As a graduate student studying geosciences at the University of Arizona, Katie Hirschboeck felt a tug to become a Trappist nun and spent eight weeks at a monastery in California’s redwood forests.
She didn’t join the religious order, but the thoughtful attention those nuns gave to the world around them stuck with her — both in her career as a scientist and in her faith as a Roman Catholic.
“They would light a candle and set a plate down with this kind of loving respect or reverence for the physical things that manifest God to us,” said Hirschboeck, now an associate professor of climatology at the UA’s tree-ring research lab. “I didn’t even want to kill a fly because I felt so interconnected with nature.”
Hirschboeck has attended Our Mother of Sorrows Parish, 1800 S. Kolb Road, since 1991 when she was hired at the UA, and there she has found kindred spirits in other Catholics with environment-minded professions.
In recent weeks, this meeting of the minds has produced a series on Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical — a circular letter — “Laudato Si’ ” subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.”
The lengthy document published in June lends the pope’s moral authority to the issue of climate change, human causes and the impact on the poor. This is a major area of focus for Pope Francis, who is in the United States this week.
Hirschboeck summed it up as, “It’s how we treat each other and creation.”
But this is nothing new at Our Mother of Sorrows.
In 2008, the parish formed a Care for Creation Committee. In 2011, it installed solar panels on the parish roof and in the parking lot. On a campus that includes the church building, a school, administration and residences, one-fifth of the campus’ power is now served by renewable sources. Both the parish hall and rectory building also use solar hot water.
“We have active parishioners that share this notion of being good stewards of the gifts that we have been given within this church,” said Hank Krzysik, the committee chair, a presenter on the encyclical and an architect that specializes in high performance and sustainable designs.
The parish modeled the committee after a similar group in another denomination, honing the church’s already-prevalent focus on social justice to include environmental issues. The committee began looking at how other areas of parish life could go green.
“We used to have song sheets that we would print out every Sunday and pass them out, but we started saying, ‘Is that environmentally conscious?’ ” Krzysik said. “Now we have a projector and a screen, and it cost a little bit of money, but we get a return on the investment from not copying this stuff.”
Looking at energy efficiency in building designs has had a ripple effect, Krzysik said. Savings from updating the lighting and insulation in the parish hall enabled the church to install high-efficiency double-pane glass and an air conditioning unit in the school, and those savings have allowed other changes.
The committee also wants to educate. After its own installation of solar panels, the parish hosted a forum for other houses of worship to learn about solar energy from installers and Tucson Electric Power representatives.
The parish also works with students at Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic School on habits such as recycling.
This series on the papal encyclical is just another way to discuss how faith and conservation align here. Three of the four speakers are parishioners at Our Mother of Sorrows.
Edella Schlager, the only presenter who is not a parishioner there attends the St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center, 1615 E. Second St. and is a UA professor for the School of Government and Public Policy.
“It’s so exciting for scientists like me who have been trying to integrate faith all along,” said Hirschboeck, one of 17 Catholic Climate Ambassadors listed on the Catholic Climate Covenant’s website. Hirschboeck is the only listed Arizona ambassador for the organization, which accepts and seeks to share the position of the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that climate change is a moral issue that impacts the poor.
“We not only have the commitment to protect and restore the environment, but to benefit people,” said Francisco Zamora, the director of the Colorado River Delta Legacy program at the Sonoran Institute and a deacon at Our Mother of Sorrows.
Growing up in Mexico City, Zamora relished family field trips outside of the city and wants his own children and grandchildren to have experiences with the natural world.
Hirschboeck, who grew up in Milwaukee, also remembers childhood respites in the countryside where nature revealed God and she learned to treasure the gift of creation. She realizes now why she never became a nun — she is an educator.
“You’re doing science, and you have this faith, and at some point it comes that you are called to share,” she said.
For Hirschboeck, the pope’s encyclical integrates personal beliefs and professional knowledge, but she knows that not everybody agrees with the document.
“It’s challenging for people of any ideology,” she said.
A Pew Research Center survey published prior to the June release of the encyclical found 71 percent of U.S. Catholics believe in global warming, with only 51 percent of Catholic Republicans sharing that view.
While 47 percent of all U.S. Catholics attribute warming to human activity, just 24 percent of Republican Catholics do, according to the Pew survey.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, Republican congressman for Arizona’s fourth district, is one who disagrees with the pope’s views on climate change. He is a Catholic but plans to skip the pontiff’s address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday.
Monsignor Thomas Cahalane of Our Mother of Sorrows said primary pushback in religious communities over the encyclical comes from those who say proponents of human-caused climate change lack sufficient scientific evidence and those who cite the economic challenges of addressing the problem.
People should read the encyclical and draw their own conclusions, Hirschboeck said.
“It has to be read in its entirety, and there are parts that I don’t particularly like, but that’s the challenge,” she said. “We can’t just read something and say, ‘Oh, I agree with it.’ … I have to examine my view, where my disagreement is coming from and how it lines up with what my faith teaches.”
And agree or disagree, those conclusions are going to be different for everyone.
“I think that there are a variety of ways to come to an understanding and respect for environmental issues,” said UA environmental policy professor Schlager. “You can consult science and pay attention to politics, but also, for me, it comes down to my faith and spirituality that environmental issues are key to living a life that is in right relationship with one another and God’s creation.”
