Safeguarding creation is religious obligation, Vatican officials say
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IMAGE: CNS photo/Bilawal Arbab, EPABy Cindy WoodenVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians and Muslims, believers inone God, have an obligation to safeguard the world God created, said theVatican's annual message to Muslims for the end of Ramadan."Our vocation to be guardians of God's handiwork is notoptional, nor is ittangential to our religious commitment as Christians and Muslims: It is anessential part of it," said Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Bishop Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, respectivelypresident and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.Dated May19, the message was released at the Vatican June 2, the day after U.S. President DonaldTrump announced he was withdrawing the United States from the internationalParis accords, which are designed to lessen the human impact on climate change.Each year, the council for interreligious dialogue publishesa message to the world's Muslims in preparation for the celebration of the endof Ramadan, a month of fasting. This y...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Bilawal Arbab, EPA
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians and Muslims, believers in
one God, have an obligation to safeguard the world God created, said the
Vatican's annual message to Muslims for the end of Ramadan.
"Our vocation to be guardians of God's handiwork is not
optional, nor is it
tangential to our religious commitment as Christians and Muslims: It is an
essential part of it," said Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Bishop Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, respectively
president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
Dated May
19, the message was released at the Vatican June 2, the day after U.S. President Donald
Trump announced he was withdrawing the United States from the international
Paris accords, which are designed to lessen the human impact on climate change.
Each year, the council for interreligious dialogue publishes
a message to the world's Muslims in preparation for the celebration of the end
of Ramadan, a month of fasting. This year Ramadan ends June 24.
The pontifical council chooses a theme annually to promote
dialogue by "offering insights on current and pressing issues." The
theme chosen for 2017 was "Caring for Our Common Home," which echoes
Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, "Laudato Si'."
"As believers, our relationship with God should be increasingly
shown in the way we relate to the world around us," Cardinal Tauran and
Bishop Ayuso wrote.
Pope Francis' encyclical, they noted, was addressed "to
the whole of humanity" and drew attention "to the harm our lifestyles
and decisions are causing to the environment, to ourselves and to our fellow
human beings."
"What is needed," they said, "is education,
spiritual openness and a 'global ecological conversion' to adequately address
this challenge."
The encyclical's reference to the earth as a "'common
home,' a dwelling for all the members of the human family," they said,
means that "no one person, nation or people can impose exclusively their
understanding of our planet."
Without getting specific, the message spoke of "certain
philosophical, religious and cultural perspectives that present obstacles which
threaten humanity's relationship with nature."
The message repeated Pope Francis' call for "a new dialogue
about how we are shaping the future of our planet ', since the environmental
challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affects us all."
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Outer details of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Eric Allix RogersCNA Staff, May 15, 2024 / 12:12 pm (CNA).Catholics and city preservationists in Chicago are scrambling to try to preserve a historic parish on the city's North Side, one that has survived a century of the city's development including being fully moved to a new location after it was first built. Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will hold its final Mass on Sunday, May 19, before the parish merges with nearby St. Mary of the Lake. The consolidation is part of the Archdiocese of Chicago's ongoing "Renew My Church" initiative that has closed and merged dozens of parishes in order to address shrinking budgets and priest shortages. The archdiocese announced the Lourdes parish merger in 2021. Katerina Garcia, the president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church Preservation Society, told "EWTN News Nightly" anchor Tracy Sabol this week that parishioners at the parish dispute ...
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Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, archbishop of Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Daniel IbáñezRome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 14:17 pm (CNA).Cardinal Stephen Chow recently visited three Catholic dioceses in mainland China, one year after the bishop of Hong Kong's first historic trip to Beijing.Chow led a 10-person delegation of Catholics from Hong Kong to the southern Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shantou, and Shenzhen in April in his second official visit to China since becoming bishop of Hong Kong."We brought our people to have an encounter … where we share common concerns, for example, youth ministry, catechism, marriage and family," Chow said in a video interview published May 5.Here is a look at some of the Catholic communities Chow visited:St. Joseph's Cathedral in ShantouSt. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou, China. Credit: Kc1446 at Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsHundreds of Chinese Catholics attended a Mass in St. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou concelebrated...
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Stained-glass window at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. / Credit: Ella Manthey/ShutterstockSt. Louis, Mo., May 15, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).Two St. Louis parishes that appealed to the Vatican after Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski ordered them to merge last year have had their appeals upheld by the Holy See, reversing the archbishop's prior decision.As part of the archdiocese's major pastoral planning initiative dubbed "All Things New," Rozanski announced a year ago that the number of parishes would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures.Under canon law, a diocesan bishop has the authority to alter parishes, but only for a just reason specific to each parish. Concern for souls must be the principal motivation for modifying a parish.Amid the All Things New process, a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy's rulings. Af...