World renowned eco-theologian Columban Fr Sean McDonagh, who helped contribute to early drafts of Laudato Si’, has just finished a speaking tour of Australia to spread its message. The Catholic Leader spoke to him.
“Are you not worried if there’s going to be any flowers left here?”
It’s a question Fr McDonagh asks people, young and old, when he takes them down to The Burren, in County Clare, Ireland, to wonder at the beauty of nature in his homeland.
It’s also a question he’d love everyone to be asking themselves.
Fr McDonagh, a Columban missionary, has been asking such questions for 40 years, and continued to put the question during his recent tour, which started in Brisbane Archdiocese on November 1 and continued in Adelaide and Sydney, and finished in Melbourne last Tuesday.
Apart from writing about caring for creation, travelling the world giving lectures, and running courses to encourage others to share his enthusiasm, he lives his passion in a simple way.
"I do a lot of travel, because there’s not that many people in the Catholic Church who do this kind of thing,” he said during a break in his Brisbane engagements.
“But apart from that, I try to live a simple life.
“I take public transport wherever I can. I’m hopefully not wasteful with things.
“In terms of spiritual life, I run a summer school every year on the natural world in Ireland – the theology, the flora and fauna, identifying and coming to understand and know the natural world.”
Columban Fr McDonagh said the summer school had enriched his life enormously.
“I will bring people down to The Burren, in County Clare, and it’s just a beautiful place,” he said.
Source: The Catholic Leader - Published: 21 November 2016