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Gallup, N.M., Feb 12, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop James Wall of Gallup has announced in a pastoral letter the restoration of the order of the sacraments of initiation in the mission diocese.

Once the new policy is implemented, children will receive Confirmation and First Holy Communion in the same Mass, at around the age of 7 or 8.

“Receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation long after the reception of Holy Communion, tends to weaken the understanding of the bond and relationship that the Sacraments of Initiation have with one another,” Bishop Wall wrote in his Feb. 11 pastoral letter The Gift of the Father.

“Because the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation lead the faithful to the culmination of their initiation into the Christian Life in Holy Communion,  the practice of postponing the reception of Confirmation until the teenage years has not always been beneficial,” he noted.

The bishop added that “An alarming percentage of our Catholic children who were baptized and received First Holy Communion, do not continue their formation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, and in too many cases, never receive the Sacrament.  As your shepherd, I believe it is important for our children, before they reach their adolescent years, to receive the strength of this important Sacrament.”

The pastoral change in the Diocese of Gallup follows that of several other local Churches in the US.

Commending such a change in the Diocese of Manchester in 2017 as “a praiseworthy practice”, Rita Ferrone wrote in Commonweal that 11 dioceses were then practicing “restored order”.

Bishop Wall opened his letter reflecting on the relationship among the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion.

Baptism “immerses us into the Divine Trinity,” while the grace of Confirmation “confirms and strengthens the supernatural life we have received in Baptism and it also enables us with its grace to live in a more mature way our lives as Christians giving witness to Christ in all that we do.”

“At the same time, the Sacrament of Confirmation is ordered toward a deeper communion with the Lord and to His Church through this witness to Him, a communion which receives its greatest expression and grace in this life in the sacrament of Holy Communion.”

The bishop noted that he has chosen to restore the original order of the sacraments of initiation “after consultation with the Presbyteral Council and having prayerfully considered it.”

Wall then discussed the historical background of the temporal order of the sacraments of initiation, noting that in the first 500 years of the Church they “were received together,” and that afterwards Baptism came to be administered in infancy, Confirmation around the age of 7, and Communion around the beginning of adolescence, such that “the order of the sacraments was conserved but they were administered in separate celebrations throughout childhood.”

St. Pius X “decided that it was important for children at a younger age to receive Holy Communion,” and began administering First Communion around the age of 7.

“This positive change had the unintended consequence of moving the Sacrament of Confirmation to an older age, thus inverting the original order of the Sacraments of Initiation,” Wall stated.

He added that today a person baptized after reaching the age of reason normally “receives in the same celebration the three Sacraments of Initiation,” but that “up until now, a child who was baptized as an infant would receive Holy Communion at around the age of 8 and receive the sacrament of Confirmation at a later date, sometimes waiting until they are 15 or 16.”

The bishop also discussed the effects of Confirmation, which “ gives us an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which strengthens us,” and he cited Divinae consortium naturae, St. Paul VI’s  1971 apostolic constitution on the sacrament.

Teaching about the sacraments, he said: “Although grace builds upon nature and much depends upon the disposition in faith, the piety and charity of the one who receives it, the sacraments work in us in a different way.  As long as the recipient does not have any impediment, the sacraments will produce in us their grace on their own.”

“This is important when we consider the age of the reception of the sacraments,” Wall said.

While Confirmation is sometimes called “the Sacrament of Christian maturity,” it “does not require the recipient to be physically mature in order to transmit its grace. On the contrary, the Sacrament brings the recipient into Christian maturity and is given the strength through the Sacrament to live one’s Christian life even in a heroic way.”

“Although the recipient of the Sacrament always must seek to remove obstacles to grace in his or her life and cooperate with the strength of the grace that is offered to the individual, the power of the sacraments to transform one’s life has been well established.”

Noting that “countless young children have shown the witness of heroic virtue,” Wall said that “it has become all the more important” for young Christians, given the challenges they face in today’s world, “to receive the strength of the Sacrament of Confirmation as soon as possible to assist them.”

Citing St. Paul VI, Bishop Wall said that Confirmation’s link with the Eucharist “will be emphasized by uniting the Sacrament of Confirmation with the reception of the First Holy Communion in the same celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass.”

