Cardinal Robert McElroy celebrated the 2022 Feast of St. Francis Mass on Oct. 1 by calling on people of faith to unite with the entire human family to end the environmental crisis that has “defaced and destroyed” so much of God’s creation.
The diocese’s Creation Care Ministry organized the morning Mass, attended by hundreds from across the region at St. Rita’s Church in Southeastern San Diego.
At the conclusion, the ministry announced the ten young winners of its inaugural Season of Creation Art Contest, which had as a theme “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Participants ranged from fourth graders to young adults age 18 and older and came from schools and parishes from across the diocese.
Afterward, Mass-goers attended a lunch at the parish hall, where they were able to see the winning entries and hear from their young creators.
Cardinal McElroy opened the Mass by outlining what had brought them together.
“We celebrate two important realities in our world,” the cardinal said. “The first is the beauty of creation that God has bestowed upon the whole human family. It’s the foundation of every blessing we know in our lives.
“The second is the call that God has given to us to be protectors of that creation, guardians, in a special way. And to understand that in our times, we have defaced and destroyed so much of the created order that it is in great crisis, and we must move as a human family to end that crisis….”
The San Diego Diocese implemented a series of measures, including the installation of solar systems at its central offices, parishes and schools, to protect the environment. The diocese also launched a ministry, led by Father Emmet Farrell, to inform parishes and schools about the pope’s document, urging them to develop a team to launch environmental projects.
In 2021, the ministry developed a Creation Care Action Plan for individuals, parishes and schools.
The diocese established an office in July to lead these environmental efforts. That office, called Creation Care Ministry, itself part of the Office for Life, Peace and Justice, organized the St. Francis Mass and the Season of Creation Art Contest.
Afterward, its director, Christina Bagaglio Slentz, announced that a total of 168 young people had participated in the contest, which also was promoted by Catholic schools and parishes. They had submitted entries in the form of an essay, poem, drawing, painting, video and song. The winners received a certificate and gift cards….
The above comes from an Oct. 1 story in the Southern Cross.
Tone deaf. Cardinal McElroy: Take a look at your friend (“catholic”) Pelosi’s San Francisco if you want to see a world defaced and destroyed. Cast your eyes upon (catholic) Newsom’s Abortions to the Ninth Month Welcomed Here billboards in California. City. State. World. That’s how it goes and that’s how our world is being destroyed from bottom to top. The airy-fairy bilge of Creaton Care coming from McElroy is as empty as the zucchetto sitting on his head.
Well, Cardinal McElroy (D, San Diego) has his priorities . . .
I knew before opening the link that it was McElroy’s project. Nowhere is Christ mentioned. “Life, Peace and Justice” is Social Justice for secular issues but “Life” doesn’t include the unborn in his purview. I wish he would go away but then I don’t wish him on anyone else.
Where does he get all his money for these pet projects? No one I know gives a penny to the diocese. Is George Soros his friend, by any chance?
Well said, Peggy.
I wonder if the Cardinal knows how much of the planet is being defaced now to extract the minerals for his solar panels and the batteries that store their energy.
Using natural resources and land to feed, clothe and house human beings is hardly “defacement”. We should not repeat of course the inefficiencies and waste of the past (much of it the result of more primitive technology rather than the much-flagellated “greed”), but we are to “fill the Earth and subdue it”, which means less room for wild plants and critters. Farmers cultivating fields, lumberman felling trees for houses, framers building said houses and so on “deface” nothing.
https://www.cal-catholic.com/san-diego-diocese-makes-move-toward-solar-power/
I highly recommend reading Peter Hegseth’s book “Battle for the American Mind”. The end intent of the Progressives is to destroy Western Civilization.
First, they had to get rid of God, starting in the elementary public schools. They had to indoctrinate children so they didn’t know what Christianity was. The plan started in 1860 and incrementally progressed through all our institutions. Woodrow Wilson in 1917 was very opposed to our Constitution. God, education and the Constitution all stand in the way of the Progressives.
When you think all the craziness that is happening, realize it’s not crazy to the Progressives. It is all going according to plan.
Read the book and you will have an understanding of how organized and clandestined they are. I think our McElroy is “one of them”.
Peggy, you can’t believe everything you read.
Public schools had Christianity in them until 1948.
Tom Byrne, we can do it more responsibly.
This is classic liberal virtue signaling: “I care more than you do because I am creating a ministry for the environment…” “Creation Care Ministry”…what a recycled load of…laundry. Not to sound alarmist, but this is almost exactly how then Fr Matt Fox, OP started out in the early 80’s. My guess is these guys know each other being as they are both from the Bay Area. Fox is now a defrocked ex-Dominican Catholic who says he is Episcopalian, but is more of a plain old deist. He does not believe not in God, but in the gods; he is pantheistic. You can read about him here. https://www.matthewfox.org/what-is-creation-spirituality Not saying McElroy will follow the exact same route, but it is a dangerous ballet between orthodoxy and caving into liberal anti-Christian ideologies which tend to de emphasize God eternal kingdom, and instead emphasize God’s natural world. My thesis is this: As one de-emphasizes the Kingdom of God and Church, there is nothing left but the kingdom of the natural world. Hence, if all one now has is the natural world, you want to fight for it. This is why we have Eco-warriors.
He should hire Matthew Fox as his consultant. Scratch that, he probably already has.
“calling on people of faith to unite with the entire human family to end the environmental crisis that has “defaced and destroyed” so much of God’s creation.” I am not sure what B. McElroy means in reference to the destruction of God’s creation. If so much of the created order has been destroyed, to what is referring? Taken at face value, I would suppose his words imply vast stretches of land — the majority of it — are turned to waste and the seas uninhabitable. If so then the earth is no longer beautiful, nor fit for human life. Is that his meaning? And I for one would be relieved to know that B. McElroy has discontinued flying and driving, and has taken up horse and buggy. Then I know he means business.
He should be more concerned about the saving souls than the planet! But what do I know, I’m just a lay person trying to stop Prop 1 from passing here in CA.
He dedicates his entire life to saving souls and serving God.
This is something that God calls us to do as well as be pro-life.
You do both not pick and choose.
Recently, the parish office of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, CA , was desecrated. There will be a Rosary Rally of Reparation on Sat. Oct. 8, at Noon, at the parish office, at 3290 Middlefield Road. All are invited to come and join the Rosary of Reparation.
There are actually three churches that are in a group in Palo Alto, that have their main offices in the St. Thomas Aquinas Pastoral Center, which was desecrated recently–St. Thomas Aquinas, Holy Rosary, and St. Albert the Great churches. The Rosary of Reparation will be at the Pastoral Center, where the desecration occurred. I do not belong to any of these parishes, but the leaders of the Rosary of Reparation have asked all Catholics in the area to please come and participate.
Sorry, I goofed in my comment of Oct. 4 at 6:46pm. The name of one of the three churches in the group which I mentioned, is Our Lady of the Rosary Church, not Holy Rosary Church.
Blanca-Bishop McElroy had every parish in the S.D.diosis deliver his homily railing the faithful against Prop 1 this past weekend.
John C.– Hope you will vote against Prop. 1!
So many of God’s churches defaced from within and outside the Church.