Could you introduce yourself and your role at Catholic Mission?
My name is Liesje Barratt and I have been the Mission Formation Coordinator since 2018. My role is really varied and includes supporting our Mission Formation Team to deliver adult and student formation and education programs, advocacy for families and children from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds, and supporting First Nations peoples through partnerships with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Community (NATSICC).
As well as these important areas of Mission, I am passionate about understanding and helping others to connect with Pope Francis’s concept of an Integral Ecology and our role as custodians and earth-centred beings. I feel closest to God’s presence when I am in nature and value opportunities that allow others to feel loved and held by nature too.
As the lead on the Ecological Action Plan, what do you see as the key benefits and challenges of implementing this initiative within Catholic Mission?
The Ecological Action Plan provides a vehicle for Catholic Mission to have an ecological lens on all our actions and work. There are many benefits of this, but a critical one is achieving better and more sustainable outcomes for the communities we partner with, locally and globally. We know we are in a global human-induced climate and living systems emergency, and that the world’s poorest and marginalised communities are already suffering, and will continue to suffer, the impacts of a world facing increasing and worsening ecological disruptions. Supporting these communities to recognise their unique problems are also opportunities to live in right relationship with nature. But it’s also a call to each of us to re-examine our lifestyles and our connection to earth, to choose to be the change the planet desperately needs and to fall back in love with the universe. Pope Francis calls this change of heart, mind, and behaviour an ‘ecological conversion’.
I think a key challenge is our disconnect from the more than human world and in particular our local ecologies and communities. It’s the unexamined assumptions that we have come to accept in this age of technology and globalisation – the idea that earth’s resources are endless and free and that the price of something reflects its full cost – so our challenge is to intentionally slow down and rethink and relearn how to live a new story. Ecological conversion starts with ourselves; it requires deep listening to creation, our communities and wisdom holders, reflection, time in the natural world, and small actions to live more simplistic and sustainable lifestyles. We will only save what we love and we only love what we know.
How will the Ecological Action Plan influence Catholic Mission’s future projects and priorities?
The Ecological Action Plan includes some really practical measures; waste management, ethical resource use, and reviewing travel practices, as well as nurturing our spiritual understanding of our interconnectedness with the entire earth community. It will enable Catholic Mission to have an ecological lens on our decision making and provide staff with opportunities to learn and act for the good of our Common Home. The plan takes inspiration and guidance from the Laudato Si' Action Platform and Catholic Mission has committed to its ongoing review and development. I believe it will influence future projects and priorities by listening to the voices of knowledge holders, building vibrant local regenerative communities, and providing ways to act now for a better tomorrow.
How do you think this plan will enable us to better serve the communities we support worldwide?
Across many of the communities we support globally, conflict, existing inequalities and development challenges such as poverty and limited access to basic services like clean water, heighten sensitivity to climate hazards, and limit a community's capacity to adapt. Assisting communities to understand the principles of Laudato Si' and how they can lead in transformative and ecologically sound Mission development will support them against future environmental and economic collapse and ensure young people and future generations can also live Life to the Full.
We are committed to the understanding of an Integral Ecology as shared by Pope Francis in his second encyclical, Laudato Si' (LS), on care for our common home.
Read our Ecological Action Plan
