By Barb Arland-Fye
Catholic Messenger

During a recent visit to a parish in his diocese, Bishop Gabriel Edoe Kumordji, SVD of Ghana, Africa, was horrified to find a church building without a roof. Strong winds had blown it away in the coastal community of West Africa. Just a year ago, he had advised the parish to plant trees to serve as a windbreak to protect the building. No trees were planted.

Bishop Kumordji, of Keta-Akatsi Diocese, shared the story with attendees after a Sept. 1 Vespers service at St. Anthony’s Church in Davenport, which opened a month-long, worldwide celebration of the Season of Creation. He spoke of the devastating effects of a changing climate in his country and the proactive but difficult efforts to adapt to those changes.

The bishop was in the Davenport Diocese last weekend on a mission visit to St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Davenport. He spoke with parishioners about the work of the 32 parishes in his diocese to spread the Catholic faith and the financial needs to support that effort and the work of schools and hospitals in the diocese. Donations also support seminaries and the formation of priests and religious communities. Deacon Kent Ferris, diocesan director of the Social Action Office, oversees mission appeals in the Davenport Diocese.

He added that Bishop Kumordji’s diocese benefits from financial donations from other dioceses as part of its missionary activities, and at the same time other dioceses benefit from the services of priests from his diocese who perform missionary service in the United States and other countries.

The connections between the missionary appeal and creation time became evident in his lectures in the Davenport diocese. Both relate to Laudato Si’ (subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home”), Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical in which he emphasized essential relationships—human relationships with God, with each other, and with the earth.

Mission visits are important because they help people in their local parishes learn about Catholics around the world and celebrate the universality of the Catholic Church, Bishop Kumordji told The Catholic Messenger. “We learn from other churches in other communities. … We are not alone. These are brothers and sisters we have not seen. They pray with us and celebrate the Eucharist, they continue to support us, and we support them.”

It is therefore important to share with the people of Davenport Diocese the impacts of climate change on the people of Ghana. The World Bank Group reports that “coastal erosion and flooding resulting from human activity, inadequate systems put in place to manage coastal ecosystems, climate change and sea level rise remain serious threats to coastal people and their livelihoods.”

“…Erosion has affected the social and economic lives of local people, threatened cultural heritage and hampered coastal tourism, and destroyed homes and other physical infrastructure. Some of the worst affected communities are located in the Keta commune, which forms part of the eastern coast…” the World Bank Group said.

Damage to land is a major problem in Ghana, where people recognize “God as creator and the land as mother,” Bishop Kumordji told the crowd at St. Anthony’s Church. Plastic waste, illegal logging, charcoal burning and chemical pesticides contribute to the damage, he said. Another major consequence is the shifting of the two rainy seasons — the big and the little — which makes it extremely difficult for people trying to grow food. “We use a lot of herbs for health and also in food. They are disappearing,” Bishop Kumordji said.

Efforts are being made to proactively respond, he said. The bishops’ conference of 20 dioceses in Ghana, adopting Laudato Si’, tasked the group with promoting solar energy in parishes, schools and hospitals. “It’s very expensive,” Bishop Kumordji said. Organized protests over plastic waste are taking place. Electronic waste collections are also underway.

Also as part of the Laudato Si’ commitment, “school children in my diocese are planting 1 million trees, and this year the entire diocese will plant 10 million trees. Last year my diocese planted 500,000 trees.”