After some presidential aspirants were asked about accepting donations from companies involved in mining, CBCP has this to say: Don’t.
Leading by example, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has agreed to reject donations from environmentally destructive industries such as mining, logging, quarrying, among others.
A “non-acceptance of policy” is included in the new pastoral statement on ecology released after the two-day online plenary assembly of the CBCP.
“Urge all institutions holding the Church’s financial resources to move away from extractive industries, including logging and mining, with haste,” the document reads.
We will not support any activity that leads to promoting destructive mining, recognizing the suffering it has and continues to bring upon the environment and affected communities.”
Donations of any kind will be refused regardless of the scale of operation of the company involved in extractive industries “especially coal, fossil gas, mining, quarrying, logging, etc.”
The group said in a statement that its members are concerned for the climate-vulnerable nations experiencing the intensifying calamities due to the instability of the biosphere.
The most recent example is how Typhoon Odette strengthened from a Category 1 to 5 under 24 hours, becoming the strongest storm of 2021.
These "destructive" sectors, the CBCP said, only "benefit the wealthy few but cause poverty and hunger to many".
According to the group, the Church intends to fully withdraw its support from financial institutions and corporations invested in ecologically-harmful activities by 2025 as well as hold them accountable as climate actors.
The Pastoral Letter, it says, follows Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ On Care for Our Common Home, which calls “for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet” (LS, 14).
“There’s something called walking the talk. So this is a good statement issued to show that we will really make efforts and for our Church institutions to put it into practice,” Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara, CBCP Vice President said.
Summary: #environment, #climatechange, #CatholicChurch, #donations, #CatholicBishopsConferenceofthePhilippines