The policy change in the Gallup diocese will be gradually implemented over the next three years, with a “progressive lowering of the age,” until preparation for the reception of Confirmation and First Communion will begin in third grade.

“There will always be the possibility of children older than 3rd grade seeking the Sacrament, especially those who move into our diocese from other areas, as well as adults who seek the reception of Confirmation,” he noted. “For this reason, there will have to be available an intergenerational model of catechesis or catechists prepared to take on classes of different age groups to prepare them for Confirmation.”

The sacraments, the bishop reflected, “are an introduction and aids to living an authentically Christlike life, to prepare ourselves for our passage into our longed-for eternal life.”

He called on parishes to meet the challenge of developing “creative programs to accompany, form and integrate young members of the parish – now fully initiated – into the life of the Church.”

With catechetical formation after third grade no longer tied to sacramental preparation, it will instead “help our young Catholics grow in their faith, discern their vocation and prepare for that Christian vocation as they approach adulthood.”

“As we implement these new policy changes we are attempting to face the great challenges of our time,” Wall concluded.

Thanking the pastors of the diocese for their faithful service, he asked them “to work closely with the families of your communities to help them accomplish their vocation as first catechists and witnesses of their faith.”

“The parish should become a community of communities where the family, the domestic Church, can find guidance in the Word of God, strength in the Sacraments and support in their daily struggles. Your assistance to the families of your parish to provide them with what they need to accompany their children in their pilgrimage of faith is invaluable.”

“May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Diocese of Gallup and our Mother, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, heroic witness to the faith, intercede for all of us, for you and your families, and may the Lord bring to completion the good work He has begun in us.”

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Santa Fe, N.M., Feb 12, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- New Mexico’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would decriminalize the state’s inactive ban on abortion.

The move is seen as a preemptive measure to legalize abortion in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 decision to legalize abortion nationwide.  

A 1969 state law in New Mexico made it is a felony to for any doctor to provide abortions, except in instances of congenital abnormalities, rape, and a danger to the woman’s health.

If Roe vs. Wade was overturned, abortions would be banned completely in the New Mexico. Eight other states have laws that would also ban abortion and four additional states have “trigger laws” that would ban abortion if the Supreme Court decision was overturned.

The bill passed through the House 40-29 on Feb. 6. If the bill is approved by the Senate, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has promised to sign the measure into law.

The House, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, approved the bill mostly along party lines, but opposition to the legislation did gain bipartisan support.

According to the Associated Press, the Democrat representatives who opposed the bill included, Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup, Anthony Allison of Fruitland, Candie Sweetser of Deming, Wonda Johnson of Church Rock, and Patricio Ruiloba of Albuquerque.

Before the bill’s approval, Las Cruces Sun News reported on a few testimonies that were given to the House on Jan. 26. Opponents to the bill emphasized the lack of abortion restrictions currently in New Mexico and expressed concern that the repeal would weaken safeguards.

“We are now known as a late-term abortion state, which I’m very ashamed of,” said Pauline Anaya, an educator and therapist in Albuquerque.

“I just have a deep concern that we are taking the only explicit protection we have for individuals,” said Rep. Gregg Schmedes, a Tijeras Republican and surgeon.

The makeup of the Supreme Court has changed significantly since President Trump promised to appoint pro-life Justices. Trump nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.  

Advocates for the bill have expressed concern about a possible repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Representative Joanne Ferrary, co-sponsor of the bill, said the bill was a necessary protection to ensure abortion services are safe and legal.

“It is time to remove this archaic law from New Mexico’s books,” she said, according to Las Cruces Sun News. “With the threat of a Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe, we need to pass this bill to protect health care providers and keep abortion safe and legal.”  

In a Jan. 7 statement, Bishop James Wall of Gallup opposed House Bill 51 and encouraged lawmakers to focus on policies that support human prosperity at all stages of life.

“While the law is currently not enforced due to federal legalization of abortion through the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade, I nevertheless urge opposition to any bills that would loosen abortion restrictions,” he said.

“New Mexico consistently ranks low or last among other states in education results, economic opportunities, poverty, and childhood health. An abortion will not fix the obstacles many women and families face, such as economic instability, access to education, and a higher standard of living.”

