OTWAYS Ballarat Diocesan Ecological Sustainability Group

Origins Began in 2011, as a grassroots group asking to be formed, not sure where it fitted in Diocesan structure. Developed Vision statement in 2012 Hobart Sustainability Forum March 2012 Catholic Earthcare Conference April 2013 NEEN

Vision To foster and encourage communities to understand and embrace the ecological conversion at a local, national and world level.

ECOS promotes 1.an environmental spirituality 2.links between environmental sustainability and social, spiritual and physical health 3. a safe ecological environment is a universal right for all species 4. Ecological sustainability is required for present and future generations 5 Humans have a duty to strive for a sustainable environment to overcome poverty and injustice

Aim (and challenges) -To bring the resources for personal ecological conversion to people, parishes and wider communities -limited by time/distance/communication/ networks. -How to link Encyclical to everyday lives – home, work, schools, parishes, people with busy lives.

How do we link the theological and the practical into a spiritual awareness that provokes personal reflection and change, that gives a direction to people allowing change and advocacy in their personal and community situations?

QUOLL “.. Contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us” Ch 2,56 “I express myself in expressing the world; in my effort to decipher the sacredness of the world, I explore my own” Laudato Si Ch.2,58 (Paul Ricoeur)

Resources Catholic Earthcare Caritas Australia Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (2015 International Year of Soils)

Faith Action The Global Catholic Climate Movement Australian Religious Response to Climate Change Catholic Religious Australia The Pontifical Academy of Sciences Mercy Institute St Columban’s Mission Society ecology-and-justicehttp:// ecology-and-justice

The Economist Aug – Australians emit more carbon per person than Saudi Arabia, Canada or America

Laudato Si –Response Ch. 6 (I) Towards a new lifestyle- to bring healthy pressure on political, economic and social power (206) (II) Educating for the covenant between humanity and the environment – an awareness of the gravity of today’s cultural and ecological crisis must be translated into new habits (209) (III) Ecological conversion – rich heritage of Christian spirituality… a precious contribution (216)

Ch. 6 (IV) Joy and Peace Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. (222)

Ch. 6 (V) Civic and Political Love “Love, overflowing and with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the common good are outstanding expressions of charity …affects relationships between individuals,..also social, economic, political.. (231)

Global social effects………… The Vatican conference linked climate change and modern slavery because, according to an introductory paper, "global warming is one of the causes of poverty and forced migration". Vatican Climate Change Summit July 2015