News Items

The Forum regularly posts news articles of interest here from a variety of sources and news outlets. You can check back here or view the most recent ones from the homepage. We also archive these articles here, for those doing research, with news going back to 2006. Use the menu on the right to explore the archived articles.

News

Coming Together for Climate Justice

North American Convergence 2016: New Orleans, Louisiana
 
June 20-24, 2016

Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana

What’s a Convergence?

It’s leadership training, and more.  It’s a coming together of many voices and many perspectives into a powerful and effective network. It’s a gathering of emerging leaders...

Meet the Jeans-Wearing, Nature-Loving Nuns Who Helped Stop a Kentucky Pipeline

As fewer women enter the convent, what will become of Kentucky’s tradition of socially and environmentally engaged religious women?

By Laura Michele Diener
YES! Magazine
April 7, 2016

“The easiest way for me to find God is in nature,” Sister Ceciliana Skees explains. Born Ruth Skees, she grew up in Hardin County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. It...

Pope Francis' Laudato Si': Hope for our Common Home

Every time I read Laudato Si’ I discover fresh insights into the relationship between God and the planetary community of life on Earth, our common home.

By Denis Edwards
MN News
April 6, 2016

I find myself renewed in hope, taken by joy at the beauty of Francis’ vision, sobered by the challenges we face and summoned again to see my life as an ecological vocation,...

Ecuador drills for oil on edge of pristine rainforest in Yasuni

First of 200 wells drilled close to controversial block of forest known to have two of the last tribes living in isolation

By John Vidal
The Guardian
April 4, 2016

Ecuador has started drilling for oil on the edge of a controversial block of pristine rainforest inhabited by two of the last tribes in...

For the Planet and the Poor

April 4-6, 2016

Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame

We are witnessing an extraordinary moment in the history of global efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and preserve the natural environment. Never before have international development organizations, national governments, the Catholic Church, and other religious and faith-based organizations been so...

Atlanta diocese and Catholic scientists in Georgia develop Laudato Si' Action Plan

Full title:

Atlanta diocese and Catholic scientists in Georgia develop Laudato Si’ Action Plan, addressing “the civil rights issue of our time”

The Global Catholic Climate Movement
Press Release
April 2016

Indigenous Peoples Leaders commend SAVE Rivers and the scrapping of the Baram Dam

Full title:

Indigenous Peoples Leaders commend the steadfast actions of SAVE Rivers resulting in the scrapping of the Baram Dam

April 1, 2016
Indigenous Voices in Asia

The unanticipated decision by Sarawak State Chief Minister to revoke the gazettement for land earmarked for the Baram dam site and reservoir has been commended by indigenous leaders...

Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever

We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and terrifying – it will leave its legacy for millennia. Politicians and scientists have had their say, but how are writers and artists responding to this crisis?

By Robert Macfarlane
The Guardian
April 1, 2016

Calls for Billions of People to Plant Billions of Trees

March 30, 2016
By John J. Berger, Energy and environmental policy expert
Huffington Post

“At first, I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was
fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.”
— Chico Mendes, Martyred Brazilian environmentalist

The Environmentalist Monk Who Inspired Pope Francis

March 30, 2016
By Nick Fouriezos
OZY

Browsing through a New York City bookstore in early 1941, influential editor Robert Giroux bumped into Thomas Merton, an old college pal from his days on The Columbia Review. Merton told Giroux that The New Yorker wanted him to write a piece about Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky where he had “made a retreat...

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