 

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Washington D.C., Feb 12, 2019 / 11:30 am (CNA).- Congressional leaders hope to have avoided a further partial government shutdown after reaching an agreement on a budget that includes over a billion dollars in funding for new barriers along the United … […]

New York City, N.Y., Feb 11, 2019 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York has said it had only recently learned of an allegation that the deeply influential Cardinal Francis Spellman groped a visiting West Point cadet in the 1960s, but says it w… […]

Trenton, N.J., Feb 11, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- New Jersey may become the next state to approve of physician-assisted suicide after the president of the state’s Senate replaced two members of a committee who had previously voted against a bill tha… […]

New York City, N.Y., Feb 11, 2019 / 03:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The district attorney for Queens County, New York, has reportedly dropped an unlawful abortion charge against a man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, citing a new state law that removed abortion from the criminal code.

Anthony Hobson is accused of killing his girlfriend Jennifer Irigoyen, who was 14 weeks pregnant, Feb. 3. He allegedly dragged her into the stairwell of an apartment building and stabbed her multiple times in the abdomen – she later died in hospital.

Queens County District Attorney Richard Brown announced in a Feb. 8 statement that Hobson would be charged with second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence, and fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon. He could face 25 years to life in prison.

Brown’s office cited the Reproductive Health Act, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Jan. 22, as the reason for dropping the abortion charge, according to the New York Times. A district attorney spokeswoman told the New York Post that the abortion charge was dropped because it was “repealed by the legislature, and this is the law as it exists today.”

The Reproductive Health Act changed New York law to allow health care professionals such as nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to perform abortions, and now permits late-term abortion at any time throughout pregnancy in case of fetal inviability or “when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.”

One of the Democratic sponsors of the RHA, writing in a Times Union op-ed, claimed that physical assault resulting in the loss of pregnancy would now qualify as first-degree assault, which as a class B felony carries a penalty of 5-25 years.

Unlawful abortion, which is now repealed, would have been a class D felony, carrying with it a 2-7 year sentence.

In June 2018 a New York man was charged with attempted murder, abortion, and assault after the attempted murder of his 26-week pregnant fiancée. It is as yet unclear whether the Reproductive Health Act will affect that case.

In a Jan. 28 op-ed for the New York Daily News, Charles Camosy, associate professor of theology at Fordham University in the Bronx and a board member for Democrats for Life of America, predicted that the removal of abortion from the criminal code altogether would eliminate the potential to charge men who attack pregnant women with the crime of killing unborn children.

“Intellectually honest people know that when a pregnant woman is killed, something different has happened than when a woman who is not pregnant is killed. Both situations are incredibly tragic, but in the former situation, two human beings are killed, not one,” Camosy said.

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Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2019 / 10:45 am (CNA).- Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), who represented North Carolina for 12 terms in the House of Representatives, passed away on Sunday – his 76th birthday.

 

“Congressman Jones will long be remembere… […]

Lafayette, La., Feb 10, 2019 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- When Mary Rose Verret first welcomed Douglas and Elizabeth into her home, Douglas’ boots squished with the sewage he worked with, and Elizabeth smelled of french fries from her fast food job. Douglas was also just a few years of out jail.

Burnt out after years of ministry, Mary Rose didn’t think she would have anything in common with this couple, whom her pastor had asked Mary Rose and her husband, Ryan, to mentor through a process to convalidate their marriage in the Church.

“It was a difficult, complex situation that on paper didn’t look like it was going to go well,” Mary Rose recalled. Often, she saw couples like Douglas and Elizabeth disappear from the Church as soon as their marriage was blessed.

But when Douglas opened up about how he found Jesus in prison, and about their desire for a sacramental marriage in the Church, Mary Rose was humbled.

“On my end, working with this couple, I thought I was going to teach and I was going to form, and Ryan and I thought we were going to give everything to them,” she told CNA.

“But when we started listening to them and the husband’s experience of getting to know Jesus at a bible study while he was in jail, and the relationship he had with Jesus, and how he wanted to make things right with God, and how he wanted to have a marriage in the Church and he wanted Jesus to be part of their marriage, it was very humbling…and it really changed the way Ryan and I lived our ministry and lived our faith and lived our marriage,” she said.

