A Call for Creation Justice at St Anne’s Feast

PENANG: The Episcopal Commission for Creation Justice (CJC) of the Penang Diocese and the Creation Justice Ministry of St. Anne’s Church, Bukit Mertajam, made their debut at this year’s Feast with a booth dedicated to the call of Pope Francis in his encyclical, Laudato Si’ on Care of Our Common Home.

The aim was to raise awareness about Laudato Si’, creation justice and the global climate crisis. Several activities were carried out:

1) Collection of signatures for a petition to the Prime Minister to ban single-use plastics in Malaysia from January 2019 onwards. This petition was spearheaded by the CJC of the Penang Diocese with the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP). We collected close to 600 signatures. (Sign the online petition at https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-of-malaysia-ban-single-use-plastics-in-malaysia)

2) Giving out bookmarks (in four languages) on the global climate crisis and ecological pledges such as practising the 6Rs (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose and regenerate).

3) Promotion of repurposed/upcycled bags made by the parishioners of the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Balik Pulau, to raise funds for a new church building. The bags were upcycled from foil packages (3-in-1, Milo, etc.)

4) Promotion of CAP booklets on how to grow a kitchen garden, composting, herbs, etc. to encourage people to grow their own food safely and ecologically.

Aside from the booth, the Church of St Anne, in collaboration with the CJC, also put up a signboard on ecological pledges. The whole board was filled with signatures from parishioners and pilgrims who visited the Church during the nine-day novena period.

There were also banners in the hall calling upon the visitors not to waste food during the meals served free to pilgrims.
St Anne’s Church is taking its role as an advocate of ecological consciousness seriously. The parish also gave out flyers on this subject during Lent and is celebrating Masses for the coming Season of Creation from 1 September to 4 October as it did last year. It also houses the Garden of Bethlehem, a demonstration ecological farm (see Anil Netto’s column in the HERALD on July 15, 2018).

Article reproduced from Herald Malaysia online