1998 Diocesan Regional Grant Awards
First Round
The following diocesan projects have received a grant award from the USCC's Environmental Justice Program. This is the first round of grants to be awarded for 1998.
River of Life Initiative , Archdiocese of Detroit, $6,000. The River of Life Initiative is a joint venture of the Christian Service Department of the Archdiocese of Detroit and 44 parishes. The project goal is to organize these parishes in an effort to clean-up and protect the Clinton River Watershed as part of a larger effort to deal with the economic, social and environmental problems spawned by urban sprawl. The Clinton River Watershed is the second largest river basin in southeast Michigan. Communities and neighborhoods in the watershed continue to absorb population shifts and growths in a sprawl pattern leading to the pollution of the watershed. The grant will enable the Archdiocese and the parishes to begin to build parish leadership to address this concern based upon the Church's social teaching about the environment coupled with a public policy advocacy campaign.
A Gospel of Life for Florida's Young People: Spiritual, Familial and Environmental Regeneration, Florida Catholic Conference and the Florida Council of Catholic Scholarship, $6,000. The Florida Catholic Conference and the Florida Council of Catholic Scholarship (Barry University, Blessed Edmund Rice School for Pastoral Study, St. John Vianney College Seminary, St. Leo College, St. Thomas University and St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary) have joined together as sponsors for this project. The project seeks to initiate a scholarly and educational process offering support for what Pope John Paul II has called "the Gospel of Life" across a range of human experiences that touch upon the spiritual, familial and environmental lives of the young people of Florida. Through a series of seminars, inter-faculty dialogues, a state wide conference and a follow up public education campaign, the consortium hopes to address the problems Florida youth face from the erosion both of community and family life and the special environmental problems of Florida. The project will focus on creating the intellectual support needed to address these problems from a Catholic perspective tying this intellectual effort into the public policy work on the environment of the Florida Catholic Conference.
The San Ysidro Project for Environmental Justice: Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Diocese of Gallup, Diocese of Las Cruces, the New Mexico Catholic Conference and the New Mexico Council of Churches, $6,000. The bishops of New Mexico plan to issue a joint pastoral letter on the environment. The San Ysidro Project in conjunction with the release of the letter offers an unprecedented opportunity to lift up the environmental justice concerns within the state and highlighting the moral dimensions of environmental concerns. A special emphasis will be given to the problems along the Rio Grande corridor. Associated with the traditional feast of San Ysidro and the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Gospel in New Mexico and the blessing of the fields, the project will coordinate a significant media effort, organize a state wide symposium and conduct a series of follow up projects. The Rio Grande corridor is undergoing extensive growth producing environmental problems. These problems along the Rio Grand as well as environmental problems in other parts of the state add to the social burdens already borne by many of the poor. This projects seeks to create a moral voice for these issues and enhance the Church's capacity to speak to them. Its goal is to organize Catholics specifically, but the project will also collaborate ecumenically to equip parishes and congregations for effective public policy.
The Southern Plains Conference: the Promised Land Network, the Dioceses of Amarillo and Lubbock, Texas and the Diocese of Dodge City, Kansas, $6,000. A significant problem in addressing agriculturally related environmental concerns is the lack of understanding between farmers, ranchers and environmentalists. Often this lack of trust and understanding inhibits effective environmental practices. The Promised Land Network will offer an opportunity for the Church to pull together farmers and environmentalists to explore through dialogue common values and goals that can serve as the basis of more effective environmental practices. The series of initiatives the Network will conduct as part of this project seeks to help Catholics in each of these dioceses understand the importance of these concerns by becoming more familiar with the Church's social teachings about the environment and their practical application. The project hopes to sustain the dialogue among farmers, ranchers and environmentalists that can serve as a model for dispute resolution.