The Verrets founded Witness to Love, a Catholic marriage prep renewal ministry, several years ago with the intent to give newly-engaged couples an older mentor couple of their choosing in the Church that could walk with them through marriage preparation and beyond.

Now, they are launching a Witness to Love track specifically for couples who are seeking to have their civil marriages blessed by, or convalidated in, the Catholic Church.

“We saw that with Witness to Love, in the parish where we started this, engaged couples were benefitting so much, but we were seeing couples who were having their marriage blessed who didn’t go through Witness to Love, they met with Father a few times…they were getting divorced quickly, some of them even a month after having their marriage blessed,” she said.

Couples seeking to convalidate their marriage in the Church make up a significant percentage of sacramental marriages in the Church each year – roughly 20 percent, Mary Rose said. In 2017, the total number of sacramental marriages in the U.S. was 144,000 – meaning approximately 28,800 of them were convalidations.

In response to this growing need, the Verrets tweaked their marriage prep program to offer a track specifically fitted to couples seeking convalidations in the Church. They interviewed couples seeking convalidations and looked at best practices throughout the country for bringing them into the Church. Many couples seeking convalidation would do so around the time their children needed sacraments – baptism or communion or confirmation. It was a time they could reconnect with the Church and felt they needed to “get right with God,” Mary Rose said.

But old approaches of bringing these couples into the Church weren’t working – couples would fail to connect with the Church community and drop off, or even divorce, shortly after they received the sacrament. That’s where Mary Rose thought the Witness to Love mentorship model could work.

What’s different?

What sets Witness to Love apart in marriage convalidation preparation “is every other mentor model out there says: the Church is going to choose and train and assign mentor couples to you. You don’t know them, you didn’t pick them, you don’t know how old they are or their background,” she said.

“And we’re telling this to a generation that doesn’t trust the Church, many of whom have been abused, have a pornography addiction, haven’t been to church in 15 or more years. And we’re asking them to talk to complete strangers, who are like uber Catholics, about their faith life and sex life and we wonder why it doesn’t work out.”

The choice in mentor couples provides the “skin in the game” for the marriage prep couple and the room for the Holy Spirit to work, Mary Rose said.

Beyond that, the program is tweaked to match the language that civilly married couples use, and to emphasize how the grace of the sacrament builds on the natural goods of a civil marriage.

“There are two ways of looking at marriage. One is just on the natural level – you’re living together, balancing a checkbook, you have kids, you share groceries – you know, life,” Mary Rose said. “And there’s a lot of natural goodness there, but there’s also a lot of natural challenges and we have fallen nature. So the grace of the sacrament helps you get through some of those things, love through things, grow through things, work through things, offer things up, pray for your spouse,” she said.

“The reason that we have the grace of the sacrament is that it’s impossible, on a human level, to love completely, totally, freely and fruitfully. It is impossible,” she noted.

“With the grace of the sacrament, you just have to ask God everyday to please help me keep my wedding vows,” she said, which also differ in wording and intent between civil and sacramental marriages.

Often, couples who have convalidated their marriages become the best witnesses of the grace of the sacrament of marriage, Mary Rose noted, because they know what it’s like to live without it.

“When they have their marriage blessed, if they are formed, then it’s a whole different experience, because if they just have one or two quick meetings and then never really understand this grace they receive, they can’t really tap into it.”

Going through the process

Meghan Reily and her husband Brendon were high school sweethearts who met in middle school, dated through college and got married civilly in 2016 – Meghan was Catholic, Brendon was not.

Once Meghan discovered that her marital situation was keeping her from the sacraments, she talked to Brendon about having their marriage blessed in the Church.

“After much discussion and prayer, we decided to go through the process. I think that shows a true testament to Brendon’s character,” Meghan told CNA.
 
“I could tell that this was something that was important to her and for the Church,” Brendon added, though he admitted to being “a little apprehensive at first.”

“Opening up about your relationship is something that is very personal to me,” he said. But going through this, I have never felt closer to Meghan than I do now. Same with our mentor couple. I’ve known them for several years, but I feel like they are family now too. They will always be someone who we can call on for anything.”

For their mentor couple, the Reily’s chose a couple that Meghan had known since childhood.

