Educational Resources

As you explore solar, storage, and energy efficiency solutions through Catholic Energies, we encourage you to take full advantage of Catholic Climate Covenant’s wide array of resources and programs that can be used to educate and empower the users of your facility and the wider community.

While the utility savings garnered through your energy project can help to free up funds for your core mission activities, this project is also a way to share the Good News about the importance of being good stewards of God’s good gift of Creation. This menu of resources and activities is available to you at no charge. As a Catholic Energies client we want to help you reach your educational goals.

LAUDATO SI’ ACTION PLATFORM

In 2020, the Vatican launched the Laudato Si’ Action Platform: designed to encourage seven different “sectors” of Catholic Life to commit to a seven year journey of sustainability, focusing on seven goals. As a Catholic facility, you are already implementing some of these goals through your solar installation and other energy efficiency projects.

The Laudato Si’ Action Platform provides the perfect framework to go even further. We encourage you to take a look at the platform and consider signing up as an institution committed to sustainability. You can also encourage your users to sign up as individuals and families.

In addition, you can see what others in the United States are doing to fulfill the seven goals by going to the Covenant’s website that promotes the Laudato Si’ Action Platform: God’s Planet. Here you will learn how the different “sectors” (Education, Businesses and Farms, Families and Communities, Religious Communities, Parishes and Dioceses, Health Care and Other Catholic Institutions) are rising to the challenges of the Platform and Laudato Si’.

SMALL GROUP ACTIVITIES

Regardless if your facility is a parish, school, Catholic Charities agency, chancery office, retreat center or something else, you will find that some of your users would like to help with your educational efforts and volunteer to organize activities that help to care for our common home. Here are some suggestions for getting this started:

  • Form a Creation Care Team: Creation Care Teams are small groups working to carry out activities behalf of a facility’s users. Typically this is a parish, but it can be a school, religious community or employees in a chancery office, as examples. The link above will provide you with ideas on how to form a team and suggested activities to help.
    Once formed, the Covenant will send you monthly emails with suggested activities depending on how much time you group has or the level of your ambition.

  • Earth Day (April 22) and Feast of St. Francis (October 4) programs: Each year, the Covenant produces both Earth Day and Feast of St. Francis programs. These one to one and a half hour events are accompanied by all you will need for a small group experience to pray, reflect and act to better care for our common home. Typical programs include opening prayers, readings and reflections, a video, small group discussions and both concrete and advocacy actions.

  • Youth and Young Adult Mobilization: Our youth and young adults are looking for our Church institutions to lead on creation care. You have taken a significant step by installing solar on your campus. This is a wonderful witness to young people, concretely demonstrating that you care about their future. If your facility is a school, parish, retreat center or other facility that engages youth and young adults, we hope you will encourage them to join our youth and young adult mobilization programs so they will feel connected to a nationwide network of concerned young people.

  • Advocacy: Adding your collective voice to the public square is just as important as individual and group actions and helps to preserve our beloved planet for future generations. We encourage you to sign up for the Covenant’s Encounter Campaign to receive alerts about how your organization can help move the nation’s moral compass in the direction of climate solutions and climate resiliency.

CATHOLIC TEACHING ON THE ENVIRONMENT

From Genesis to Laudato Si’ and everything in between, Catholic teaching on the environment is plentiful. In fact, Catholic Climate Covenant was founded to urge Catholics to read and act on the U.S. Catholic bishops’ statement: Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good.

Catholic Climate Covenant has compiled a comprehensive list of local, national and international statements on environmental stewardship and climate change. Another resource you may find helpful as you reflect on the scriptures are Homily Helps, thoughts and suggestions for preaching about creation care for every Sunday of the year.

  • Pope Francis

  • Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home: Protecting and caring for God’s creation has been a common theme of Church teaching for millennia. Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’ On Care for Our Common Home, focuses on our duty as citizens of the earth to protect the natural wonders and resources of the world so as to give praise for all of creation and to sustain its fruits and resources for our lifetime and for all future generations. Laudato Si  is groundbreaking in tone and scope, attracting worldwide attention for its lamentation and its call to action on issues such as climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and lack of clean water.

    • For a summary of Laudato Si’ and some action steps you can take, see this resource from Catholic Climate Covenant.

  • Laudate Deum: Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, October 4, 2023: Pope Francis has issued his strongest appeal yet on the “climate crisis.” He notes that eight years after Laudato Si’, there is still not nearly enough action on the climate crisis and says that the time for “concern” is over and the time for action is now. Catholic Energies can help you with your facilities and we must also examine our consumption-driven lifestyles and commit to individual actions that lighten our carbon footprint.

    • For more information and resources, visit the Laudate Deum resource from Catholic Climate Covenant here.

  • United States Bishops

  • The Conference of Bishops in the United States has identified creation care and climate change as moral issues for all people of faith and goodwill. In particular, the bishops recognize that environmental degradation and its effects disproportionately harm the poor and marginalized populations who are least responsible for its causes.

  • St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI

“Our care for one another and our care for the earth are intimately bound together. Climate change is one of the principal challenges facing society and the global community. The effects of climate change are borne by the most vulnerable people, whether at home or around the world.” – USCCB Global Climate Change

COVENANT EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Besides the programs listed under Small Group Activities, the Covenant has an abundance of resources for you to explore and we hope you take some time to look over the web page containing these resources.

The Catholic Climate Covenant has gathered an array of resources to guide reflection and deepen our engagement with Catholic teaching on climate change that can help transform our hearts and minds. Below you will find a selection of prayers, reflections, and meditations related to care for creation, and for people and communities affected by the climate crisis.

● Educators — Primary School

Motivating and inspiring the youngest generation of Catholics to defend the environment with the courage and energy asked of us in scripture and Laudato Si’ requires our youngsters to learn about these issues in the context of their faith, so that they can be leaders in the fight for our common home. Below you will find education guides, resources for religiously affiliated climate education, and how-to guides to making a difference.

● Educators — Secondary School

Continuing to engage teens in climate education is extremely important to developing hearts and minds ready to fight for creation in adulthood. The more advanced activities and educational resources found below will help kids in secondary schooling come to a deeper understanding of the difficulties of climate change and how they can make a difference.

● Religious Communities

Religious communities, as important centers of Catholic thought and prayer life, have vital roles to play in the Catholic fight against climate change. Religious communities can mobilize advocates for climate action by preaching and acting to act responsibly and care for creation. Below you will find resources for education, advocacy strategies, and programs for prayer and reflection.

● Environmental Justice

Of all those who will be affected by the instability of climate change, it will be the poor and vulnerable who are most affected. Environmental degradation has always been most damaging to the poor and especially people of color in the U.S., one of the reasons the Catholic Church treats environmental issues with extreme care and attention. Below you will find resources outlining the ways in which environmental justice is an extremely important aspect of the care for creation.

These resources can be filtered by category, audience, or keyword search to suit your needs. For example, filter by category such as bulletin blurbs, homily helps or videos. Or you can filter for resources by audience like parish staff, educators or youth ministers.

● Liturgy, Prayers, and Worship