December is a month filled with holiday traditions treasured by families and individuals the world over. One long-standing tradition in many religions is the greening of the church during Advent when sanctuaries are filled with the scent of evergreens used for decoration in the days before Christmas. St. Ann’s Catholic parish in Lawrenceville has taken a different approach to the concept of greening the church by identifying and implementing projects to go “green” and reduce the parish’s carbon footprint.
With a large sanctuary, a parish activities center open daily with offices, classrooms, and meeting spaces, as well as a school and a rectory in Lawrence and the facilities of St. Michael’s in Trenton, St. Ann’s consumes a fair amount of natural gas, electricity and water. Parishioners were excited by Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, also known as On the Care of our Common Home, and expressed a desire to see if the parish could make a positive environmental impact locally in Lawrenceville.
Gary Maccaroni, pastoral associate at St. Ann’s, formed a group of people from both the parish and the local community with the idea of studying the encyclical and finding ways to do more with less. The result of those meetings was the Green Team, charged with identifying opportunities to make a difference in the parish that would also translate to improvements for the wider community of Lawrenceville.
The Green Team, which identifies itself as a ministry to the parish, sees a primary purpose of keeping the parish informed and providing opportunities to practice good stewardship of the planet. The team’s mission statement says in part, “By engaging in education, advocacy and action, we work to promote a right relationship with our planet and to encourage lifestyle choices that leave smaller footprints on the earth.”
‘If the earth is in good health, it restores our health and refreshes our minds.’
Mary Louise Hartman, parish member, long-time environmentalist, and former co-vice chair of the Board of Trustees for the Delaware and Raritan Greenway Land Trust, is enthusiastic about the Green Team and its future in the parish. She says she was drawn to the Green Team “because I believe that preservation of the earth is a key element of peace on earth. If the earth is in good health, it restores our health and refreshes our minds.”
Another Green Team member, Cullan Hevans, takes a similar approach as he says “I have always seen it to be a Christian responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation,” and to be “a witness to parishioners and to the larger community of the importance of protecting creation.” Both Hartman and Hevans point with pleasure to the involvement of the Rev. Gerard Lynch, the Pastor at St. Ann’s, for his support to the church community as a whole and his particular interest in environmental matters. Havens specifically says “Father Gerard’s willingness to preach was very encouraging to us. We look forward to his support as we move forward.”
Seemingly leading the way with one of the few dedicated Green Teams among the Catholic parishes of the Diocese of Trenton, St. Ann’s has joined a wider community of churches that are engaging in actions to integrate faith life with an understanding that more must be done to respect and value the earth they inhabit. The Office of Property and Construction at the Diocese of Trenton is actively looking to the future while working with about a dozen parishes and schools on major solar projects and helping parishes switch to more cost effective and brighter LED lighting in their buildings.
Green teams are also active in other faith communities around the United States, including Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Church of Christ, Unitarian-Universalists, and the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers.
Major efforts to date at St. Ann’s include replacing almost 90 light bulbs in the sanctuary with dimmable LED bulbs that consume far less energy and heat. LED bulbs generally last years longer than incandescent bulbs and the parish has noticed a reduction in electricity and air conditioning costs due to the lower level of heat generated by the bulbs. An added, but hardly insignificant improvement, is that LED bulbs are much quieter than the large bulbs often used in commercial buildings. Maccaroni notes that it could cost several thousand dollars just to change a few of the old-style bulbs because of the cost of bringing in a special lift to reach the lights in the ceiling. With the longer life of LED bulbs, the church is looking at real savings in that regard.
LED lights were also installed in the church’s Faith Development Center to replace incandescent bulbs wherever possible. This building, filled with light from a long skylight structure in the central part of the building, was a special challenge because of heat buildup—and subsequent additional air conditioning costs—resulting from the skylights. The parish has had heat reflecting film placed on those windows so that heat is deflected without reducing the amount of sun allowed in to naturally light large areas of the structure.
With a spring or small stream running under the building, the parish is forced to run a sump pump system continuously, although that water is not all pumped into storm water pipes. The parish diverts some of that water to special greywater, or non-potable, water spigots outside the building. While it can’t be used for drinking because it has not been treated, that water works perfectly for irrigation of lawns, gardens, and flower beds while reducing the parish’s draw on Lawrence’s municipal water system. By diverting water to irrigation, the parish also reduces inflow to the sewer system.
St. Ann’s developed major plans for a solar installation, primarily on the roof of their school building, with the goal of significantly reducing the school’s demand for commercially-produced electricity. Those plans are currently on hold, though, since the parish has been notified by PSE&G that their trunk lines are at capacity for any new solar installations. Maccaroni and Lynch say the parish is ready to move forward with solar as soon as it is practical.
New roofs with better insulation have been installed on both the church and the school at St. Ann’s with a goal toward reducing heat loss, which should result in lower demand on the heating and air conditioning system. The school has benefited from all new energy efficient, insulated windows. Although completed before the Green Team was in operation, the church’s air conditioning system received a major upgrade several years ago which has meant reduced draws on the system while providing the same or even better service in most cases.
Looking to the future, Havens notes that “Lawrenceville seems to be very progressive in its environmental practices. I want the Lawrence community to know that the parish has already done environmental projects and that we hope to go solar, too.” Hartman looks forward to working with others to better teach preservation of the earth. She also hopes that, working with other organizations, a group could take “an environmental inventory of the businesses in Lawrenceville and maybe even Mercer County which are working to be better stewards of the earth.”
Lynch recently spoke to the greater parish community about the hard work and the occasional sacrifice that may pop up as St. Ann’s moves forward with green initiatives. He aimed part of his talk to the children of the parish who will inherit the community from their parents, asking the children to remember what Kermit the Frog had to say: “It isn’t easy being green!”
St. Ann’s Pastoral Associate Gary Maccaroni, Green Team Ministry Member Mary Louise Hartman and the Rev. Gerard Lynch dicuss solar panels in front of the church. (Photo by Frank Comstock.),
