IT’S all over the place. Climate emergency. Worldwide.
In Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori has advised Catholics that they are excused from their obligation to attend Mass yesterday, Eastern Time Zone, because of predicted high temperatures that could pose health risks to parishioners, particularly the elderly.
Lori said in a statement that with temperatures expected to top 37° Celsius, the archdiocese decided the conditions qualify as the sort of “grave cause” that relieves Catholics from their “Sunday obligation,” according to church law.
In the statement, the archdiocese reminded Catholics that under church law, the obligation to attend Sunday Mass “does not apply when there is grave difficulty in fulfilling this obligation.”
Then here in Bacolod, we get a city resolution endorsing the Declaration of a Climate Emergency and requesting regional collaboration on an immediate just transition and emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe climate, was approved last week.
I thank Feaster Councilor Carlos José López, SP chairman of the committee of environment and ecology, for authoring the declaration of a climate emergency, the first regional collaboration on an immediate and just transition and emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe climate.
López said Bacolod will also hold a summit within the year calling on all local governments in Negros Occidental for a concerted effort to address this declaration effectively since Bacolod as the capital City of Negros Occidental must take the cudgels and lead the way in collaboration with the Province.
Then recently I got an invitation from Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific (JCAP) which is organizing a Laudato Si’ spirituality for action workshop. Pope Francis’s encyclical appeal to the world that we all must work together to protect our planet.
With a focus on discernment, depth, action and mission, the JCAP workshop intends to provide participants ways by which to deepen their work in the different ministries. The workshop also hopes to allow participants experience a process that contributes to a profound personal, community, and institutional conversion to transform our lives and ways of working.
The situation is indeed getting alarming. Dr Thomas Crowther, the lead scientist behind a ground-breaking climate change study has concluded that carbon emitted from soil was speeding up global warming. “It’s fair to say we have passed the point of no return on global warming and we can’t reverse the effects, but certainly we can dampen them,” said the biodiversity expert. “Climate change may be considerably more rapid than we thought it was.”
The world are facing a particularly intense fire, and we must sound a four alarm fire.
bqsanc@yahoomail.com