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DORCHESTER -- Jesuit Father Andrea Vicini, chair of the Boston College Theology Department, describes the crisis of climate change in a way that may be familiar to the Boston area. He calls it "a wicked problem."
"Wicked problems are characterized by daunting complexity, interconnected issues, and the lack of a single easy solution requiring multifaceted approaches and long-term adaptation in facing this wicked problem," Father Vicini said in his address to the 16th annual Archdiocese of Boston Social Justice Convocation at Boston College High School in Dorchester on March 29. "We feel impotent, even desperate in our classrooms, at home, in our parishes."
Father Vicini delivered the keynote address, entitled "A Renewed Care for Our Common Home," at the convocation, the first to be held in person since 2019. This year's convocation's theme was "Hope for Our Common Home: Catholics Caring for Creation" and was centered around the ideas put forth in Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si'."
Father Vicini said that "Laudato Si'" expresses the fundamental interconnectedness of all creation.
"Whether we focus on human beings, on all other living and nonliving creatures, we are all related, interconnected members of God's family, God's heirs," he said.
He said that Catholics will naturally turn to their faith to guide their response to climate change.
"We know that God is with us, and God will not abandon us," he said.
He gave the example of Kiribati, an island nation in the South Pacific whose residents are fleeing their ancestral homeland due to rising sea levels. Father Vicini said that the Kiribatians are an example of a new kind of refugee, "people forced to be displaced because of climate change." Some of them are Christians who believe that God will deliver them from the destruction of their home.
"We wonder whether our faith can lead us to read and interpret God's Word and covenant and listen to God's promises differently in ways to empower us to act and join God's world in creation, caring for our common home, and addressing the environmental, social, political, and educational challenges that are part of our climate crisis," Father Vicini said.
He said that Catholic social teaching, and the teaching of the Gospels, demand that Catholics respond to climate change and help its victims.
"The climate crisis could be what we believe hinders and blocks our personal, social, and ecclesial flourish," he said. "God's promise is that Jesus is forever with us, helping us to experience how we can begin right there, finding solutions and working with others."
Listening to climate science is not enough, however. He warned that Catholics must "hear the cry of the poor and of the planet."
"To be in solidarity does not mean to be only spectators, receive this vision and then return to our lives," he said.
Even the city of Boston will experience flooding in the coming years, according to Boston University studies.
"How should we act?" Father Vicini asked. "Stewardship, responsibility, and solidarity summon each one of us to critically decide how we live, how we consume energy, how and what we waste, how we pollute."
Pope Francis also warns of the "technocratic paradigm," the assumption that scientific progress is the sole solution to the climate crisis.
"Our Catholic tradition supports our hope by empowering us to be virtuous, by striving to make our civil society and our church more virtuous."
This year's convocation began with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Richard G. Henning with Msgr. J. Bryan Hehir, the Archdiocese of Boston's secretary for health and human services, delivering the homily.
Msgr. Hehir said that when it comes to solving society's problems, "we can't do it alone."
"We can do it with the help of the Lord, the teaching of the church, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and so we always begin at the altar before we proceed onward," he said.
He said that "Laudato Si'" is "the text for our generation." In his time on college campuses, he has found that young people don't need to be told why climate change is important.
"The young grasp it by instinct," he said. "They do not need to be led to it. It is the issue of their time."
PHOTOCUT:
A life size poster of Pope Francis greets attendees at the 16th annual Social Justice Convocation held at Boston College High School March 29.
Pilot photo/Wes Cipolla
Annual Social Justice Convocation focuses on climate change
By Wes Cipolla Pilot Staff
After Mass, Archbishop Henning said that the convocation is "fundamentally a gathering about relationship," especially solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable who suffer the brunt of climate change's effects.
"We are called in this holy universe to be more and more aware of the communion that exists among us as the children of God, more and more aware of the magnitude of the gift that the Lord has entrusted to our care and the creation that surrounds us with such beauty and richness," he said. "So I pray that this experience of relationship can be a light for our local archdiocese here in Boston."
The event also featured a panel discussion moderated by The CatholicTV Network's Victoria Sechrist. The discussion, which represented local, global, and student perspectives on climate action, featured Deacon Timothy Donohue, chair of the Archdiocese of Boston Social Justice Ministry and the diocesan director of Catholic Relief Services; Mary Wambui, an affordable housing asset manager for the archdiocese's Planning Office for Urban Affairs; and Matt Spearing, director of environmental sustainability at St. John's Prep in Danvers.
"What Catholic Relief Services does is it brings us in solidarity with so many people around the world," Deacon Donohue said. "And I think, if I did anything in my lifetime that I'm proud of, it's taking my children to see the face of poverty that exists around the world. It touches your heart forever."
The panelists discussed ways individuals can help the environment, such as turning off lights when not needed and using reusable water bottles instead of single-use plastic ones, as well as strategies to make one's voice heard on environmental issues.
Spearing works with students at Catholic high schools throughout the archdiocese as part of the Catholic Climate Covenant. Those students joined hundreds of others in an environmentalist demonstration and talks with legislators at the Massachusetts Statehouse in February.
"Working with young people every day inspires me, and that's hopeful," Spearing said.
He recently asked a group of students whether they see themselves as a part of nature.
"And they had never thought of it, or they said no," he said. "And that's troubling to me, because I think that we need to see ourselves as part of it, and we need to see it inside of us. And for me, that's what God is."
The panelists agreed that a lack of "temperance" is to blame for the destruction of the environment.
"Lack of self-government is the reason why we are in a crisis like the one we are in today," Wambui said. "We love things happening very quickly."
Spearing pointed out that it takes time to change hearts and minds.
"There are so many individual actions that you can do to work toward temperance and thinking about food and energy, money, greed, things that we really need to work on," he said. "But there's also an internal transformation, and then I think that needs to happen."
The panel discussion was followed by a visit from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who co-chaired a climate summit hosted by Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2024.
"'Laudato Si''is a clarion call for us to put aside our differences, no matter how you vote, no matter what you look like, no matter what language you speak or where you were born," Mayor Wu said in her remarks. "This is the moral, the spiritual call for all of us to remember our connection to each other and to this great planet and the creator that made all of this possible."
She said that being a mother has given her a new sense of urgency about climate change.
"Seeing kids playing in a snowstorm, watching a baby experience a bright sunny day for the first time, or the memories of bringing little ones to dip their feet in the waters of the ocean for the very first time," she said. "All of these moments are just as important as a scientific backing for why we need to move on climate change."
She said that the city of Boston should "do everything we possibly can" as extreme heat increases with each summer.
"This is the type of work that I hope we will all feel called to," she said. "It's urgent, it's technical, it's substantive, but most of all, it is about the joy and delight of being part of this human family and making sure that we can pass down this incredible gift to the next generations. So thank you for your stewardship."