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Social Projects: A Beginning
Building on the social projects suggested at the end of John Hart’s article (see Living Water: A Sacramental Commons), workshop participants added the following ideas that may help realize the socio-spiritual vision of a sacramental community living in a sacramental commons.
Conserving water and reducing demand
• Encourage the use of low-energy precision application irrigation sprinkler systems in agriculture and drip irrigation in orchards and vineyards.
• Reinforce through Catholic social teaching that conservation is the right thing to do all the time, even where water is abundant.
• Encourage recycling as a water-conserving practice.
• Reduce water use at home through flow restriction devices.
Growing an eco-spirituality
• Start action planning with reconciliation and repentance.
• Provide parish and diocesan liturgy committees with suggestions of how to incorporate water topics into liturgies especially by making connections between the lectionary and water issues.
• Emphasize water as a sacramental sign perhaps requiring sacrifice to make it holy, dedicated to God and the common good
• Make connections between water stewardship as treasure.
• Draw attention to the Pope’s writings and Bishops’ pastorals on concern for creation, the environment, and water, especially through John Hart’s upcoming book that will review pastorals from the 1970s to 2000.
• Help priests understand Catholic social teaching and its relationship to water and the faith community.
• Organize prayerful celebrations of creation on feast days honoring St. Maria, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Isidore; and on other special days such as World Day of Water, Thanksgiving, Rogations Days, Earth Day, and World Environment Day.
Encouraging conscious consumption
• Make connections between personal consumption and environment so people will better understand water use in food production, processing, marketing, distribution, and consumption. Increase consumer and policymaker awareness of how food is raised by promoting local food systems that develop personal relationships with farmers.
• Change historic water planning methods of trying to find the water to meet projections of human desires, to an approach the explores how to meet present and future human needs with the water that is available.
• Practice energy conservation as a way of reducing related water pollution and water consumption resulting from electrical energy production and coal-mining activities.
• Take responsibility for personal actions and change personal consumption to use less of products created using toxic materials (e.g. gold/cyanide) that enter waterways.
• Have drinking water tested and use water filters if appropriate.
Protecting ecosystems
• Minimize the use of pesticides in home gardens by learning and implementing integrated pest management alternatives.
• Uphold the integrity of creation.
• Promote the preservation of threatened and endangered species, the restoration of native ecosystems, and the preservation of natural seed stocks.
• Respect diversity of "place."
Supporting participatory interventions
• Remind people that they have the right to be involved in issues concerning them.
• Organize parish, deanery, and diocesan educational and action sessions to encourage more public response.
• Organize water quality monitoring groups for local streams using widely accepted techniques and principles.
• Emphasize civic and faith community-based participation.
• Encourage "green" congregations (e.g. architectural, landscape management, systems approach to building, eco-spirituality).
• Initiate a pledge program in church, your neighborhood, your community, on the web.
• Help congregations learn how to make ecologically-informed decisions.
Building effective water institutions and non-governmental organizations
• Improve institutions responsible for managing local water resources.
• Create permeable borders among religious, environmental, health, and sustainable agriculture organizations to encourage interaction.
• Communicate with coalitions of organizations in other regions of the country for support and cooperative action on region-specific issues.
Gathering and sharing resources
• Acquire and analyze credible data from government and non-governmental organizations regarding health-degrading pollutants and reshape the data into understandable and user-friendly information for public dissemination.
• Identify and share contact information for credible organizations and agencies.
• Apply Catholic social teaching to specific water issues in your area.
Advocating for policy changes
• Monitor revisions to and implementation of the Clean Water Act.
• Hold accountable state and federal agencies responsible for implementation of the Clean Water Act by drawing public attention to their actions or lack of action.
• Encourage legislation to close agricultural drainage wells.
• Encourage the development of legislation that will help rediversify agriculture, encourage new entrants to agriculture, improve agricultural sustainability, and build regional and local marketing with an eye to the improvement of water supply and quality.
• Support, when necessary, government regulation of water for the common good.
Building a more water-aware new generation
• Provide schools, camps, clubs, with already developed curriculum-enhancing water activities.
• Provide schools, camps, clubs, etc. with ideas to celebrate special observances such as Earth Day, World Water Day, Thanksgiving, and World Environment Day and Catholic schools and organizations to celebrate Rogation Days and feast days honoring Sts. Maria, Isidore, and Francis of Assisi.
• Organize water festivals with local water utility and other organizations.
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