“We were in the same parish and I grew up with their daughter. We became best friends and her family was like a second family to me. Since I was always so close to them, Brendon got to get to know them when we were dating,” Meghan said.

“When asked who to choose as a mentor couple, it was a no-brainer for us. Their love for God and putting Him right at the center of their family is exactly the type of environment we want to have for our family.”

Meghan said the mentorship and the program of Witness to Love brought a “self-awareness” to their marriage that they hadn’t had before. It gave them tools to know and love their spouse better, and to work on virtues together.

“It was both challenging and rewarding. It in a way forced you to have those difficult conversations you don’t necessarily want to have,” she said.

“While we have been civilly married for two years, we are nowhere close to having it all figured out! The workbook provided great tools to give you insight on how you are wired and how your spouse is wired so you can better understand each other and how to handle situations, or discover what things you need to work on that you didn’t think was even an issue,” she added.

Brendon said the program changed their relationship by emphasizing that “it takes three to get married” – the couple and God.

“We are much more open in sharing what’s on our hearts so that we can pray for each other and build each other up,” he said.  

Much of the content of Witness to Love is virtue-based. It encourages couples to examine different virtues – love, honor, courage, respect, humility, and so on – and how those virtues can best be lived out in a marriage.

“By learning the virtues, you are growing closer to God and understanding fully how much He loves you and how you need to love your spouse in return, because God loves your spouse that much and He put you together by His grace,” Meghan said. “Doing that, well, that’s what gets you closer to Heaven – knowing how to love and accept someone for all of who they are.”

Meghan and Brendon’s marriage will be blessed in the Church this March. Meghan said she would “absolutely” recommend the Witness to Love mentorship program to other couples in similar situations.

“It’s definitely something I’ll want to reference going forward in our marriage,” she said.

Responding to the needs of the Church

When Bishop Joseph Strickland was first made bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas in 2012, strengthening marriage and family life was one of his top priorities.

“I wanted to really focus on marriage formation because in some ways I think we find ourselves needing to rebuild Christian society, and the stronger the marriages are, the stronger the families will be, the stronger (the faith of) the children will be, and I think that’s where we can begin of a joyful revolution of deeper faith,” Strickland told CNA.

About a year ago, the Diocese of Tyler began using Witness to Love’s marriage prep program – “I liked the solid theology on marriage and the beautiful presentation of what the sacrament of marriage is about for us as Catholics,” Strickland said.

Located in a minority-Catholic area, Strickland said he sees the need for good convalidation formation continuing to grow, as more couples delay marriage, or decide to come back to the Church later in life.

“There are so many couples that need convalidation, and we’re really encouraging and wanting to support those couples,” he said.

Having worked on a marriage tribunal for years, Strickland said what appealed to him about Witness to Love, besides being theologically sound, was that it didn’t feel as “bureaucratic” as some other marriage and convalidation programs.

“You’re having to talk about this very personal information with a priest that you don’t know, maybe you don’t feel you’re that comfortable with them, maybe you’re not Catholic or haven’t been practicing your Catholic faith for a long time,” he said.

“So I think to have the mentor couple, who would be someone who is faithfully living their Catholic faith, to help them feel like they’re welcome and to navigate any issues they might have…would be important especially for couples who may have been married civilly for quite some time and have had a number of kids and are having to negotiate some significant complexities.”

Mary Rose said the mentor couple relationship is so key to Witness to Love because it works both ways – the convalidating couple receives formation, but the mentoring couple is also challenged to examine their marriage and “step it up”, so to speak, in order to be a good example. She said some mentor couples have told her that being asked to mentor another couple is what saved their own marriage.

“It’s kind of a dead end if you don’t open at least a crack for the Holy Spirit, and in Witness to Love that risk has always been allowing the couples to choose their own mentor,” she said.

“But it’s that invitation, that personal relationship – it’s a two-for-one evangelization effort that has made all the difference and transformed parish communities, because instead of a couple coming through the Church and never seeing them again, their mentor’s marriage is renewed, the community is renewed.”  

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Iowa City, Feb 9, 2019 / 04:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal court ruled Wednesday that a Christian club at an Iowa college cannot be kicked off campus due to its religious standards for student leaders.

