Catholic Earthcare Australia

Catholic Earthcare is a program of Caritas Australia. 

Catholic Earthcare Australia is an ecological program first established in 2002 by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Its mission is to help promote understanding among people that creation is sacred and endangered, and must be protected and preserved for present and future generations yet unborn.

To play its part in helping protect the health of Earth, and its inhabitants, Catholic Earthcare Australia is mandated, through the activities of education, research and advocacy to give leadership in responding to Pope John Paul II’s call to “stimulate and sustain the ecological conversion”.

On the 17 January 2001 from the Vatican, the Pope in an eco spiritual audit of planet Earth stated that, “it is immediately evident that humanity has disappointed divine expectations. Above all in our times, man has unhesitatingly destroyed wooded valleys and plains, polluted waters, deformed the natural habitat, made the air unbreathable, disturbed atmospheric and hydro-geological systems, rendered green areas desert and engaged in uncontrolled industrialisation … humiliating that flower garden that is the Earth, our home”.

The Pope in calling for “a commitment to avoid ecological catastrophe” emphasised that “it is necessary, therefore to stimulate and sustain the ecological conversion”. The Australian Catholic Bishops have responded to this challenge with faith and determination.

Catholic Earthcare Australia invites all people of good faith to journey with it and work on the urgent and critical tasks of safeguarding the integrity of creation, protecting Earth’s fragile ecosystems and providing a voice for communities and victims of environmental degradation, injustice and pollution.

Catholic Earthcare was incorporated into Caritas Australia in 2018 to create synergies between agencies that service the ‘cry of the poor’ and ‘cry of the earth’.