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By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer
Sarah McFarland Taylor, an assistant professor of religion
at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, is running as fast as
she can to keep up with the increasing numbers of Catholic women’s
religious communities who have turned their wholehearted attention to
healing and restoring the planet.
The Sisters are ahead. But rather than being frustrated, the author couldn’t
be happier, because word about the serious urgency of earth care is finally
spreading.
Last April, Taylor’s book, “Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology,”
(Harvard University Press) made its debut. “Green Sisters”
features 50 groups of Catholic women religious throughout the U.S. who
are engaged in eco-justice work. They have founded ecological learning
centers, community-supported organic farms, eco-spiritual retreat centers,
and environmental activist investor groups.
And now, the circle of green Sisters has expanded to include the Mission
San Jose Dominicans in Fremont. They are the sixth women’s religious
community in California to add an environmental focus to their charism.
Taylor’s book features five of the communities: the San Rafael Dominicans
and their straw-bale hermitage at Santa Sabina Retreat Center in San Rafael;
the Immaculate Heart Community and their retreat center in Montecito;
Earth Harmony, a joint project of a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet
and a Sister of the Sacred Heart of Mary, in Sherman Oaks; Earth Home
Ministries, a community garden project based in Oakland for several years
before its founders, Notre Dame de Namur Sister Sharon Joyer and Immaculate
Heart Sister Pat Nagel, relocated to Portland, Oregon; and the Sisters
of the Presentations’ Green Welcoming Center and Dining Hall in
Los Gatos.
Since her book came out, there’s even more good news Taylor will
want to include in her upcoming sequel.
Last month, the Presentation Sisters of San Francisco received an Energy
Oscar for Green Building from California Interfaith Power & Light,
a ministry of San Francisco’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral founded
in 2001 by the Rev. Sally Bingham to help people of faith promote positive
environmental change. CIPL is made up of 500 congregations of all faiths,
including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.
The award ceremony, held at First Congregational Church in Berkeley, honored
16 of the organization’s congregations for their exemplary efforts
to address global warming and energy conservation. Other Catholic recipients
were Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles for energy efficiency
and renewal energy; and Catholic Charities of the Stockton Diocese, for
public policy and advocacy.
“We believe that stabilizing the climate is the most important moral
issue of our time,” said the Rev. Bingham. “Every major faith
tradition has a mandate to care for creation. The web of life is sacred,
but sadly endangered.”
The Presentation Sisters were honored for the dining hall at their retreat
center in Los Gatos which includes straw bale walls, passive solar design,
photovoltaic solar panels, and solar thermal collectors; recycled blue
jean insulation; and a sustainable organic garden.
In accepting the award, Presentation Sister Patricia Marie Mulpeters,
executive director of Presentation Center for seven years, said that her
community set out “to build a building that reflects and protects
the sacred natural beauty of the redwoods and mountains surrounding our
retreat center.”
It is the third honor for Presentation’s green building. The structure
also received the 2007 Design Honor Award for Energy and Sustainability
from the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco, and the Best
of 2006 Northern California Green Building Award from California Construction
Magazine.
When the Voice e-mailed Sarah McFarland Taylor for her comments regarding
these latest developments around the greening of religious communities,
she wrote, “I keep having Sisters contact me to let me know about
new ministries springing up both domestically and abroad.”
The commonality among the vast majority of them, she observed, is the
way religious women are making important connections about the interrelatedness
of social injustices and ecological ruin. “These are women, who
in many cases have spent decades working with the poor and the destitute,
who have now come to see hunger and economic injustice as closely tied
to environmental degradation.”
During her research, Taylor discovered another major shift taking place
among many religious communities — recognition that “the narrative
of evolution is the sacred story of our time. Part of their passion for
ministering to the whole life community stems from this cosmological consciousness
of a common evolutionary origin. They look at evolution as pointing to
the sacred reality that everything in creation was there at the Big Bang.
They look at evolution as pointing to the sacred reality that we are all
of a piece and are fundamentally connected.”
Local Franciscan friars are also focusing on earth care.
The Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley is planning a 2008 Lenten
series, “Peace on Our Planet,” that will include a Feb. 21
public lecture by Franciscan Brother Keith Warner on Franciscan Environmental
Ethics. The entire series will incorporate current information and contemplative
prayer regarding global issues.
Clare Ronzani, director of community spirituality at FST, said the school
has drought resistant plants on its grounds and energy saving light bulbs
in its classrooms. Future plans include solar paneling.
Scripture classes on the Old Testament and the Psalms “stress our
place in creation and our responsibility for it,” she said, adding
that one faculty member has committed to addressing environmental issues
in every course.
Some students and faculty have attended soil restoration trainings and
are using green home cleaning products..
The Franciscan Province of Santa Barbara sponsors a web site through its
Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation office featuring Earth meditations
and reflections. It can be accessed at www.sbfranciscans.org.
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