Learn more about care for creation from a Franciscan perspective by viewing a few short videos of a talk on Franciscans and Climate Change given by Riobart E. Breen, Ph.D. at Ecumenical Advocacy Days 2009.  This video is the first of four short videos that include Dr. Breen's talk in its entirety. To view parts 2-4 go to YouTube by clicking here.

Care for Creation 

a gentle, Franciscan revolution

As sisters and brothers in Christ, we are called by baptism to care for creation. This vocation is universal. But as members of an extended Franciscan family, it is particular with us. In other words, in our hearts we already know the reason why Pope John Paul II made brother Francis the patron saint of ecology in 1979. The Holy Father saw that the grace of a particular charism could best meet the daunting challenge of helping to heal a creation being systematically dis-integrated through human action and ignorance.

Thirty years after John Paul II’s declaration about St.Francis, in the U.S. where 20% of the world’s consumption occurs and where climate change, water relations, and numerous ecological issues are regularly in the news — we are invited to recognize our particular responsibility and our ability to act. Care for Creation, or “C4C,” is a new program intended to form persons of faith so that they can address head-on our common need to care for “Sister Earth.”  Through prayer, study, the fostering of community, and God’s promise to be with us, we can become Caretakers of Creation. This is the gentlest of revolutions, an inclusive social transformation in the joyful Franciscan spirit.

Come and see!  Discover a better relation to God, to one another, to the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the ground upon which we stand.

Click on a link at the left to learn more about the C4C process, or to sign up for a C4C Training. Also, if you haven't already, be sure to sign up to become a member of FAN. This will give you the opportunity to become a part of FAN's on-going civic engagment and public media work to promote U.S. domestic and international efforts to establish policies that will safeguard creation.  For more information, click here to send us an email.