RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - Arriving in Rio de Janeiro on June 14, the nine young women and two staff of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace delegation, weren’t sure what to expect. We had prepared for more than six months for our journey to the People’s Summit, which ran parallel to the United Nations Conference on Environmental Sustainability known as Rio+20. We experienced inspiring events, insightful workshops, peaceful community and so much more.

It’s hard to confine our experience to just a few moments, but when we all came together on the beach one day, nestled at the foot of the famous Sugarloaf Mountain, to review our experiences, a few key stories and sentiments resonated with the group.

The People’s Summit in Rio de Janeiro provided a space for people from all over the world to exchange ideas, tell their stories, form alliances and share their hopes for the future, including nine women representing the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

From June 15-23, the young women — all under 30 — from the D&P delegation brought the Canadian voice to the ecologically themed workshops and presentations.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Representatives of some Catholic nongovernmental organizations expressed disappointment at what they described as weak wording in the final document of Rio+20, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, but others found positive aspects.

"If this is the future our leaders want, today and tomorrow's poor and marginalized people certainly aren't part of it. Their right to live in dignity and in harmony with nature has once more been denied," said Denise Auclair, a policy expert with CIDSE, an international alliance of 16 Catholic development agencies.

The Catholics in Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 Earth Summit aren’t quite sold on classic capitalism, nor are they buying a new green version of the markets-solve-everything ideology.

“We have allowed the rules of the marketplace to get out of control and to distort our desires and imaginations,” said a statement from the coalition of the developed world’s Catholic aid organizations, CIDSE, just before the United Nations-sponsored event, which took place June 20-22.

RIO DE JANEIRO - With political leaders from around the world gathering in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the future of the planet, Catholic leaders said governments must not forget to put people at the forefront of their policies.

At a press conference June 17 at St. Sebastian Cathedral, the Vatican's apostolic nuncio and permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, reiterated the Holy See's position that people must remain at the center of policies in all aspects of sustainable development.

Kaitlyn Duthie-Kannikkatt’s understanding of the Holy Spirit is a huge motivating factor in her going to the People’s Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 15-23.

Organized parallel to Rio+20, the June 20-22 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Duthie-Kannikkatt is one of nine young women under 30 years of age travelling with the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace on a Solidarity Tour. 

LIMA, Peru - Twenty years ago, a 12-year-old girl stood before government officials from most of the world's countries and pleaded for her future. Worried about pollution and overuse of natural resources on her finite planet, she begged, "If you don't know how to fix it, please don't break it."

The occasion was the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which ended with the world's countries committing -- at least on paper -- to make environmental concerns a priority and eliminate unsustainable forms of production and consumption. Above all, delegates agreed that development must not jeopardize the welfare of future generations."

JERUSALEM - Religious leaders in Jerusalem urged peoples of all denominations to take their faith-based commitment to the stewardship of God's creation to the U.N. Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil June 20-22.

"We need to bring an invitation for all religious leaders from all faiths" to speak publicly, with determination, "so that we turn religion into a part of the solution rather than ... risking more and more becoming part of the problem," Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Haifa told Catholic News Service at the March 19 Interfaith Climate and Energy Conference coordinated by the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development.

Canadian religious leaders and interfaith coalitions banded together before the Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, to urge Ottawa to take substantial steps toward a new international agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocols. Almost alone among Canada’s major church and faith bodies, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops refused to sign the “Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership and Action on Climate Change.”

The Congregation of St. Joseph signed, along with many other Catholic religious orders and a broad swath of Canada’s Christian bodies. Major Muslim, Hindu and interfaith coalitions also signed onto the two-page statement.