a second year seminarian in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Environment and Natural Resources in 2017. He has been Catholic his whole life and chose to study environmental sciences out of a love of science and nature and a desire to help make the world a better place. While in college his faith became his own when he had to decide for himself to go to Mass on Sundays, go on retreats, join Bible Studies, go to adoration to worship Jesus in the Eucharist, and build a personal relationship with Jesus. At some point he realized that if he was going to be Catholic, he was going to have to give everything to the one who gave him everything. In giving himself completely to Jesus, he became more free to love. He finished his degree while giving more and more time to Saint Paul’s Outreach and the Newman Center, gaining missionary experience and building a love for life. That is what brought him to Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.
Tony’s photo won second place in the Religion-Environment photography contest with “Spiritual Tree.” Tony stated that, “I took this photo in Hocking Hills, Ohio, on the trail between Old man’s cave and Cedar Falls. It was spring and the forest was exploding with life. The air hummed with excitement and power that is comparable with excitement and power of a rich spiritual life in communion with God.” -
EarthConnection Cincinnati
EarthConnection, a ministry of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, is a center for learning and reflecting on how to live lightly on Earth. They focus on the interconnections of all of Creation and strive to integrate spirituality and sustainability throughout their programs. Their website lists all of the programs they have to offer and they all include a focus on sustainable agriculture, alternative energies, ecojustice, and ecospirituality. -
Engaged Organizations: Cincinnati Climate Change Task Force
In 2009, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati signed on to the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation. Since then, they have started their own Climate Change Task Force. This task force has adopted the mission of committing themselves to work towards a sustainable world based off of the responsibility to Care for God’s Creation. They work to implement the five pillars of the pledge: praying, learning, assessing, acting, and advocating for the environment and the poor. -
Catholic Bishops Push Ohio Towards Clean Energy
The Catholic Bishops of Ohio are against an indefinite freeze of Ohio’s clean energy target standards. The Ohio Mandates Study Committee has called for this freeze due to a need for continual studying of energy standards and their impact on the state. The Bishops, however, feel that there is no need to freeze the standards, as alternative energy sources benefit the environment as well as society.
This is not the first time that the Bishops of Ohio have voiced such a stance. Back in 2014, a similar issue arose with SB 310, which proposed the original freeze of Ohio’s advanced energy portfolio standard that was established by SB221. The Bishops voiced opposition to SB 310 at that time. -
The Francis Effect
With the release of Laudato Si’ and the visitation of Pope Francis to the United States, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of both Americans and Catholic Americans who have demonstrated concern over Climate Change. Individuals of various faiths have expressed more trust the Pope due to the overwhelmingly positive reception of his message. -
Water Issues in Appalachia
Some people may think that water issues in the United States only exist in the west. This is far from the truth. In addition to algae bloom issues throughout the midwest, the Appalachian region of the United States has been experiencing severe water contamination due to mining and chemical spills for the past several years. Fortunately, the residents of this region are kept informed by the Catholic Committee of Appalachia. Once a year, residents from all over the state meet in one location to discuss the issues of their region and try to come up with solutions. -
Official Denominational Environmental Webpage – Catholic
The Catholic faith has its own set of resources when it comes to environmental awareness. Their website contains lessons on advocacy, environmental justice, and other areas of life. One program, the Environmental Justice Program, is helping people of the Catholic faith to reach out and protect the environment, especially with the poor in mind. -
Steps to Sustainability
Catholic Churches have been attempting to go green for years. One resource that has helped them to achieve this goal is a series of steps explained in the National Catholic Reporter. This site shows simple and easy steps that a congregation can take to being green, from conserving water and energy to educating and building communities. -
The Boomerang Alliance’s Use of Good Friday
The Boomerang Alliance in Queensland is calling on the government to implement the use of container deposits. They are doing this with the theme of Good Friday, invoking religious feelings and morals to gain support. This Easter and holiday season, it is always important to think about what we can all do to make a difference. -
Pope Francis on the Amazon
Pope Francis attended World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. While there, he addressed the issues that the people there face in preserving the rainforest and the need to act as stewards of the environment. He spoke to the youth and encouraged them to become active in preserving the environment and carrying out holy missions.