The Pope has come out, some might argue too late, with his treaty for Climate Change. How can faith leaders, or at least the Church position itself in the face of massive species die-offs, and the change in the way of life as we know it? Can the Pope’s Encyclical, the treaty itself, aims to serve as some manifesto as how the faithful should approach the impending doom humanity faces?

Perhaps. What’s most useful though in what I have siphoned from the report is the advice that the Pope has given and this resonates with eco-faith groups in the Holy Land, who have taken the treaty to heart.

After surveying hundreds of seminaries in North America, Israel, and Italy, a new report by the Jerusalem NGO, The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, reveals what they call “an emerging phenomenon” — that over 160 faith and ecology courses taught in recent years.

This is tailwind for the Pope’s hope, as he wrote in Encyclical: “It is my hope that our seminaries and houses of formation will provide an education in responsible simplicity of life, in grateful contemplation of God’s world, and in concern for the needs of the poor and the protection of the environment.”

The Interfaith Center, active years before the Pope took a stance on climate change, published a Report on Faith and Ecology in North American Seminaries, which reveals how seminaries are part of the faith-based ecological transformation for which Pope Francis has called for.

The group also unveiled a searchable online faith and ecology syllabi collection, which makes scores of courses on faith and ecology easily accessible for instructors and administrators.

The Report and syllabi collection were created based on support of the Julia Burke Foundation.

“We found over 160 courses on faith and ecology at more than 50 seminaries offered in recent years,” says Rabbi Yonatan Neril, ICSD’s founder and director, pictured above.  “While only 22% of the seminaries we surveyed offered such courses, I think Pope Francis’ call will help to move others to follow suit.”

With thousands of seminarians enrolled globally in these courses in recent years, part of the next generation of religious leadership is emerging better equipped to teach on creation care and stewardship.

Scores of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim seminaries exist in the Holy Land, and they can make further efforts to increase their teaching in this area.

Among them, the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem is the only seminary in Israel to offer a semester-long course on faith and ecology.

The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development works to catalyze a transition to a sustainable human society through the active leadership of faith communities. Thanks to this group more and more people of the cloth are looking to hold the hand of God as they look to change ecological education for the better.

The post News the Pope will love: Faith and ecology teachings making world more holy appeared first on Green Prophet.

So why should this grab your attention?

The document Laudato Si (meaning Praised Be) is an “encyclical’, one of the most formal statements about Catholic doctrine that a pope can issue, and this one is the first of Francis’s tenure.  It puts a papal high beam on environmental stewardship and climate change, specifically on its impact on human life. According to the draft leaked by L’Espresso, the pope says plainly that humans are responsible for degrading the environment.

“Numerous scientific studies indicate that the major part of global warming in recent decades is due to the high concentration of greenhouse gas…emitted above all because of human activity,” he wrote, according to L’Espresso. He continues that the heaviest impacts of climate change “will probably fall in the coming decades on developing countries. Many poor people live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to heating, and their livelihoods strongly depend on natural reserves and so-called ecosystem services, such as agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.”

Climate change impacts developing countries with greater intensity that developed ones.  The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) coming to Paris in December will also make this case, demonstrating that poor nations lack resources and infrastructure to mitigate flooding, drought, air temperature fluctuations, and resultant impacts to food security and shelter. Considering that almost 40 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics live in South America, and with the faith booming in Sub-Saharan Africa, the correlation between global warming and his church is clear.

Of particular interest to the Middle East and North Africa, global warming will be felt keenly by imigrants and refugees. The Pop wrote, “Changing environmental conditions force them into a position of economic uncertainty in which they can’t sustain livelihoods.”

Francis’s papacy has consistently focused on human life and care for the poor. He made clear his views on poverty last spring via a less-formal-than-an-encyclical document called an apostolic exhortat, in which he linked environmental stewardship to the book of Genesis, “That human beings destroy the biological diversity in God’s creation; that human beings compromise the integrity of the earth and contribute to climate change, stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; that human beings pollute the water, soil, air; all these are sins,” he writes.

The pontiff is not the first church leader to take a stance on sustainability.  Last year, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu was equally outspoken at the 2014 Climate Change Summit in New York City. Not everyone is happy with Francis embracing green. Criticism is loud in America, where many conservative voters and legislators deny that climate change exists. The Atlantic reported that former U.S. senator Rick Santorum – a 2016 presidential candidate and lifetime Catholic – advised the pope to “[leave] science to the scientists and [focus] on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality.”

Watch this space for more information after the official document release on Thursday.

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