Catholic Earthcare Australia this month celebrated the Season of Creation by hosting a Convocation; a virtual meeting place to bring hearts together to ‘care for our common home’ and drive real change in our pursuit to care for creation.

The online delivery helped participants to journey through a process of formation, foundation and action with significant youth involvement across the entire program.

*Carmel College Thornlands students Tyger Falvey Henderson and Ella Udowika with Alice Carwardine and Bernard Holland. PHOTO: Catholic Earthcare*

Bernard Holland, Manager of Social and Ecological Animators for Caritas Australia, said that using the impetus of Laudato Si’, the Convocation was designed to bring the church closer together for coordinated action, with the significant involvement of youth speakers to emphasise the future of our church.

“Our Mother Earth will soon be in the hands of new generations of faith inspired youth”, he said.

“If we do not create opportunities for intergenerational conversations we miss the opportunity to become transmitters of the faith with our youth, through meaningful catalysts such as social and ecological justice.”

The Convocation focused on all elements of ‘caring for our common home’ and included a significant finance, economics and investment module lead by Professor Ross Garnaut, aimed to challenge participants to enact change and foster key stakeholder dialogue within theiur circles of influence.

Alice Carwardine, a teacher at Carmel College Thornlands in the Brisbane Archdiocese also presented at the Convocation. Alice supports the College’s Social Justice Committee and has developed her own Laudato Si’ family resource kit.

“Students at Carmel College are taught to listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor”, she said.

“They do however, demand change, and if we are not preparing them for their future at our Catholic schools, we are not living a culture inspired by Laudato Si’.”

To play its part in helping protect the health of Earth, and its inhabitants, Catholic Earthcare Australia, which is now a program stream of Caritas Australia, is mandated, through the activities of education, research and advocacy to provide leadership in responding to Pope John Paul II's call to "stimulate and sustain the ecological conversion".