Green Churches look to papal nuncio for support

The efforts to help churches develop better environmental practices took another hopeful step forward on Nov. 25 as Green Churches Network director Norman Lévesque met with papal nuncio Luigi Bonazzi.

Lévesque said he hopes this meeting with the Apostolic Nunciature will foster a partnership to launch new initiatives to encourage local parishes to be more conscious of their impact on the Earth.

“It’s new and we’re quite excited at the office here,” said Lévesque. “We want to produce more tools to raise awareness in our parishes.”

Lévesque and his staff recently met with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change about a possible partnership to create resources for Canadian churches.

“One thing the Ministry of Environment is going to help us with is to make a special tool on climate change,” he said. “But what’s interesting is that we have this beautiful freedom of using more Christian vocabulary and symbolism.”

The Green Churches Network has been helping Christian communities reduce their ecological footprint for 10 years. It began as a church project in 2006 at a United Church mission in Montreal.

Green Churches operates mainly within Quebec, facilitating ecumenical conferences and retreats, but has grown to more Christian congregations. In 2011, the Green Churches Toolkit was released with training tools and resources for faith communities.

Lévesque said its staff continues to grow. Discussions with both the nunciature and the ministry are in its early stages, but Lévesque is hopeful this will be the beginning of a nationwide outreach project.

“We have produced a certain amount of tools but we want to continue producing these tools custom-made for these churches.”