About my projects - Catholic Network for humanity and the Earth

One of my ongoing projects that aims to address the climate crisis is the “Catholic Network for humanity and the Earth.” In this blog I thought I would tell you a little about its background, strategy, and plans for the future.

There are 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, 129,000 in Sweden, and 27,000,000 in Poland, which is my parents’ homeland. A fairly significant group of people. If we are to imagine that we should cooperate across state borders to avoid war and limit the climate crisis, then the contribution of Catholics would be valuable. The church can also, at best, be an actor that stands up for long-term human values, can advocate restraint and limitations, which neither companies nor governments seem physically capable of. In short: I see an important potential for the Catholic Church to play a role in the climate crisis.

It also turns out that at least the highest hierarchy of the Church, the recent popes and their teams, have not been sitting on their hands, but have actually been diligently laying the foundations for precisely this. The former Pope Francis, may he rest in peace, is the obvious example, most clearly through his encyclical Laudato Sí, the entire first chapter of which is a natural science lesson in the climate crisis, its causes, and its consequences. The Pope explains the climate system, water availability, biodiversity, forests, the oceans, urbanization, the influence of the media on people, and global inequality. Here are just a few examples:

The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.

Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change. However, many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption. There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.

Do we need the Pope to explain all this? No, the Pope is not an authority on atmospheric simulation or ice water flows - we have scientists for that. But they have already said all this for decades. Unfortunately, we are not listening - partly because many lack the ability to discern, and partly because we are actively sabotaged by the fossil fuel industry lobby apparatus that actively sows doubts and uncertainties, which deliberately undermines the authority of legitimate scientists for economic and ideological interests¹. Given all this, it makes a difference that the Pope takes the time to state the obvious - it sends a signal, it marks that this is something we need to pay attention to.

Laudato Sí is an indispensable text, it contains so much more than just the scientific introduction. Even non-believers can probably learn a lot on a philosophical-ethical level from how pope Francis positions us in relation to the suffering of others in the world through the climate crisis. Eight years later, Francis wrote a second text, “Laudate Deum”, which is shorter but much sharper and leaves no doubt about his message: there is no excuse not to get involved in preventing the climate crisis, as a Catholic. If you look for it, you will notice the same message from several previous popes, and the current Pope Leo continues on the same track.

Has the work of the Popes worked, has it mobilized 1.4 billion Catholics to fight for the climate? Yes and no. There are many good examples, from local clothing exchange days in parishes to coordinated divestment in fossil fuels². But far from all parishes are getting involved, and in Sweden the Catholic Church is conspicuous by its absence in the context of sustainability³. I have come across priests who are open climate deniers in the Church, and so the Catholic Church is of course perceived as a conservative and “right-wing” gathering, and in that world of ideas it unfortunately seems that one should deny, or at least trivialize, the climate crisis.

So what do I do in light of that? Last year I started on a small scale by leading a “prayer group for the climate” in the parish of Saint Eugenia in Stockholm. As a complement to prayer times and conversations, I used the same principle used in activism - take a difficult truth we are looking away from, and do something that turns the spotlight on it. For example, I invited parishioners to write letters with me - letters to climate activists who were in custody. This was met with strong backlash, accusations of supporting illegal activities and so on. In the process, our culture of silence was made visible! The parish witnessed its dark side - how we would a hundred times rather throw shit at activists and hyper-focus on laws and regulations, instead of even considering for a second that large parts of the world’s population are losing their livelihood. So that was quite interesting.

Together with Björn, a Dominican monk in Lund, we are building a “Catholic network for humanity and the earth”. The hypothesis is that there are certainly many Catholics who care about the crises affecting the world, but that they do not feel that they are allowed to take a place in their parishes. If we connect them, maybe we can get everyone to dare to take visible initiatives that send the message that it is self-evident to “take care of creation” as a Catholic. So that is what we are aiming for.

We started with a public call. We wanted it to speak clearly about the climate crisis, war, and inequality, and at the same time not be dismissed as “political”. The result is published on the official website of the Catholic Church (scroll down). It is a text that took several months of work and consideration, but which I am really proud of.

To then reach out with the call, and invite people to three zoom meetings, we used a strategy that largely involved using good old… facebook. Yep - I looked up a few dozen Catholic Facebook groups, joined, and shared the information there, as a complement to the fact that the official Church account also posted it there and on Instagram. It worked. We got 10-20 participants from all over Sweden, not a lot but a sufficient start to work from.

In the Zoom meetings, Björn and I presented various reflections and in-depth discussions on how Catholic social teaching calls for protecting creation. We figured “the participants must feel that they are getting something” from each meeting. This as a complement to community-building and agency-building exercises and homework.

Now we have had a first physical meeting yesterday, where we were able to go much more in depth and start planning very concrete activities. Because this is the next step: in September the churches have something called “Season of Creation”, and it is the perfect time for Catholics to organize visible, positive initiatives with the message that creation is important. So we are working very hard now to support and encourage participants all over Sweden to come up with ideas and implement them, according to what feels fun and fits their context. Hopefully the joint effect will be really noticeable, and will inspire many more Catholics to get started themselves.

As a final note, I can say that it gives me a lot to get involved in a slightly different context than typical “activism”, it brings me to contemplation and reflection in a new way. I get help and a context to consider how my involvement in the climate crisis is connected to everything in a spiritual way, too. And I learn a lot about how to speak to reach people’s hearts.

Maybe in the future I’ll write about some of my other projects in a similar way.