What's Happening

March 30, 2023, Detroit – Adrian Dominican Sister Ellen Burkhardt, OP, and Associate Patricia Gillis were among about 50 Catholics who gathered March 21, 2023, at Gesu Catholic Church to speak out against air pollution and to advocate for stronger prevention regulations. 

The advocates attending “Detroit’s Dirty Air: A Moral Response” were asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to lower the allowance of soot from 9-10 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 8 micrograms. 

Sister Ellen, a panel member, urged U.S. Representative Shri Thanedar (D-Michigan) to ask the EPA for an increase in penalties for companies who violate the pollution regulations. “What we’re asking for is greater enforcement, something that will matter to companies enough that they will change what they’re doing,” Sister Ellen said.

Patricia – co-founder with Sister Janet Stankowski, OP, of Detroit-based Voices for Earth Justice, a faith-based network of people concerned about the environment – was one of the organizers of the event. She saw the event as “a real coming together of science and religion.”

Read the entire article by Amy Ketner on Earthbeat, a project of The National Catholic Reporter. 

Feature photo at top shows Adrian Dominican participants Sister Ellen Burkhardt, OP, left, and Associate Patty Gillis, right.

December 2, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement on COP25 Madrid Climate Talks, taking place December 2-13, 2019.

As the nations of the world gather in Madrid these next two weeks for the 25th year of climate talks (COP25), we Adrian Dominican Sisters invite you to join with us in prayer and voice, calling for concrete action by world leaders to safeguard our common home from catastrophic climate chaos. The aim of the COP25 climate talks is to concretize commitments and implement the historic Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.

In the last year, people around the globe have suffered the harsh impacts of just 1⁰C of warming over pre-industrial levels – with record wildfires, drought, flooding, and mega-storms. Scientists warn that we have only one decade remaining to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep global warming to well below 2⁰C, as called for by the Paris Agreement.

Tragically, we are still headed in the wrong direction. The latest UN climate report shows that countries “have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year,” according to the New York Times. 

Time is running out: We must change course now. 

Join us by urging your Senators to enact the House-passed International Climate Accountability Act. It would give the White House 120 days to submit a plan to Congress to achieve our U.S. Paris Agreement goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% under 2005 levels by 2025 – and to update the plan annually. 

And please join us in praying these words from the “Prayer for Our Earth” by Pope Francis: 

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty…

Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction…

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light. …