The push for ecological conversion: Jersey conference put environment in faith framework

National Catholic Reporter, August 15, 2003 by Patricia Lefevere

Three years ago plans were afloat to build a megamall on a parcel of degraded wetlands. But the swift action of Congressman Steve Rothman, D-N.J., and of federal, state and local eco-friendly groups--such as the nonprofit Hackensack Riverkeeper--has resulted in appropriations for an 8,400-acre environmental park instead.

Though years of work and funding remain before the park is finished, Carola breathed a sigh of relief for the turtles and herons, the egrets and ospreys, all the diversity of marine life and the 265 species of birds that inhabit the Meadowlands. He is also happy for his neighbors in North Jersey. "People have a right to access water and land," he said, citing a principle enshrined in Justinian's code of Roman law.

Carola believes that Catholics are ready to act to protect the environment. When he talks at churches and schools, "People say, 'Wow!' 'It's about time,' "Carola reported.

His advice: "Find something within driving distance of your home. Start working on whatever ticks you off the most--water issues, species, waste facilities in poor areas, toxic crabs.... You won't save it unless you love it. You won't love it unless you know it."

Carola, a member of Holy Trinity Parish, Hackensack, where he conducted an energy audit and a recycling campaign in the late 1990s, helped organize the conference, which involved volunteers and grants from the Newark archdiocese and the Camden, Metuchen, Paterson and Trenton dioceses. Bishop John Smith of Trenton opened the "historic gathering," by envisioning that New Jersey could become "a model of how sound economic and environmental policy can be wedded."

For that to happen, Christians and others have to educate themselves and their neighbors about the environment, whose problems are moral and spiritual, he said, though often seen as only economic and technical. Smith urged Christians to alter their lifestyles. "Conversion is needed in the way we think, act, consume and pillage nature."

Support from bishops

Kay Furlani, who directs the Office of Human Concerns in the Newark archdiocese, led the group that organized and ran the environmental conference. She said the idea for the conference began when Greg Mancini, a Princeton graduate, interned with the New Jersey Catholic Conference in 2001 and was asked to research the state's environmental issues from the standpoint of the church. Gradually Furlani, Carola and about a dozen interested Catholics formed the New Jersey Catholic Coalition for Environmental Justice.

The organizers were assisted by an $8,000 grant from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and by Walter Grazer, who heads the bishops' Environmental Justice Program and has worked with several Catholic groups to facilitate leadership on environmental justice. The Princeton conference represented the first three-day Catholic gathering on ecology in the nation, but benefited from previous diocesan workshops in Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon, Grazer told NCR.

While the field is vast and the problems many, Grazer said, "the good news is that things just happen. At the bishops' conference, we can't keep up with all that's going on. We tell people to take their disciplines and talents and start applying them to local concerns."