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Care for Creation

“Urgent needs call us, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Associates, Consociates, `Ohana and Familia de San José, to bold conversation and prophetic action. Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to respond to the crisis of Earth and global warming.”

Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter

We commit to implementing Laudato Si’

Volunteers at our community garden in St. Paul
Sisters, consociates and St. Joseph Workers collaborate on a community garden on our province grounds in St. Paul.

We commit, as individuals, as a community and as an organization, to recognize how our decisions impact the Earth community; to raise our awareness and change behaviors; to act with urgency to protect Earth’s stability and integrity and to celebrate her beauty wherever we are.

Our congregation publicly commits to join with Pope Francis and the universal Catholic Church on a seven-year journey to ecological conversion through the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.

Climate change is different from any other issue

Many in our congregation have made a commitment to drastically reduce their consumption of single-use plastics and to invest in recycling.

Climate change is different than any other issue that might demand our commitment because it is a moral imperative for every person on the planet. Pope Francis calls us to respond to this “emergency,” which is the greatest existential threat to civilization and to our planet today. We know that every living being depends on the health of Earth’s atmosphere for their health. We also know that our choices and actions contribute to the climate imbalance. For the sake of our dear neighbors and the Earth, which is a sacred gift, we must clean up after ourselves and “respond boldly” to this emergency.

Right now, we are being given the grace to help return Earth’s atmospheric system to a healthier state and to support each other in taking action. Therefore, we believe that each of us can dare to make significant and bold changes to our lifestyle by reducing our use of fossil fuels and offsetting the carbon footprint of our daily lives, either by planting trees to absorb the pollution caused by our choices or by paying tree-planting organizations to do this for us.

Climate justice involves social and racial justice because “the impacts of climate change are likely to be felt disproportionately by those who face socioeconomic inequalities” (Leiserowitz, A. & Akerlof, K.). Unifying love calls us to make difficult lifestyle choices and commitments so that we may contribute to restoring the health of the whole Earth Community.

Plastic-free sustainable products

As part of our commitment to Earth, we aim to reduce our consumption of plastic products, especially single-use plastics. To help support sustainability and FairTrade efforts at home and around the world, we have compiled a list of product recommendations and reviews from some of our sisters and partners.

Annual campaigns

We celebrate three annual seasons to call attention to Earth justice:

Earth Resources

Ecological Conversion

  • Four Dimensions of Ecological Conversion: Sr. Mary Ann Casanova explores four dimensions of ecological conversion and illustrates this conversion with a retelling of the Trek of the Seven Sisters, the migration of seven Sisters of St. Joseph from St. Louis to Tucson in 1870.
    Download the pdf in English, Spanish or Japanese (200 KB)
  • Ecological Conversion: Going Deeper, Journeying Farther, Responding Boldly and Creatively presentation by Patty Johnson, CSJ
    Watch on YouTube in English or Spanish
  • Prayer and Action on Laudato Si’, A Guide to Conversion and Transformation (November 2015)
    Download the pdf in English or Spanish (275 KB)

Videos

About us

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet are a congregation of Catholic sisters. We, and those who share our charism and mission, are motivated in all things by our profound love of God and our dear neighbors. We seek to build communities and bridge divides between people. Since our first sisters gathered in 1650, our members have been called to “do all things of which women are capable.” The first sisters of our congregation arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 1836, and we now have additional locations in St. Paul, Albany, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Japan and Peru. Today, we commit to respond boldly to injustice and dare to be prophetic.

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Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
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