Our understanding of Christian Discipleship leads us to condemn in strongest terms defense policies that every day make life more insecure. The most blatant of these are present policies of nuclear armament which threaten all life. These policies are themselves a form of killing since they consume resources desperately needed to meet basic human needs.
In response to the ruling by a federal judge that all children currently held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for more than 20 days must be released by July 17, the organizers of the Catholic Campaign to End Immigrant Child Detention, offer a joint statement as well as the following individual responses.
These killings display a pattern of silence and unwillingness by white Americans to end the grave injustice of racism. Racism is not only morally wrong; it is deeply sinful.
From the Americas to Asia, from Oceania to Europe, Columbans around the world celebrate the 5th anniversary and the Laudato Si’ message, especially in its call for integral ecology which is a holistic approach to care for our common home that draws on faith, science, education, advocacy, and lifestyle transformation. Columban eco-theologian Sean McDonagh and author of The Death of Life (2005) on biodiversity describes this encyclical as, “the single most important piece of Catholic Social Teaching each of the last 100 years and essential to every Catholic’s formation for the next 100 years.”
We need a comprehensive plan that moves all sectors of our economy toward a clean energy economy by achieving net-zero carbon pollution by 2050. The “100% Clean Economy Act of 2019” provides a robust framework for such a plan.
This afternoon while attending an oil and gas conference in Pittsburgh, PA, President Trump announced that the United States will officially begin the process of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. On June 1, 2017, the President first announced his intent to withdrawal from the agreement. At the time, the Columban Center released a statement which strongly opposed the President's intentions. Unfortunately, today we must re-release that statement.
Columban missionaries around the world will be praying for the success of the Pan Amazonian Synod. Our baptismal commitment to care for planet earth - our common home, and dialogue with people of other faith traditions and spiritual practices, also draws us into solidarity with the synodal process.
In honor of the 2019 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1st, which opens the Season of Creation, the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach (CCAO) urges Congress to support a rapid shift to a 100% clean energy economy in order to ensure a sustainable future.
The US Region of the Missionary Society of St. Columban stands with the families and victims of the violence that left 31 persons dead and many more injured in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend, and decries the culture of racial hatred promoted by our nation’s leaders who engage in the politics of division and intolerance toward immigrants and people of color.
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