Daventry churchgoers have been adding their voice to a call from the Pope to take action to protect the environment and tackle climate change.
Pope Francis released an Encyclical on Thursday June 18 – a letter to people worldwide – calling on everyone to take better care of the environment and the planet.
Supporters of Catholic aid agency CAFOD in Daventry have already begun responding to the Pope’s rallying call.
Maggie and Bruce Nichols from St. Augustine’s Church travelled to Westminster to join the ‘Speak Up For The Love Of…’ lobby of MPs.
The parishioners at the event – the largest lobby of Parliament on climate change in history – called on politicians to push for a global agreement on tackling the changing climate and to support the move towards clean and sustainable energy for everyone.
The lobby came after people in every constituency across the region wrote to candidates standing for Parliament in the general election asking them to make the changing climate a priority.
Maggie said: “I came to the lobby to meet my MP, Chris Heaton-Harris and give him information on behalf of his constituents so that he knows our concerns locally and abroad.”
Deborah Purfield, manager for CAFOD in Northamptonshire, said: “We’re delighted that CAFOD supporters in Daventry are responding to Pope Francis’s call to action.
“Climate change is the single biggest threat to reducing poverty. It’s already hitting communities CAFOD works with in some of the poorest countries in the world, with more severe cyclones and typhoons destroying homes and more frequent droughts meaning that people are having to leave their countries.
“It’s also affecting us here in the UK, whether through our favourite foods becoming more expensive or through the increased risk of flooding to houses in some areas.
“The fact is that world leaders have real opportunities in the coming months and years, including at a meeting in Paris in November and December, to agree to cut the use of polluting fossil fuels.
“We’d like to thank people such as Maggie and Bruce for adding their voice to those calls.”
The Pope’s Encyclical, called ‘Laudato Si’ – On the care of our common home’, states that action by everyone is necessary in order to prevent environmental damage such as climate change impacting upon the poorest and most vulnerable people.
Further information on the Encyclical can be found at cafod.org.uk