I have had the privilege over the past several years to partner with the Catholic Charities Common Earth Gardens program at St. Ignatius Martyr parish, where I serve as pastoral administrator.
Our parish and the greater Newburg area is made up of a growing number of immigrants and former refugees who have settled here from African countries, including Congo, Somalia, Ghana, Togo and Burundi, as well as Burmese from Myanmar, and recent new arrivals from Malaysia and Pakistan.
Our community garden of 100 plots serves some 85 former refugee families, as well as U.S.-born gardeners. Each works a plot of land to grow fresh food alongside people from other countries and diverse faith traditions and cultures, fostering connections and solidarity between them.
The gardeners also benefit from shared knowledge and skills. Immigrant farmers often come from backgrounds where farming practices are ecologically and environmentally friendly. This is the very vision of an integral ecology described in “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care for creation.
St. Ignatius also houses a Head Start Program, and children in this program also have plots to learn about farming and ecology.
Along with providing land, we’ve created a community network among the gardeners. They have regular meetings at our parish for support and sharing of ideas or concerns.
Catholic Charities Common Earth Gardens program provides on-site workshops on water conservation, organic pest control, soil testing and, more recently, developing a small-farm business. In fact, a large piece of land on the other side of our parish has been purchased by Catholic Charities to be cultivated for larger farm plots needed to establish an incubator farming business.
The parishioners here may not know all the sophisticated tenets of Catholic social teaching or the detailed content of “Laudato Si’,” but we are living it and putting it to work by using the resources of our land — no longer needed for the ball fields and parish picnics of days gone by — to serve our sisters and brothers who have been forced to flee their homelands and are now settling in our neighborhood. Land and food build bonds of community and friendship.
We have also been so touched by the kindness and generosity of our immigrant families in this program, who have freely offered some of their harvest to our Helping Hands Food Pantry, making it possible for us to provide fresh produce along with the other staples to those in need.
Having witnessed the wonder of this effort at St. Ignatius Martyr, a similar effort has started at St. Teresa of Calcutta Church in Fairdale, where I am also appointed to serve as pastoral administrator.
We have plowed an unused ball field, and several former refugee farmers are already growing produce. My hope is that come next year, we will have an onsite farmer’s market near our Mass times for parishioners and the wider Fairdale community.
This model of partnership between a parish and Catholic Charities Common Earth Gardens program is an invaluable way for our Church to express its mission of service to the immediate surrounding community — caring for the Earth, providing food for tables and building solidarity between people; in other words, putting “Laudato Si’” to work!
Deacon Lucio Caruso serves as the pastoral administrator of St. Ignatius Martyr and St. Teresa of Calcutta churches.
