From The National Catholic Reporter: 

"Pope Francis has brought a fresh perspective to established Catholic teaching, panelists said March 13 at an event hosted by Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life to mark the pontiff's 10th anniversary.

Francis, formerly Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected the Catholic Church’s 266th pope March 13, 2013, after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation. During his pontificate, Francis has emphasized themes such as caring for people and creation, an approach some liken to a 'seamless garment.'"

Read more.

From L to R: Yende Anderson, Pa Lor, Tarra McNally

As we strive to deepen the impact of Global programs, and build capacity to best to support our partners, we are thrilled to welcome some exceptional talent to the newly expanded GHR Global team.

Yende Anderson, Program Officer, joins us from the Minnesota Department of Health. She has a background in state and national policy, stakeholder engagement, program design and implementation, aimed at integrating immigrant international medical graduates into Minnesota’s healthcare delivery system and other strategies to increase access to primary care. She has also designed health programming for women in West Africa and her home country of Liberia. 

Pa Lor, Program Associate, joins us from Habitat for Humanity, where she oversaw operations for the Homeowner Development Team. She has a background in administration, planning, data management, and client service. Pa will operate as the central coordinator and grants administrator for the GHR Global team.

Tarra McNally, Program Officer, joins us from the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. She has a background in research and community-centered program design and evaluation with a focus on global public health and faith, and experience working in Catholic and international spaces. She was a member of the external team that evaluated GHR’s Inter-religious Action initiative.

COP27, the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, saw a confluence of GHR Prepare The Future faith partners urging collaboration and attention to the most vulnerable in the face of planetary crisis.  

The Laudato Si’ Movement hosted a screening of the film The Letter: A Message for Our Earth, which was attended by several faith, policy, and scientific leaders and followed by a panel discussion on the role of the Church in promoting care for the Earth. 

FaithInvest announced the launch of the Multi-Faith Alliance for Climate Action, aimed at advancing collaboration between faith groups and key secular actors to accelerate climate action.
The Alliance and accompanying Multi-faith Just Transition Fund (MJTF) will enable faith and secular partners to work together on climate action.  

​Finally, as delegates continued deliberations in Egypt, Pope Francis offered his encouragement. Sharing his hope that COP27 will produce “lasting fruits on behalf of combating climate change”, he also noted the first anniversary of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which “promotes ecological conversion and lifestyles consistent with it” and is overseen by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development — another valued GHR partner. 

In commemoration of World Day of Migrants and Refugees, GHR partner Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)
produced a photo essay highlighting, in the spirit of Pope Francis' teachings, that collective growth as a human family is only possible if all are able grow together in peace and dignity.

Click to view the photo essay and to learn more about World Day of Migrants and Refugees. 

As Pope Francis apologizes to Canada's native people for the Catholic Church's role in the forced cultural assimilation and resultant abuse of Indigenous children, he offers a humbling example of efforts towards acknowledging and responding to the intergenerational trauma caused by government-funded Christian schools that separated families and isolated children from their culture. Part of a colonial project of assimilation, Pope Francis recognized these atrocities as “the colonialist mentality (which) disregarded the concrete life of people and imposed certain predetermined cultural models.” He reminds us, as Indigenous communities have long known, that “colonization has not ended; in many places it has been transformed, disguised and concealed.”

This represents a first step in a long process, as true acknowledgement of the indelible harm caused by the Church will need to be accompanied by meaningful action. The wounds of forced separation and abuse continue to mark the lived experiences of Indigenous communities today, a painful truth echoed in the responses of many Indigenous leaders to the Pope’s apology.

Through our work, GHR has learned about the vital importance of family care for a child’s long-term development and overall wellbeing, prompting our efforts to help strengthen families alongside Catholic communities, especially with Catholic Sisters. We know the Church has the potential to be a dynamic force for good in the world, as Pope Francis illuminates, and that it will take the support of a global community to continue the healing process.

While the Pope’s visit cannot erase the trauma of the past, GHR in inspired by Pope Francis’s steps toward reconciliation. The Foundation embraces similar opportunities to model his example and reflect on ourselves, our work, the communities we serve and opportunities for reconciliation from structural and systemic harm along the way.
​
Learn more about GHR’s work with the Church and family strengthening here, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition’s work for truth, healing, and justice for boarding school survivors and descendants.

From Commonweal Magazine: 
​
"What is the culture of encounter? It’s an idea, rooted in Catholic tradition, articulated by Pope Francis, that’s now active in aspects of the Church ranging from spirituality to diplomacy to interreligious dialogue to culture and the arts. Unlike the idea of synodality, which is abstruse and Church-specific, the idea of a culture of encounter is broadly humanistic and straightforward enough that people of various backgrounds can aspire to it. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the success of the Synod on Synodality set to take place in Rome next year will depend on whether a culture of encounter is present there. Here’s hoping—and praying—that it is."

Read more.

From the Laudato Si' Movement:

For the first time, Pope Francis has published in advance his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which is celebrated every September 1. It marks the beginning of the Season of Creation, an ecumenical period that unites Christians to pray and take action for our common home.

