Columban adventures at World Meeting Of Families

Jack Edwards, outgoing faith in action volunteer writes:

On Tuesday, 21 August a group of two Columban co-workers and a volunteer left the British region for the birthplace of the society, Ireland. James Trewby, Justice and Peace Education worker, Jack Edwards Faith in action volunteer (2017/18) and Jane Lavery Volunteer were to spend the week working with the 'care for our common home' team discussing Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si with the families at the meeting. Other Columbans were of course involved in this side of the gathering; Fr Sean McDonagh from Dalgan and Fr Liam O'Callahan from Pakistan were both involved in the event. For Sean led some fascinating and informative talks on the effects of climate change and bad stewardship of the environment, in particular the loss of pollinators in Ireland where four species of bee have been lost in recent years.

The team from Solihull brought a particular set of talents to this group of 40 or so eco volunteers. We couldn't help create the wonderful eco garden out of a convent car park but we could entertain five hundred teenagers (13-19) for the three mornings of the conference. This was approached in two ways, firstly once each day a main session would be run. On the first day a group of thirty of so young people interviewed Fr Liam from Pakistan paying particular attention to the life of a missionary in a predominantly Muslim country, and how that effects his work to combat and raise awareness of climate change. Fr Liam was able to talk about rising temperatures, water shortages, flooding and above all how it is only through inter religious dialogue that advances can be made to combat climate change. On the second day John and Julie Mundell creators of the Earth Cube visited to share their creation with the young people. The Earth Cube was inspired by Laudato Si. Each side has an action or aim for the day, for example 'smile on the world' with a range of other possibilities.

At the beginning of every day you roll the cube and try to live in the spirit of Laudato Si. On that day we were also visited by some eco volunteers dressed as a distressed bee and a fish wrapped in plastic. These volunteers had been going all around the site to different eco events and the teenagers loved them, especially when they brought a cut out of the pope to take photos with.

On our final day we decided to do everything a little differently. Alongside our Big events we had been running small mobile events throughout the mornings. These ranged from a Laudato Si quiz, an eco themed people bingo, a map based prayer space and some fun charades. On our last day we attempted to take our big interview and split it in to short fifteen minute sessions through the day. Christina and Mariel from the Global Catholic Climate Movement came and in small interactive sessions got young people interested in their own effects on the environment and how they could change the world. By doing things in this short sharp manner we were able to spread our message to over 120 children in one morning interacting with them on an individual level.

When not corralling teenagers our Columban team threw themselves in to general eco volunteering. This ranged from monitoring the prayer space based around an eco candle the was used in the final Mass. Spreading the word of various talks and events such as the blessing of the garden by Cardinal Tagle of Manilla or an inter religious service for care for our common home hosted by a church of Ireland cathedral in the city on the Friday evening.

There were several highlights for me throughout the week. Some of the things that stick clearly in my mind was a young girl from Greece, who could have only been thirteen. After interviewing Fr Liam she came up to one of the team and said she had never before appreciated how clearly her actions at home in Greece could effect those on the other side of the globe. Another highlight was hearing Cardinal Bo of Myanmar talk about the development of an integral ecology and how we needed less meetings and more action, "for three decades we have had meetings. And for three decades climate change has been left to get worse."

At the inter religious service for creation we heard from many different speakers ranging from Moyozan Kodo Chair of the Irish Buddhist Union, Dr Clara Augustenburg and environment scientist who said 'tokenism is not enough anymore, to an eleven year old blogger who organises massive beach cleans all over the south or Ireland. For me personally I found Cardinal Dew from New Zealand very impressive, he called on all people from every religion or none to 'lament and repent' from how we exploit the world around us and to challenge corporations and governments in whose interests it is to keep things the way they are. He also called on us to never let suffering and hardship take away our desire to hope. This eventful and Holy Week was topped off by the announcement by bishop Crean CEO of Trōcaire that the Irish bishops conference was divesting from fossil fuels as a response to Pope Francis. After all he said 'it's the least we can do for future generations'.