Sustainability Partnership

What does Sustainability mean for you? 


What connections do you see between energy use in your home and your relationship with God?  How can we, as a Parish, be better stewards of the creation God has given us?  As people of Faith, we have a moral imperative to care for God's creation and its deep distresses.

Pope Benedict XVI tells us: "Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family."

Sustainability Partnership

There is mutual interest at St. Francis and St. Mary's in Ann Arbor in "greening" our Parishes. We are forming a team with several significant partners and we invite you to consider joining us. Our first focus is to understand what our Catholic faith tells us about caring for God's creation.

Gary Koenigsknecht, our resident Seminarian, did some great research. Here are a few excerpts from the Pope and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that tell us why this work is so important. 
"Catholic Theological Foundations for addressing Climate Change"

"Our Creator has given us the gift of creation: the air we breathe, the water that sustains life, the fruits of the land that nourish us, and the entire web of life without which human life cannot flourish."

"Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions?  Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of 'environmental refugees', who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it?"

 "This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources."

 "… the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our life-style and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view.  We can no longer do without a real change of outlook which will result in new life-style."

This is our faith and we are called to action.  The purpose of the emerging Sustainability Project at St. Francis is to educate parishioners on the effects of warming trends globally that have the greatest impact on the poorest among us and on future generations so that we can:

• work together to build up the capacity of our Parish and parishioners to be good stewards of creation
• make the needed changes in our parishes and in our homes and lifestyles to improve our stewardship of God's creation and reduce our carbon footprints.

Look for the new "Sustainability Corner" in the Forum, as well as, our Parish Sustainability web page for updates and ways you can engage and contact Scott Wright at 734-821-2121 to join our emerging Sustainability Team.

Jane Vogel & Steve Lavender
on behalf of the St. Francis Sustainability Team