Our Lady of Angels in Atimonan, Quezon (Photo: Caritas Philippines)

Parish goes solar amid fight vs coal plant

MANILA, August 3, 2015— A Catholic parish church in Quezon province pushed for environmental awareness in a recent installation of solar panels on the roof of its building.

Local church authorities in Atimonan symbolically switched on its solar power system after a pontifical Mass on Sunday, capping the celebration of the town’s fiesta in honor of Our Lady of Angels.

“This is our concrete response to the call of Pope Francis to care for our common home in his ecology encyclical, Laudato Si,” said Atimonan parish priest Msgr. Emmanuel Villareal.

The 5 kw grid type system will supply almost 50 percent of the daytime electricity needs of the church which translates to roughly Php 12,000 worth of savings from their monthly bill.

Parishioners from far-flung areas also attended a symposium about the Church’ social teaching on care for creation.

The Diocese of Lucena is currently leading a fight against the putting up of a 1,200mw coal-fired power plant in the town’s Villa Ibaba village.

Caritas Philippines, the social action arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said it is fully behind the stand of the Lucena clergy.

“By making a small step towards becoming a ‘green church,’ we are providing our people a strong message that switching to renewables is possible and we, starting with our communities, can do it now”, Villareal said. (Yen Ocampo/CBCPNews)

SOURCE:

http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=61117