Talk/ Discussion on "The Environment – a Christian Challenge":

Mary Colwell, B.B.C. Natural History Unit Producer and environmental adviser to the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales gave a talk on "The Environment – a Cause for Hope or Despair?" at St. John's, Bath on Tuesday January 19th.

Climate change (she pointed out) is simply one aspect of the environmental challenge facing humanity: the widespread destruction of ecosystems is taking us to an era of mass extinction is another. However, Christians are called to respond with hope and creativity. We cannot ignore the situation, our response should be to pray and reassess what we need to do for human flourishing. We should seriously consider whether there is a need to change our values, the way we look at the world. If we take our responsibility seriously the future is full of new possibilities, perhaps with a new world order within which we can tackle poverty and injustice as well as the destruction of the natural environment.

A lively discussion followed the talk during which the parish (indeed the deanery) was challenged to become a "Beacon of Sustainability".
  

St John's features in English Heritage book... Friday 1 December 2006 12:59
"A Glimpse of Heaven" by Christopher Martin, with photography by Alex Ramsay.
The publication of A Glimpse of Heaven, a new landmark publication celebrating the beauty and history of more than 100 of the finest Roman Catholic churches and cathedrals in England and Wales, including 11 in the South West, was launched at St Alphege's Church in Bath on Friday 1 December 2006 by English Heritage in collaboration with the Patrimony Committee of the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. The book has a foreword by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor - and while revealing "a lost paradise of Roman Catholic architecture", warns we must act now to protect its [the churches] future...