The bishops showing their pledges after signing the Laudato Si’ commitment for the Malaysian Church at MAJODI Centre, Johor, July 12, 2023
By Clare Westwood, Regional Director, ECCJ-MSB
Jul 31 2023
PLENTONG, Johor – The nine Malaysian bishops signed pledges to make their dioceses ecological, during the Catholic Bishops’ Conference at MAJODI Centre, July 13.
The pledge is worded as follows: “The Roman Catholic arch/diocese of (name), Malaysia, hereby declares its pledge to be an Ecological Diocese in perpetuity, living out a deep ecological spirituality and advancing ecological justice and resilience for all creation, by pursuing decarbonised pathways and the building of community and earth resilience, according to the Ecological Diocese Protocols appended to this pledge, to the best of its ability and creativity within local circumstances.”
Addressing his fellow bishops, the President of the Episcopal Commission for Creation Justice of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei (ECCJ-MSB), Rt Rev Joseph Hii, said this event was particularly meaningful in line with the ECCJ-MSB’s Protect Our Earth, Protect Our Children (PROTEC) campaign launched nation-wide in 2020 and which carried a new theme each year.
The current year’s theme for PROTEC is Stop Plastic Pollution and the new theme for Year Four (Sept 1, 2023, to Aug 31, 2024) would be Cut Fuel Consumption which is in line with the ECCJ-MSB’s current Decarbonising Malaysia Project, launched this year, given the worsening of the climate crisis.
MJD Creation Justice Commission head, Dr Maria Lee, who was present at the ceremony, shared that everyone in the ECCJMSB is proud of our Church leaders i.e. the bishops, for signing this pledge. It shows that the Catholic Church is taking the call of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ (LS) to “save mankind from self-destruction” (LS#79) seriously. She also stressed that the climate crisis is a health crisis and hoped Catholic doctors would be leaders in taking up this public health issue. She further called upon the Church to dedicate one Prayer of the Faithful at every Mass to the climate emergency, and for every commission/ministry to incorporate climate action in its work.
The pledge was signed in the form of a certificate with several appendices listing out the ecological diocese protocols in detail with accompanying Ecological Parish Protocols, self-monitoring forms and other supporting documents to help each diocese and parish make the transition towards becoming fully ecological. Each bishop was also given a pen drive filled with resources produced by the ECCJ-MSB members over the years to support ecological conversion and transformation (flyers, bookmarks, videos, etc.) at the diocesan and parish levels. These resources were also shared with Cardinal William Goh of Singapore and Fr Robert Leong of Brunei.
The pledges made by all the bishops of Malaysia truly represent a milestone for the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia, showing it is united in taking leadership and accountability, and is a clarion call for all the Catholic faithful to respond to the global emergency with urgency. It is timely as well, given that we are in our seventh year since Laudato Si’ was released and Pope Francis repeatedly reminds us to “hear the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor (LS#49)”.
Since the ECCJ-MSB restructured itself with its new name in 2017, the Commission has grown from strength to strength, with all arch/dioceses coming on board with active Creation Justice Commissions. With the bishops’ pledges successfully signed, there is a hopeful expectation that every parish within each diocese in Malaysia will set up a dedicated Creation Justice Ministry with the primary objective of promoting the advancement of creation justice and resilience for all aspects of creation, encompassing both humanity and the natural world. Since the UN declared a (Climate) Code Red situation in 2022, with all indications that at current emission rates, we will hit 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming in the next decade, there is no time to lose for the sake of current and future generations and our beloved Common Home.
