Church leaders urged not to 'impose' solutions to climate crisis

Priest says solutions must come from within.

Manila:  Environmental activists in the Philippines welcomed Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato si', but said the institutional church should not impose its own solutions to the climate crisis.

"I don't think any church [should] impose on us solutions," said missionary Father Dan O'Malley, regional director of the Columban mission in the Philippines.

O'Malley made the statement as a response to the call of Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, who on Aug. 18 urged Asian churches to take the lead in combating climate change.

Cardinal Bo made the call ahead of a two-day regional climate change seminar organized by the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences in Bangkok.

The prelate called on Church leaders to develop "practical solutions" to the climate crisis.

O'Malley, however, told a gathering of environmental activists, civil society organizations, farmers and tribal leaders on Aug. 19 in Manila that the search for solutions to the problem is "a shared process."

The priest said farmers, fishermen and the urban poor must be a part of the "search for a solution... [because] they will struggle with the problem".

He welcomed Cardinal Bo's call "to find practical solutions" for affected communities but said they must search for such solutions themselves.

"Otherwise, [the solution] is imposed. And [the people] would not go into ownership of the solution," the priest said.



Urgent need

For the first time since Pope Francis issued the encyclical Laudato si' in June, church groups, environmental activists, farmers and indigenous peoples’ organizations in the Philippines met and discussed the encyclical's significance to the country's food security and agriculture.

In a joint statement, the groups said they view the encyclical as a "commentary on the real and unfortunate state of the natural environment."

They also agreed with the pope's call to "re-examine our human relationship with one another, our drive for over-consumption and our relationship with the environment."

The groups, which included environmental group Greenpeace and the Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group (ETC), called for "new ways of responsibly caring for nature ... starting with a more ecological food and agriculture system."

"There really is an urgent need for all of us to change our ways and put our home in order because of the environmental degradation everywhere," said Virginia Benosa-Llorin, food and ecological agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace in Southeast Asia.

She said agriculture has been impacted by floods and droughts "caused by human-induced climate change, in part driven by our unsustainable throw-away consumption patterns."

Benosa-Llorin cited the case of the Philippines, which used to be rice-sufficient but has become a rice-importing country. She said that in 2008, the Philippines has wasted more than 12 percent of imported rice.

"This means the average Filipino has wasted at least two tablespoons of cooked rice every day that could have been enough to feed 2.5 million Filipinos for a year," she said.

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC's Latin American director, which monitors new technologies, said technology has played a key role in "reinforcing wealth concentration and societal inequity."

"The pope is opposed to technologies that are profit driven and industry directed that may have direct or collateral damage for Mother Earth and her citizens," said Ribeiro.

Ribiero, who hails from Uruguay, was part of a group of Latin American social movements that provided input to Pope Francis in the months leading to the drafting of Laudato si'.

Religious groups attending the forum expressed hope that the public would take inspiration from Laudato si' and that government institutions would take on the pope’s challenge to change their practices.

"For those of us in the clergy, Laudato si' signals the Church's involvement in this movement. Everyone should all come together to protect the environment to serve the needs of the poor and address the immoral inequality that is the worst ill of today’s society," said Columban Father John Leydon of Manila.

Source: UCAN