The Common Good and Community: As human beings we are both sacred and social people. We achieve our fulfilment within community; so how society is organised, its economy, law and policy, directly affect human dignity and how individuals are able to grow and flourish within community. While it is very important to love our neighbour, it also requires us to have a broader view of life and to take responsibility to contribute to the good of the whole of society, to contribute to the common good. Human dignity can only be realised and protected within society. We must love our neighbour, locally and globally, and prioritize the good of the human family over commercial interests. The common good also includes all people, creatures and habitats. Our treatment of the ecosystem has consequences for the well-being of future generations. We live in an interdependent world and we need to measure our own self-interest against the greater common good and contribute equitably to global solutions. The state prospers when there is good moral rule, well-regulated family life, respect for religion and justice, just and fair taxation, and appropriate provision of social services. Every level of society should benefit from the state and the state should work to promote the common good. The state should watch over the community in its parts but it must also pay particular attention to the weak and the poor. Promoting the common good means promoting the full development of all humanity and encouraging them to take an active part in society. While the Church should never replace the State, she cannot remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. The Church promotes justice through bringing about an openness of mind and will in seeking the common good. In today's world where injustice abounds, a call to global solidarity is logically and inevitable. The notion of the common good also extends to future generations. We can no longer speak of sustainable development apart from intergenerational solidarity. Scripture Genesis 4:8-15; Leviticus 25:23-43; Micah 6:6-8; John 15:12-17; 1 John 4:19-21

Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable: While the common good embraces all people, those most in need deserve preferential concern. A basic test for society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor and vulnerable should be highest priority for all in society. All public policy decisions should be examined for how they affect the poor. The option for the poor means that one of the first questions asked when decisions are being made is 'How will this affect the poor'? The option for the poor is an essential part of society's effort to achieve the common good and the common good can only be achieved if the needs of the poor and those on the margins of society are considered. God's love is universal, so this principle does not intend that we should focus on the poor to the exclusion of others, but rather that we are called to prioritize those who are in most need of our solidarity. The option for the poor includes all who are marginalised: people with disabilities, the elderly, the terminally ill, victims of injustice and oppression. The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich; the rights of workers over the maximization of profits; the preservation of the environment over uncontrolled industrial expansion; the production to meet social needs over production for military purposes' (Economic Justice for All, #94). Scripture: Exodus 22:20-26; Leviticus 19:9-10; Isaiah 58:5-7; Luke 6: 20-23; I John 3:17-18

Stewardship of Creation: Catholic tradition insists that we show respect for the Creator by being good stewards of creation. The Earth is sacred and creation has its own intrinsic value. We have a responsibility to protect and to cherish the earth's ecological diversity, beauty and life-sustaining properties. The goods of the earth are gifts from God and intended for the benefit of everyone. How we treat the environment is a measure of stewardship. As stewards of creation we are entrusted with caring for the gifts of creation and preserving them for future generations. Together, we must hold the earth in trust for future generations. Being a good steward means safeguarding material and human resources and using them responsibly. Being a good steward also means being generous with your time and talents. As Christian stewards, we receive God's gifts gratefully, cultivate them responsibly, share them lovingly in justice with others and return them with increase to God. Caring for and cultivating the world involves a joyful appreciation for the God-given beauty and wonder of nature; protection and preservation of the environment, which would be the stewardship of ecological concern; respect for human life but doing all that can be done to enhance this gift and make life flourish; and developing the world through human effort. As stewards of God's gifts, we are not passive beneficiaries. We cooperate with God by continuing the redemptive work of Jesus in the mission of the Church. In today's world, there are many obstacles confronting Christian stewards. Sometimes our secular culture contradicts religious convictions about the meaning of life and encourages us to focus on ourselves and our pleasures. As Christian stewards, we are encouraged to speak out against selfishness and greed and we try to make a special effort to understanding the true meaning of stewardship and live it accordingly. True stewardship requires changes in human actions—both in moral behaviour and technical advancement. Our religious tradition has always urged restraint and moderation in the use of material goods, so we must not allow our desire to possess more material things to overtake our concern for the basic needs of people and the environment. Pope John Paul II has linked protecting the environment to 'authentic human ecology,' which can overcome 'structures of sin' and which promotes both human dignity and respect for creation. Technological innovation and entrepreneurship can help make possible options that can lead us to a more environmentally benign energy path. Changes in lifestyle based on traditional moral virtues can ease the way to a sustainable and equitable world economy in which sacrifice will no longer be an unpopular concept. For many of us, a life less focused on material gain may remind us that we are more than what we have. Rejecting the false promises of excessive or conspicuous consumption can even allow more time for family, friends, and civic responsibilities. A renewed sense of sacrifice and restraint could make an essential contribution to addressing global climate change. (Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good, USCCB, 2001 #18)Scripture Genesis 1:1 -31; Genesis 2:15; Leviticus 25:1-7; Deuteronomy 10:14; Matthew 6: 25- 34; Romans 1:20