​What does the message say? We summarize it in four key points:

• A time to cultivate our ecological conversion

The Pope defines the Season of Creation as “an opportunity to cultivate our ‘ecological conversion’”, recalling this concept encouraged by St. John Paul II as a response to the ‘ecological catastrophe’ announced by St. Paul VI as early as 1970.
In this way, he invites all Christians during this time to “pray once more in the great cathedral of creation, and revel in the “grandiose cosmic choir” made up of countless creatures, all singing the praises of God”. 
People of faith, says the Pope, feel “even more responsible for acting each day in accordance with the summons to conversion.  Nor is that summons simply individual: “the ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion”. 

• Sweet song and bitter cry

Listening to creation, Francis mentions that there is a “kind of dissonance”: “On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this our common home”.
In this regard, the Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, Tomás Insua, mentioned: “The sweet song of creation is mixed with its bitter cry, as evidenced by the intense heat wave that is experienced in much of the northern hemisphere and that has already killed, only in Spain and Portugal, more than 1000 people or has left 5 million people without water in Monterrey, Mexico”. 
Francis encourages people to stop consumerism, change lifestyles and harmful systems. All scientific reports prove it and the Pope reaffirms it: “We are reaching ‘a breaking point’” and we must act now. “The crisis is no longer a hypothesis of a distant future but a tangible reality that is costing human lives,” added Tomás. 

• A warning message ahead the COPs

Ahead COP 27 on climate (Egypt, November 2022) and COP 15 on biodiversity (Canada, December 2022) Francis recalls in his message the importance of “promoting the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement”, as recently ratified by the Holy See. 
“Each passing moment is an opportunity for everyone, especially world leaders, to reverse the biodiversity and climate crises. Let COP 27 bring forth ambitious commitments to prevent carbon emissions from fossil fuels and support for clean energy transition as well as efficient relief for our brothers and sisters already within the climate crisis. Let COP 15 bring forth a firm commitment to end any more biodiversity collapse”, said Lindlyn Moma, Advocacy Director of the Laudato Si’ Movement.
And to the community of Catholics, the Pope calls them to prayer: “In this Season of Creation, let us pray that COP27 and COP15 may unite the human family to decisively address the double crisis of climate and biodiversity reduction”.

• Four key principles for biodiversity

Francis also uses his message to call on nations to halt the further collapse of the “web of life” – biodiversity – pointing to four principles:

1. Building a clear ethical basis for the transformation we need in order to save biodiversity; 
2. Fight biodiversity loss, support its conservation and recovery, and meet people’s needs in a sustainable way; 
3. Promote global solidarity, taking into account that biodiversity is a global common good that requires a shared commitment; 
4. Put people in vulnerable situations at the center, including those most affected by biodiversity loss, such as indigenous peoples, older people and youth.

Religions for Peace’s Multi-Religious Humanitarian Fund, seed-funded by GHR, is bringing together diverse religious leaders, communities, and institutions through affiliated Interreligious Councils to provide critical humanitarian response in the wake of COVID-19. The MRHF is currently financing 20 projects in 20 countries, and RfP announced a new round of applications on August 19th, World Humanitarian Day.

Funded projects were selected based on a track record of interreligious collaboration and experience providing humanitarian relief. Creative proposals raising resources to scale up services, partner with other religious and civic groups, and ensure sustainability of efforts were specifically sought.

Read more...

From The World Economic Forum:
​
​Forty leading global organizations have united to launch the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs, pooling knowledge, experience and responses to alleviate suffering and advance new models of change for a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable world.

"Social entrepreneurs and their community partners have been working for years to solve market failures and demonstrate more sustainable and inclusive models. These front-line organizations now face bankruptcy and severe constraints while they also innovate and respond to this global pandemic. Through this alliance, members are committing support for social entrepreneurs to protect decades of work in the impact sector,” said François Bonnici, Director and Head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum.

​Alliance members currently support more than 15,000 social entrepreneurs helping 1.5 billion people cumulatively in over 190 countries, working to serve the needs of excluded, marginalized and vulnerable groups – many of whom have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The alliance also aims to coordinate between member organizations and amplify the support for social entrepreneurs under extreme stress by the pandemic.

The development of the alliance is supported by GHR Foundation and is operationally supported by Yunus Social Business, which has been co-developing the initiative. “This pandemic reminds us that our differences in faith, culture or politics are superseded by what we have in common,” said Amy Goldman, Chief Executive Officer and Chair, GHR Foundation, which is helping to underwrite the alliance. 
“And whether someone is a social entrepreneur or a member of a faith community or both at once, we all share a deep desire to alleviate suffering, support human dignity and help people build a better future. This alliance is going to help people do exactly that.”

Learn more...

From Religions for Peace:

Religions for Peace (RfP) announces the launch of the “Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund” to support multi-religious collaborative efforts around COVID-19 and to stimulate creative interventions that promote resilience within and among diverse communities. 

RfP International, through this Fund, will provide a small seed grant to those Interreligious Councils (IRC) and multi-religious networks who are able to propose programs aimed at enhancing awareness about precautionary measures, supporting vulnerable households, combating discrimination in speech as well as actions, and serving the needs of the most vulnerable individuals and communities. The interreligious platforms who will be awarded this will have a track record of collaboration, and/or humanitarian relief provision.

The seed grants, sponsored by the donors to the Fund, GHR Foundation and Fetzer Institute, encourage interreligious platforms and project partners to raise additional resources to scale up their efforts and ensure the sustainability of these projects.

Learn more...