About the ECG

The Ecological Conversion group was founded by three Catholic young adults to help the Church understand and respond to Pope Francis’s Encyclical letter; Laudato Si’ On Care of Our Common Home.  We started off providing talks for our own community, then started producing resources to spread the message, since then The Ecological Conversion Group has grown in its work and after 5 years has become a registered charity dedicated to inspiring action on Care of Creation.

About Laudato Si'

Pope Francis’ Social encyclical, outlines the complex interconnected crisis our world faces. The ecological-social crisis and the underlying root causes of individualism and consumer attitudes replacing a God centered spirituality. Pope Francis draws on the vast wealth of Church tradition in order to answer how we should be addressing our current crisis.

“The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast”

Pope Benedict XVI

" For this reason, the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion.".. "So what they all need is an “ecological conversion”, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them."

Pope Francis
Read Laudato Si' online
Laudato Si' Study guides
Buy a paper copy from CTS

About the word 'ecology'

Today ‘ecology’ most commonly refers to relationships between living things and their environments, but is also often used to describe other kinds of relational networks, e.g. ‘social ecology’ or ‘human ecology’.

It comes from the Greek ‘Oikos’ which refers to relationships of the family within the home.

 

This is why Pope Francis refers to our planet as ‘Our Common Home’

'Ecological' means 'relational'

“The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships. This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfilment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity."

Pope Francis, referencing St Thomas Aquinas, Laudato Si' 240

Our work, inspired by Catholic Social Thought is focused around two key principles:

Ecological Conversion

‘Ecological conversion’ is a commitment, inspired by faith, to change our lives so as to help heal the threefold rupture caused by sin, with God, with other human beings, and with the natural world.

It is the process of change towards living in a right relationship with Creator and creation. Recovering a God centered life, living in communion with all that surrounds us.

Integral Ecology

Is the reality that “everything is connected”.

Integral = every ‘thing’ being part of the whole
Ecology = the relationships  between the parts

‘Integral ecology’ is the reality that societal, and biological, environmental networks are themselves interconnected, so that, for example, a flourishing or dysfunctional human society will contribute to a flourishing or dysfunctional biological environment, and vice versa.

Integral ecology is therefore the recognition that care of neighbour and care of Earth are inseparable.

“Everything is connected”,  hence the need to address both ‘The cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor’.

What does getting it right look like?

"I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically." "He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived insimplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace."

Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

The team

Eleanor Margetts

Founding member, project support (Part time)

John Paul de Quay

founding member, project manager

Edward de Quay

founding member (Voluntary)

The Trustees

Rosie Read

Claire O'Sullivan

Fr Benedict Fadoju

Edward de Quay

John Paul de Quay

Advisors

Sr Margaret Atkins OSA

Resident Theologian

Sr Shirley Aeria FMDM

Theology

Dr Carmody Grey

Theology

Jane Pendlenton

Our resident food grower

Dr Sarah Gardner

Our resident ecologist

Celia Fisher

Our Ethical consumption expert and ex-aeronautical enginner

Graham Gordon

Political advisor

Christoph Warrack

Business and charity

Ruth Walbank

Education

Dr David Ko

Ex-hedgefund manager
Resident economist

Francis Strewart

Theology

Richard Busalletto

Ex-hedgefund manager
Resident economist

Roland Daw

Reseacher

Emma Gardener

Maria Hall

Liturgy

Sue Gubric

Schools

We work to help the Church and its wider communities hear both ‘the cry of the Earth’ and ‘the cry of the poor’. We help people respond in an integrated way, motivating through faith, education and awareness raising, as well as encouraging creative solutions for long lasting, transformative, social and ecological change.

The Ecological Conversion Group, Registered Charity No: 1197384 in England and Wales

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