HONG KONG - To celebrate World Biodiversity Day on 22 May, Columban Missionaries have released the Columban Biodiversity Podcast: Jubilee for the Earth. The study guide and embedded video links can be downloaded from the website of the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach in Washington.
The podcast is also a Columban contribution to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ Decade which launches on 24 May. We are committed to the principles of Laudato Si’ as central to our ongoing “ecological conversion”. We have joined the Laudato Si’ Action Platform as a participating organization as well as an organization that has developed the Platform. Our missionary experience has taught as that all creation forms one earth community. All are necessary and important. We need an economic and social order that collaborates mutually with the whole of God's creation as well as a spirituality of care and relationship.
To guide this commitment, an international Columban committee has been established called the Columban Creation Covenant Working Group. We are a diverse group of men and women, lay and ordained, including members from Pakistan, Myanmar, Philippines, USA, Chile, Taiwan, Fiji, Australia, Britain, Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Ireland, and China. This Columban Creation Covenant Working Group will provide guidance and accompaniment to Columbans throughout the world as we plan action towards 2030.
We are committed to engaging actively in the upcoming United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming, China, and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, UK. We see these two processes as interrelated opportunities for policy advocacy as well as grassroots education and action. We join with our international partners - including the Vatican Dicastery for Promotion of Integral Human Development, the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM), Union of Superiors General (USG), Union of International Superiors General (UISG), and national and local partners to have a robust voice calling for the care and protection of all life on the planet. We endorse GCCM’s COP15 Biodiversity petition, Healthy Planet, Healthy People .
We pray for and thank Pope Francis for his ecclesial leadership and pastoral vision which invites inclusive dialogue among peoples of all religions and those of good will. We offer our ongoing active support to bringing his encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti to life.
Rev. Tim Mulroy
Superior General, Columban Missionaries
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Download a PDF of this statement here.
For more information
Contact Amy Echeverria, Columban International Coordinator for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC)
amywe@columban.org or + 01-1-301-368-4004
About the Missionary Society of St. Columban
Columban missionaries work in 16 countries: Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Fiji, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Taiwan and the United States. Columbans participate in God’s mission and help to establish a world of peace with justice and care for the integrity of creation in solidarity with poor, exploited and marginalised communities.
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