Pope Francis and Fr Sean McDonagh
“The Pope explained that he could not take everything in hand personally from Rome. We local bishops, who are best acquainted with the needs of our faithful, should be corajudos, that is ‘courageous’ in Spanish, and make concrete suggestions,”
Dermot Lane offers his thoughts on the ACP in a letter to its annual meeting
Tom Heneghan, the Reuters ‘Religion Editor’, reports on the comments of Cardinal Maradiaga, a member of Pope Francis’ kitchen cabinet’ of advisers: first published on Reuters, under the heading ‘Top papal ally urges Vatican doctrine chief Müller to loosen up‘ (read original article here).
Seán McDonagh, drawing on the wisdom of ‘Laudato Si’ brings to our attention the impact the consumption of meat is having on Humans and the Global Environment.
“We might think that this generation is merely following the tradition of our ancestors when it comes to eating meat. In reality the global meat industry has grown dramatically in recent decades. Between 1963 and 2014 meat production globally has grown from 78 million tons to 300 million tons.”
“to reach a healthy level of meat consumption, citizens of the United States would have to cut their meat consumption by two-thirds, while in Britain and Ireland we should be eating half as much meat as we do.”
The ACP will host 4 public regional meetings ahead of the Papal visit.
The theme of the meetings is “What do we need to say to Pope Francis about the Irish Church?”
These meetings are open to everybody.
Seán McDonagh reports on the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Sean tells us of the work of 803 scientists. Their findings are very challenging and confirms that human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. The warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Massive concerted global action is needed if we are to avoid the worst excesses of climate change.