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Common Home Corps
About Common Home Corps
The Hank Center of Loyola University Chicago is proud to support and host the Common Home Corps (CHC). The CHC is a grant-bearing initiative that addresses the related challenges of climate change, youth climate anxiety, Catholic disaffiliation, and lack of the U.S. Church’s fidelity to creation care. The project is collaboratively led by Catholic Climate Covenant, the Hank Center and the School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago, and the Center for Justice and Peace at Creighton University. The first convening of the CHC took place in June, 2023 where 25 undergrads from across the US attended a week-long training. The setting of Cohort Two is on the horizon– as Cohort One continues to work in the field.
This program empowers young adults (18-35) to catalyze climate action in their parishes and dioceses by building on Pope Francis’s “culture of encounter.” Participants will learn to organize local Catholics, meet with their bishop and other Catholic leaders, and advocate for climate action that helps us live the Church’s mission of caring for our common home by enacting the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform with a focus on real, measurable climate progress.
Selected Common Home Corps participants will:
- Attend an in-person training at Loyola University Chicago during the summer of 2024.
- Receive training in Catholic social teaching, the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform, climate science, community organizing, and climate advocacy.
- Become a leader working 5-10 hours per month organizing local Catholics to catalyze diocesan ecological conversion and climate action (including net zero carbon).
- Be funded: Selected and trained leaders will receive a $3,000 annual stipend.
Applications will be open soon...
The 2023 Common Home Corps Gathering
What brought these Common Home Corps leaders together was a shared sense of mission: of caring for our common home from a faith-based perspective. These young adults engage in climate action outside of the Church, but they have chosen to root their action within their faith. That says a lot. They became involved in Common Home Corps as an expression of their faith. They are looking to not only educate about and organize for solutions to the climate crisis, but also to strengthen their community of peers and influence the Church with their leadership.
Common Home Corps included a training at Loyola University Chicago held from June 15-19 2023. This training provided them with theological, missiological, and climate science-backed guidance to be leaders in the Church. They went back to their diocese ready to learn from folks who have been doing this work on the ground, and worked with their diocesan leadership for increased sustainability efforts.
The young adult voice is clear: they know it will take all of us working together to address the climate crisis, and they want the US Catholic Church to lead the way by example: committing to the Laudato Si Action Platform and planning for the diocese to become net-zero carbon.
