Caring for Creation and the Common Good

Columbia River: Pastoral Letter Project. The Columbia River is the focus of a pastoral letter released in February 2001 by twelve Catholic bishops from the northwestern United States and western Canada. The pastoral letter, entitled "The Columbia River Watershed: Caring for Creation and the Common Good," offers pastoral and spiritual reflections on the Columbia River, drawing upon principles of Catholic social teaching. The full text of the letter is available on this site in English, French, and Spanish. Also on the site are reflections on Scripture and Catholic social teaching, a document detailing the bishop’s reflections as they prepared their pastoral letter, a selection of other project-related readings, a Columbia River photo album, and links to related sites.

Sophia Garden. Sophia Garden in Amityville, New York, is a community-supported agricultural project maintained by the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Cross. The garden provides organically grown vegetables to project "members" and to those in the surrounding community who lack the resources to purchase fresh organic produce for themselves and their families. Here, at the Sophia Garden Web site, you will learn that this organic garden "is an attempt to model a new relationship with the earth and with the food we eat; a relationship based in a spirituality that recognizes the sacredness of soil and seed and knows that the human and the natural world are one sacred community."

White Violet Center for Eco-Justice. The White Violet Center for Eco-Justice is a Ministry of the Sisters of Providence, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. The center exists "to foster a way of living that recognizes the interdependence of all creation." Here at the center’s Web site you will find information on organic farming and composting, on raising bees and harvesting their honey, on cultivating berries and "heirloom" apples, on raising alpacas and spinning their fleece into yarn, and even on building a warm, sturdy house using bales of straw. There is also an excellent introduction to recycling: It does make a difference!

Catholic Conservation Center. The Web-based Catholic Conservation Center aims "to inform and inspire people about ecology, environmental justice, and the stewardship of creation in light of Scripture and Roman Catholic Tradition." Among the many offerings on the center’s Web site are short biographies of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron of animals and ecology, and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, patroness of ecology and the environment. The site also offers an excerpt from The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, in which the Little Flower tells how contemplating "the book of nature" brings her to a deeper relationship with God.