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To our Brothers and Sisters in Faith:</span></p>
<br>
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style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Recently
the TCC Council was asked to sign a letter, jointly written by
various MIT sustainability groups, to President Reif requesting
him to step up efforts to make MIT a world leader in the fight
against climate change. We debated about this issue quite
heavily and the council was split on whether or not to sign. In
the end, the vote swung towards not signing. We feel that it is
important to make the reason for our decision clear.</span></p>
<br>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">As
Catholics, we are called to be stewards of God’s creation. God
created all that is and ever will be, and it is our duty to
respect the goodness of creation and use the Earth’s resources
wisely (CCC 339). From a social/moral perspective, the changes
predicted by climate change disproportionately affect those who
are poor -- the people whom we are called most strongly to
serve. Pope Francis has been outspoken in encouraging the
faithful to be protectors of the environment, and we are all
excitedly awaiting his next encyclical on the environment, due
to be released sometime this summer. In the meantime, we
encourage you to pray about your own personal impact on the
environment with the following ‘Ecological Examen’, by Father
Greg Kennedy, a Jesuit priest in Canada: </span><a
href="http://blog.jesuits.ca/index.cfm/2014/10/29/Ecological-Examen"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;">http://blog.jesuits.ca/index.cfm/2014/10/29/Ecological-Examen</span></a><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">.</span></p>
<br>
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style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">As
a council, we acknowledge that although there is a clear mandate
from the Church to take care of our environment, we felt that
the tone of the letter and the content did not truly reflect a
strictly Catholic perspective on the topic. Climate change in
particular has become a highly politicized topic that has
polarized our society. We felt obliged to remain neutral in this
instance as we were uncertain if there existed clear agreement,
within the TCC community whom we serve, for or against climate
change. After all, acceptance of anthropomorphic climate change
is not a requirement to being a Catholic and it is not
necessarily agreed upon as being a Catholic stance on a secular
matter.</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">We
respect the intellectual identity of each of you as individuals
and would like to encourage everybody to read more deeply into
the matter. Apply the analytical thinking that we are here at
MIT to cultivate and seek God's guidance. We would like you to
decide for yourself whether you wish to support this initiative.
If you would like to sign the letter as an individual, the link
is available here:</span><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#222222;background-color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
</span><a href="http://mitclimatelegacy.org/"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;">http://mitclimatelegacy.org/</span></a><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">.</span></p>
<br>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Yours
in Service,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span
style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The
TCC Council</span></p>
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