Archbishop Talks On Fundamentals of Creation
The fundamentals of creation must be seen in order to talk about climate change and the issues that surround the world today. Speaking at the Corpus Christi Teachers College at the Diamond Jubilee event in Suva on Saturday, Head of the Catholic Church in Fiji, Archbishop Peter LoyChong said while the Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was in Bonn, Germany, leading the discussion on climate change at the COP23 meeting, it was important to understand ‘creation' first.
Referring to a Bible verse, he addressed the Corpus Christi teachers saying that: “You should love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your might"
He said this was the first bible verse the Jews taught their children. Known as 'Shema ' the Lord, God is one. Archbishop said this was the most central prayer and it must be bonded to everyone's heart, it is a call of Israel or spiritual attention connected through everyone's lives to God. “That is why you should love the Lord. The Gospel of Mark says go out to all the nations; go into the world proclaim the good news to all nations.
“Today there is a lot of discussion on climate change, like the COP23 meeting our Prime Minister is attending, a lot of books on studies from the United Nations. We cannot talk about climate change like that but we must see the fundamentals of creation,” he said.
“Something wrong had happened and that is when human beings disrupted the connection of creation and this is the fundamental crisis of climate change.” He said it was important to understand how one could reconnect with God and creation.
“We need to go back on education, we are always worried about the number of Catholic teachers in primary and secondary schools, the graduates going to teach in non-Catholic schools and worried about our children, so there is a depression and question on where is our Catholic education?”
He said the Diamond Jubilee was an opportune time for Catholics to rediscover Catholic education and reconnect the areas of one's life that is drifting away. “We pray that this year will be a time of rediscovery and going back to our roots,” he said.