January 28, 2020
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The theme of this year’s Share Lent campaign is For Our Common Home. This campaign, inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and the 2019 Pan-Amazonian Synod of Bishops, tells us that the Earth is our common home and that we need to care for it. The protection of the natural environment is a fundamental vocation of humanity founded in scripture. In the story of creation in Genesis 2, God asks the first human beings to ‘guard’ and ‘cultivate’ the terrestrial garden. This responsibility for God’s creation means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate balance existing between the creatures of the world, for “he commanded and they were created; and he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds and he set a law which cannot pass away” (Ps 148:5b-6). The Bible’s ethical teaching focuses on relations, not only with God and among humans, but also with other living beings and with the whole created world.
In this campaign For Our Common Home, Development and Peace amplifies Pope Francis’ message that today, our relationship with God’s creation is wounded and that our common planetary home is falling into ruin due to human destruction. We are on the brink of an unprecedented global challenge regarding sustainability of our common home, which places a question mark on the very future of human civilization. Pope Francis calls this rupture of the relationship between humankind and God’s creation “ecological sin.” The destruction of our common planetary home is a sin against God, humanity, and the world. It ruptures the bonds of divine, human, and cosmic fellowship.
The Campaign For Our Common Home reminds all of us that, although we are all affected by effects of ecological imbalances, communities of vulnerable and poor people, especially those in the Global South, suffer greater effects. As Pope Francis stresses, “the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing, and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited.” During the Fall Campaign, Development and Peace members throughout Canada collected over 25,000 signatures for a Solidarity Letter addressed to two Brazilian communities battling to protect their God-given natural environments. Thank you all for your prayerful support and your solidarity through those signatures to the Seringueiro and Mura communities.
This Lent, we can support the For Our Common Home campaign by holding in our hearts and prayers the Seringueiros, Mura, and other Amazonian vulnerable communities who suffer threats to their livelihoods due to ecological sin. During Lent, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops designates the Fifth Sunday as Solidarity Sunday when our annual Share Lent collection will be taken up. On that Sunday, March 29th, I ask you to please be generous in donating to Development and Peace so that the courage of those who defend Our Common Home is strengthened by our solidarity with them. In our sharing we are joining with our sisters and brothers in the Amazonian Rainforest and around the world in the defense of our common home.
Grace and peace,
✠Donald J. Bolen
Archbishop of Regina
DJB:bg
