CPW Virtual Summer Week in Review | Day 6 - A Report on Talks by Henrietta Cullinan, John Paul De Quay and Melanie Nazareth
Putting it into Action - Three Speakers Share Their Response to Calls for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation
By Mike Monaghan and Cathy Scott
In his opening talk, Diarmuid O’Murchu stressed the necessity for us to develop critical and discerning minds, and that deep shared thought and prayer must come before action.
Later in the week three speakers gave us moving and vivid examples of how they were putting this into effect within their own lives and the organisations for which they worked.
They were:
Henrietta Cullinan, a peace activist who works with the Catholic Worker movement
John Paul De Quay, who with his brother runs The Ecological Conversion Group in Arundel and Brighton Diocese
Melanie Nazareth, a retired barrister who is an organiser with Christian Climate Action, the Christian offshoot of Extinction Rebellion.
Henrietta
Henrietta began by telling us about the Catholic Worker movement which was founded by Dorothy Day in America in the 1930s at the height of the great depression. It now has houses in many parts of the world and its prophetic radical message continues to inspire people today.
Henrietta has been a member of the London Catholic Worker group since 2005. She has been involved as a peace activist and a range of social action including work with destitute refugees in London and at the Calais refugee camp.
The Catholic Worker movement places great stress on offering and receiving "hospitality" to and from all people. We were all asked to reflect on the times we have given or received hospitality and what we have learnt from it. A number of members admitted to finding it hard to move outside our comfort zones when offering hospitality.
The challenges Henrietta faced in working in the Calais "jungle", not least the heavy-handed policing, were movingly described, and in taking direct action outside the Arms Fair in London, gave a glimpse of the range of witness that the Catholic Worker movement is giving. Henrietta reminded us that there is a wide spectrum of actions which can be taken which all contribute to bring about the Kingdom of peace and justice.
How do we get involved?
Many questions were raised in the discussion especially in relation to direct action which were explored further in the subsequent talks.
John Paul
John Paul is currently coordinating ‘The journey to 2030’ project run by The Ecological Conversion Group. The group aims to tackle the climate crisis through community action. He and his brother Edward, decided to launch the initiative to support the Church’s response to Pope Francis’ impassioned plea to the human race in his apostolic exhortation, Laudato Si’, on climate and ecology, issued five years ago this year.
The ECG provide education and resources to help people and groups unpack the issues and work to reverse the ecological crisis through mobilising church people.
John Paul first approached the issues by asking why the ecological crisis is facing us and thinking about how to wake people up to tackle it. Whose responsibility is it? The problem engulfs the entire world and leads to massive social problems too – the ecological and the social are inextricably linked.
First, we study the symptoms. For example, waste. It’s not just about the wasteful global culture – leading, to cite just one example, plastic pollution. The Pope says the problem is deeper because people are cast away as well as stuff. For too long humanity has tolerated unacceptable working conditions for many, just so that others can have access to cheaper products. There has been insufficient care for the poor working conditions and hunger of others. People are starving, and the planet’s capacity to produce food is being seriously weakened by climate change. Humans waste one third of their food. We lose 12m hectare of land to desert every year. We tolerate slavery, wasteful consumer habits, in our own country, as well as other countries. There are sweat shops in our inner cities. Refugees arriving in boats on the south coast. Why are they coming? Hunger, drought, war, trafficking. Then in many parts of the world we have armed conflict. Some of these are fuelled by disputes over land and territory, and access to oil and minerals – for example conflict diamonds in Angola, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rebel movements in control of mining use the proceeds to fund wars against legitimate governments. Other minerals are exploited for use in luxury goods such as cars and mobile phones. Such mines thrive on cheap and sometimes coercive labour.
Climate change itself is dictating how our goods and our food are produced. It reinforces flows of migrants and refugees. It is contributing to a mounting mass extinction and this has already happened to the world’s previously abundant species. 70% of wildlife is threatened or being lost. Our predilection for unseasonal food means it travels vast distances at the expense of air quality. The point is that we should not address these issues separately as they all hang together. Pope Francis advocates integral ecology.
We all need to change our habits because the ‘normal’ ways we go about our lives in the West are contributing to the problem. We are all part of the system. Collectively we are responsible for the problems if we do not, for example, source our meat responsibly, dispose of our litter thoughtfully, etc.
We must not continue sleepwalking into disaster. We must get to the heart of the issue and address ALL the issues together. At the heart of the problem we have greed, indifference, instant gratification. The problem is systemic. These attitudes are entrenched in ‘normality’. Regrettably many efforts to change the situation have proved difficult because of denial, indifference, and loss of interest. We cannot simply rely on technology to get us out of the catastrophe. We are all children of God and the victims of the crisis are also our responsibility.
So how do we wake up and act?
According to the Pope, all creation is our brother and sister – and not just humanity. ‘Laudato Si’ comes from Praise Be! We should acknowledge and be grateful to God for what he has given us.
Arundel & Brighton Diocese has set up the Ecological Conversion Group to encourage church members to act – as communities and politically. To become a culture of ‘Care’ rather than ‘greed’. The Bishop of Arundel & Brighton has been very supportive of this initiative.
