NM-IPL Supports Efforts Against Line 3 Replacement Pipeline

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June 5, 2021

Blessings in Solidarity Water Protectors for our Earth:

New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, hundreds of faith communities, and thousands of people of faith and conscience, in the Land of Enchantment stand in solidarity with you to stop the building of the Line 3 replacement pipeline.  We send prayers and continue to pray with you these days and into the future. However, our prayers also motivate us to sacred action with you and in our own state, which is one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the Permian Basin in South East New Mexico and in the San Juan Basin in the Northwest of our state.

We have been working alongside frontline communities, including many of our Native American brothers and sisters for many years to address extractivism, legacy clean up, water, and related economic transition and health concerns in our state, which suffers with many sacrifice zones.

All of our diverse spiritual traditions hold water as sacred and as life. The pipeline is destroying so much, which cannot be recovered.  We stand at a moral juncture facing a different future with oil and gas extraction. For too long pollution has compromised the lifeways of us all and especially our Native American brothers and sisters in Minnesota and beyond.

The days of tars sands are over, we must stand with you to protect the treaties, to protect sister water, and to protect the climate in order to sustain life to all on this is earth and nation.  As written to President Biden on May 26, this is a battle for the Soul of Our Nation. We rise with you for the treaties, for climate and for water.

We rise together for one another and all creation, to stand for justice and dignity for our sacred creation and humanity—against a backdrop of long years and many lifetimes of colonial terror, injustice, and broken trust. We join ourselves with all who are here to stop the pipeline, knowing that in standing united we are powerful enough to change the tide of greed, waste, and profit, which can no longer govern the hearts of those who govern us. We believe that the spiritual foundations of our paths empower us for this hard work.

NM IPL believes that we have an ethical, moral and spiritual responsibility to address this injustice from spiritual roots to make alive spiritual activism. President Biden is a devote Catholic and a spiritual man and we call upon him from his spiritual foundations and the Catholic Social teachings to not ignore the cry to stop the pipeline.

Thank you for inviting us to join in this gathering of resistance to stand for life and for all you have done to protect all that is sacred for all generations of life here now and to come.

With peace, good and prayers of solidarity,

With peace, good and prayers of solidarity,

Sr. Joan Brown,osf, Executive Director, NM IPL

Emily Syal, staff team

Carlos Navarro, staff team

Terry Sloan, Board member, Catholic, Navajo/Hopi

Stephen Picha, Board member, Presbyterian, Catholic

Ann McCartney, Board member, Spiritual

Ruth Striegel, Board member, United Church of Christ

Judy Smith, Board member, Jewish

Tom Stark, Board member, Unitarian Universalist

Necip Orhan, Board member, Muslim

Arcelia Isais-Gastelum, Board member, Catholic Young Adult

Charlotte Smith, Board member, Bahai

Larry Rasmussen, Author, Advisor

Rev. Anita Amstutz, Mennonite, Advisor

Sr. Rose Marie Cecchinni, mm, Advisor, Office of Life Justice Peace and Creation Stewardship, Gallup Catholic Diocese

Excerpts from a Devotional on Climate Change

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(Via Bread for the World)

This installment of Prayers to End Hunger is excerpted from Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo’s devotional on climate change in Finding Hope, Ending Hunger on Both Sides of the Border: A Bilingual Latino Devotional.

From the early scripture passages (Genesis 2:15) to the last (Revelation 11:18), we hear a call and warning to care for God’s creation (Psalm 24:1). When we disrespect this call, the harmonious order under which God created life is threatened, and all creatures suffer the consequences (Jeremiah 14:2-7). Although the story of Joseph (Genesis 37, 40-41), and the dreams of the Pharaoh of Egypt does not speak of a climate crisis like the one we face today, it certainly describes the reality of a region that will face major climate shifts.

Like Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, climate scientists today have interpreted climate data and warn us about coming fluctuations in temperatures, stronger storms, longer droughts, and floods. These are already affecting the planet’s biodiversity and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable human communities. The next few years are a critical time for the global community to adopt policies that put humanity on a path to ending hunger while averting catastrophic damage to the planet. Let us pray:

God of Creation:

In your infinite wisdom and limitless love, you created the Earth — a magnificent planet teeming with life.

Just as you equipped Joseph with the spiritual gifts necessary to protect the lives of thousands, equip us so that through our actions to protect the lives of the most vulnerable communities against climate change, the world gets to know your kindness and your glory.  Amen

Celebrate Laudato Si Week on May 17-25

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Laudato Si’ Week 2021, to be held May 16-25, will be the crowning event of the Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year, and a celebration of the great progress the whole Church has made on its journey to ecological conversion.

Laudato Si’ Week 2021 will also be a time to reflect on what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us and prepare for the future with hope.

Official Events

May 17

Laudato Si Dialogue: Critical Opportunities in 2021 to create change: call for an integral path.

This webinar will highlight key political opportunities in 2021 to create change, with a focus on the UN climate conference (COP 26) and the UN biodiversity conference (COP 15) and the need for an integral approach. We will hear from the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and from indigenous and youth leaders on the key role these conferences must play in building back better after the COVID 19 pandemic, achieving global goals, restoring harmony between humanity and nature, and building a culture of care and justice. Attend This Event

Other Events (Click here for details on each of the events listed below)

18 May – Laudato Si Dialogue on Education
19 May – Laudato Si Dialogue on Energy and Fossil Fuels
20 May – Sowing Hope for the Planet / Creation Care Prayer Network
21 May – Global Action Day for Our Common Home
22 May – Laudato Si Festival “Songs for Creation”
23 May – (Pentecost) Praying Gathering
24 May – Roundtable about WASH
25 May – Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development