In the fall of 2017, the University of Iowa re… […]

Washington D.C., Feb 8, 2019 / 06:38 pm (CNA).- A joint congressional resolution for a “Green New Deal” is the latest effort aiming to apply political solutions to environmental problems. Whatever the merits of the proposal, one theologian says, Christians must think hard about what their faith says about environmental policy.

“To think that the U.S. government can be agnostic about the environment is a little like thinking it’s agnostic about faith: policies will impact the environment, for good or for ill,” Joseph Capizzi, professor of moral theology and ethics at Catholic University of America, told CNA.

“It strikes me that the Christian approach to the environment would require us to think about our policies’ impact on creation. Or, to put it differently, about whether our policies give God his due in their impact on his creation,” said Capizzi, who also directs the Institute for Human Ecology.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have proposed a joint resolution to recognize “the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal.”

The non-binding resolution would not create new programs, but its passage would convey the sense of Congress and provide justification for further legislation.

The new resolution cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report, which said that a rise in global temperatures must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Though Capizzi said addressing particular policies is beyond his expertise, he said Christians are a “future-oriented people.”

“We look in hope to the coming of our savior and our reflections on how to live now should always have an eye towards their long-term impact on the world into which, in hope, we bring our children,” he said. “We have justice-based responsibilities to our children to care for the creation God intends for them as well as for us.”

As a theologian, Capizzi said, the specifics of the proposal “are less interesting to me than is the idea that politics must attend to humanity’s relationship with all of God’s creation.”

The political proposal comes as the Trump administration has worked to promote domestic gas, oil and coal production by loosening regulations including environmental protections.

Green New Deal backers cite goals including zero-net greenhouse gas emissions from power production; halting a rise in global temperatures; and de-carbonizing the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. It envisions major infrastructure upgrades to power grids and transportation and upgrading all buildings to maximize energy efficiency, water efficiency, and affordability. Other goals in the resolution include “clean manufacturing”; reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from ranches and farms; and shifting away from nuclear power as well as fossil fuels.

Critics say some efforts against fossil fuels have caused major unemployment and community displacement in parts of the country dependent on the coal industry and other resource extraction.
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., whose state economy is heavily based on coal, criticized the effort, saying it “shuts everybody down.”

The resolution’s many promises include aid for both communities facing the most significant changes from climate change and communities affected by shifts away from fossil fuel use. It promises to ensure high wages and better jobs for workers currently in fossil fuel industries.

The non-binding plan promises a federal jobs guarantee, as well as other Democratic goals like a family wage, adequate family leave, paid vacations and a secure retirement as well as universal health care.

Any proposal is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate. The resolution could play a role in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not give Green New Deal backers the committee leadership they wanted. She told Politico their proposal is “one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive.”

For Capizzi, environmental politics should be motivated by the goodness of creation.

“The starting point for Jewish-Christian approaches to the environment is the Hebrew Bible’s teaching that God created the world, and then, at different stages but before humans are created, we are told he viewed his creation as ‘good’.”

These things that God names “good” include “the creation of land and gathering of waters, the fecundity of the earth, (and) the creation of sea and land and flying creatures.” The creation of humans is “a part of the story of God’s creation of a universe he names as good and within which humanity lives.”

“This is the starting point for Christian reflection,” Capizzi told CNA. To this is added the “classic notion of justice” expressed in the imperative “give to each what he or she is due.”

“We are to give God his due by giving his good creation its due. We do this in our relationships as human beings, but we do this as well in our relationship with the creation of which we are a part – even if a special part.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have an Environmental Justice Program, under the conference’s Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. It draws from St. John Paul II’s 1990 World Day of Peace message, the U.S. bishops’ Nov. 14, 1991 pastoral statement “Renewing the Earth,” as well as encyclicals such as Pope Francis’ 2015 Laudato si’.

The bishops make some policy recommendations about environmental laws and regulations. They opposed the Trump administration’s June 2017 withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which aimed to combat climate change and global warming through reducing carbon dioxide emissions. They said they objected to a March 2017 executive order from President Donald Trump that rescinded and weakened many environmental protections.

They have backed a national carbon emission standard and other carbon mitigation goals.

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