CATHOLIC VIEW OF COSMOLOGY: Cosmology relates to how we understand our place in the universe and the choices we make to live within the integrity of creation. A Catholic understanding of Cosmology, reflected in STEM learning and teaching, emphasises stewardship and sacramentality. Stewardship requires learners to take responsibility to cultivate creative solutions to complex problems of life and living. Sacramentality acknowledges God's presence in the world particularly through human activity in service of the world. Pope Francis: Precisely because man (sic) is the image and likeness of a God Who created the world for love, the care of all of creation must follow the logic of gratuity and love, of service, and not of domination and bullying. Science and technology have helped us further the boundaries of knowledge of nature and, in particular, of the human being. But they alone are not enough to provide all the answers. Today, we increasingly realize that it is necessary to draw on the treasures of wisdom preserved in religious traditions, popular wisdom, literature and the arts, which touch the depths of the mystery of human existence, not forgetting, but rather rediscovering those contained in philosophy and in theology. Audience with participants in the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, 18.11.2017

Science, Religion and Culture Pope Francis: Audience with participants in the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, 18.11.2017 Pope Francis: As I wished to affirm in the Encyclical Laudato si', “we urgently need a humanism capable of bringing together the different fields of knowledge … in the service of a more integral and integrating vision” (no. 141), so as to be able to overcome the tragic division between the “two cultures”, the humanistic-literary-theological and the scientific, which leads to a mutual impoverishment, and to encourage a greater dialogue between the Church, community of believers, and the scientific community. The Church, for her part, offers some great principles to sustain this dialogue. The first is the centrality of the human person, which must be considered an end and not a means. This must be placed in harmonious relation to creation, not as a despot guarding God's legacy but rather as a loving custodian of the work of the Creator. The second principle it is necessary to remember is that of the universal destination of goods, which also regards those of knowledge and technology. Scientific and technological progress serve the good of all humanity, and their benefits cannot be of advantage only to a few. In this way, one avoids that the future will add new inequalities based on knowledge and increase the gap between rich and poor. The great decisions on the direction of scientific research and investments in the latter must be taken by society as a whole and not dictated solely by the rules of the market or the interest of the few. Finally, the principle remains that not all that is technically possible or feasible is therefore ethically acceptable. Science, like any other human activity, knows that there are limits to be observed for the good of humanity itself, and requires a sense of ethical responsibility. The true measure of progress, as Blessed Paul VI recalled, is that which aims at the good of every man and man.

GALILEO and the Church: As an intuitive physicist, Galileo understood and communicated the planetary system and was famously condemned by theologians whose understanding of world structure was founded by a literal interpretation of Sacred Scripture. In 1633, the Church pronounced that Galileo was suspected of heresy and condemned to prison of the Holy Office with his writings prohibited. Galileo entered a plea, ceased his heliocentric teachings and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. 300 years later, Pope John Paul II: ‘the error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture.' If only they had recalled St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas who recognised that Scripture often speaks the truth about creation in a nonliteral, non-scientific way.

Audience with participants in the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, 18.11.2017 At 11.10 this morning, in the Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Francis received in audience the participants in the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, dedicated to the theme “The future of humanity: new challenges to anthropology” (Vatican, 15-18 November). Pope Francis expressed the Church's “gratitude to the men and women of science for their efforts and commitment in favor of humanity” when he addressed participants at the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture on Nov. 18, 2017. It was the end of a two-day discussion on the theme “The Future of Humanity: New Challenges to Anthropology.” Pope Francis: “this appreciation of the sciences finds its ultimate foundation in the plan of God,” even if the church “has not always known how to express it.”