The Climate change issue can lead to a lot of doom and planning for decline, but still we also have millions of people who could be creative and tackle the issues if they worked together. Pope Francis has had great impact – ironically, maybe even more impact outside of the church. Within it we still need to dispel a lot of apathy. Our belief in dignity of creation should be enough motivation. We have an opportunity to rebuild our communities and promote ecology simultaneously. To ‘sow for happiness’.
The Ecological Conversion Group aims to help parishes to mobilise congregations. They worked with the Bishop to compose an impactful pastoral letter and they have created a magazine and a website giving people ideas about how to get involved. Their work is also tied in with the Live Simply movement and with CAFOD. The Covid 19 pandemic has unfortunately diverted time and attention away from this vital work.
Given the complexity of the issues and the seriousness of the threat, many people can feel daunted and not know where to start and individuals often need a lot of courage to get things started. John Paul told us the story of one person who felt too shy to raise this at a parish level, so took it first to a couple of friends, and then to a wider group of friends. Once the group was mobilised, then they collectively had the courage to move it into the parish.
Melanie
18 months ago, Melanie was far away from being an activist – she was a lawyer. She was thinking about retirement, doing other things. God had other plans. Seized by the urgency of the climate issue, she set aside her career after joining an action with Extinction Rebellion and subsequently took the decision to take a break from the law to study for an MA in Ecology, Theology and Ethics. Melanie grew up in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific and was already aware of the devastating impact of climate change there, where islands are gradually being submerged under the ocean as sea levels rise and storms increase.
‘Like me, at some point on your journey you may have looked at the facts about climate change and seen what politicians are not doing. The state of the world was wounding, through lack of meaningful action to avert that peril. You might also have been perplexed and angry that your church institutions are not talking about the dire situation and the impact we are having on brothers and sisters in other parts of the world and even the UK. People being robbed of the right to exist? Imagine if climate change was being reported like Coronavirus? ‘
Melanie Nazareth
So, Melanie joined Christian Climate Action and began to explore the precious gift of life and what we are doing to it. She offered some shocking statistics about how climate change is an amplifier of world hunger, and how world hunger is rising again after being in decline:
820m people do not have enough to eat.
In 5 years’ time, 5m people will live in water stressed areas.
In 2050, 3.5bn people will be exposed to extreme drought and intolerable heat stress.
Bagdad will be half as hot again as it is here in the UK at present.
Melanie told us that Masai women in Western Kenya have said they don’t think they’ll make it. ‘What will we do if we can’t graze our cattle? If it’s too hot at 9am, what will we do the rest of the day?’
In addition, 20million people have been driven from homes this year by climate change. Mass displacement is happening and 200million – 1 billion people will be displaced by 2050, according to research from LSE.
Melanie also spoke about how we are destroying the planet’s ecology and wounding creation. Nature is declining at unprecedented rates in human history. 1 million species are at risk of extinction according to the UN.
The only way to avoid more dangerous warming is to reduce CO2. The need for action grows more urgent and difficult with every passing month.
Melanie stressed that the climate crisis is a systemic problem and must be tackled at inter-government level. She said that thought there has been a 17% drop in C02 emissions this year during coronavirus lockdown, it had little impact. Individual actions can feel like a drop in the ocean - we need system change and to work on this collectively to lower emissions. The IPC tells us that every single fraction of a degree matters.
What can we do?
Melanie encouraged us to have hope, and that the Christian virtue of hope resists despair. She suggested we read briefings and books, then roll up our sleeves and get to work. We can lament what is happening and what will be lost and then attempt to respond constructively.
When the rules don’t work, Melanie suggested that Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) may be needed. Civil resistance has been known to work in the past, but non-violence must be at its core. It’s more morally right and successful. On a large scale, Melanie said we need to mobilise people to put pressure on governments to talk about the climate crisis and confront the dilemma.
Melanie said that everyone can act, just like Christ did with the money changers at the temple (Jesus and the Money Changers (John 2:13-16). You need to ask yourself:
What is the most effective action you can take for the earth?
What is your prophetic voice?
Where is the church and where is its action?
We will need many different narratives.
All three speakers joined us for an evening session centred on three key questions:
1. How should society be rebuilt after Covid-19?
There was broad agreement that things should be different and that the problems of inequality and homelessness, starkly shown up by the pandemic, out for a radical shift in government priorities. It is vital to build on the immense goodwill and generosity evidenced including recognition of low paid care workers. A reordering of our economic system to a green new deal is urgently called for but the signs from the UK government thinking are not encouraging.
2. Are small groups the future as opposed to hierarchical structures?
All three speakers strongly supported the vital role that small groups and grass-root networks can play in revitalising the church. Pope Francis is giving a lead - his thinking strongly influenced by his contacts with base Christian groups in South America and with indigenous peoples.
3. Issues raised by non-violent direct action
The group agreed that this is a difficult area and demands careful thought prayer and training if it is to be productive, but in spite of inevitable media distortion and understandable anger of those impacted by it, overall it was widely agreed that it was an essential and probably increasingly important way to help bring about change
CPW were privileged to have such an inspiring group of speakers and their impact will last long in our thoughts and hearts and in our planning for future activities.