St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Port Moody celebrated Laudato Si’ Week May 21-28 to mark the eighth anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on care for creation.
On May 20 and 21 we held a Car-Free Sunday, with parishioners who normally drive to church encouraged to leave their cars at home and travel to Sunday Mass by other means such as walking, cycling, or public transit. Those who did not travel by personal vehicle received a certificate of participation.
We conducted a transport survey and compared the results with a similar one last year. The results showed the number of people who used a vehicle to attend Mass on Car-Free Sunday dropped to 80 per cent from 89 per cent. Those who walked doubled to 12 per cent from 6 per cent, while those who used public transport increased to 8 per cent from 5 per cent.
Education about climate statistics from the Government of Canada and quotes from Pope Francis writing in Laudato Si’ were provided on a display board and in the bulletin prior to the event.
The event was organized by St. Joseph’s Laudato Si’ Circle, which includes parishioners from St. Joseph’s as well as other churches in the area, including Anglican and Lutheran churches. We also had the help of the Catholic Women’s League and the Knights of Columbus, who both have caring for the environment in their vision statements.
The event will hopefully make parishioners aware that how they travel impacts climate change. They are being asked to make a small sacrifice for the greater good of the world, particularly benefiting the poor, who are the most vulnerable to climate change. Perhaps this will form new habits in travel and encourage trying out new ways.
We received a lot of positive feedback from parishioners about the event. They appreciated it for the awareness it created on the importance of reducing our carbon footprints. As St. Joseph’s plans to rebuild its parish church, reducing the amount of car parking space required will significantly lower building costs.
I was a bit nervous about organizing the event as it is still a touchy subject for many people, but on the whole it was a success by creating awareness and conversation around the issue of climate change and Pope Francis’ teaching on caring for the environment and the poor.
As Pope Francis said in Laudato Si’, “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
For more information on Laudato Si’ Week 2023, which ends on May 28, visit laudatosiweek.org.
Mark Norbury
St. Joseph’s Laudato Si’ Circle
Port Moody
The plight of Josh Alexander, a teenager banned from an Ontario Catholic high school for expressing Catholic teaching that there are only two genders, has captured international attention. Dr. Michael Higgins, formerly Principal of Saint Mark’s College and President of Corpus Christi College, wrote an informative article in The Vancouver Sun saying, “Josh Alexander was arrested by police for breaching an exclusion order, but the real crime that the student is being punished for is upholding his Catholic beliefs and doing so in what some would no doubt think is a defiant and troublesome manner.”
It does not look good for Catholic schools if they are held hostage to gender ideology. In 2006 Archbishop Miller wrote about the marks of a Catholic school and spoke of the responsibility of the bishops to set the tone and to ensure the Catholicity of the schools. He said, “It is important that the bishop be involved in Catholic schools not only by exercising veto power – whether over texts, curricula, or teachers – but also by taking an active role in fostering the specifically Catholic ethos of schools under his jurisdiction.”
It seems that these days it is harder for Church leaders, and we must pray for them.
David Klassen
Vancouver
Birth rates are low in much of the Western world, and Canada is in a similar situation as the U.S., with our fertility rate currently falling short of the global population replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
Following a steadily declining trend that has continued since 2009, Canada’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.4 births per woman in 2020.
Women aren’t having enough children to replace the population in Canada.
Dean Clark
Langley