By Mary Mwendwa
Nairobi, Kenya: 47 faith institutions recently announced their strip from fossil fuels, making the largest-ever joint announcement of divestment among religious leaders. These include 42 Catholic institutions and additional Protestant, and Jewish institutions.
In Kenya, four religious congregations announced their commitment. On an African level, the Archdiocesan Commission on Justice and Peace in Luanda (Angola) and others in Uganda and Lesotho joined the announcement.
While the nation confronts the COVID crisis, Catholics are both providing frontline healthcare and showing a clear commitment to a comprehensive recovery that is sorely needed. Clean energy protects people from the risks of air pollution and climate change, both of which harm human health.
The commitment to fossil fuel depriving is the first that has been made after the Vatican’s first-ever operational guidance on the environment was issued.
These guidelines, which were jointly issued by all dicasteries of the Vatican, suggested that Catholics avoid investing in companies that “harm human or social ecology (for example, through abortion or the arms trade), or environmental ecology (for example, through the use of fossil fuels).
Fr. Augusto Zampini-Davies, adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s social-environmental ministry, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said “We celebrate that Catholic institutions around the world are implementing the Vatican’s guidelines on divestment from fossil fuels.”
”Today’s announcement demonstrates that people of faith have both the wisdom and the courage to act. The future of our economy is in clean energy, and Catholic commitment is clear. We invite governments to join us in urgent, ambitious action to protect our common home.”
Fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals. These fuels are found in the Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen, which can be burned for energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels.
To date, a total of nearly 400 faith institutions have divested from fossil fuels.
