APPENDIX
IPJC’s Sacred Salmon Campaign Resources
Created by IPJC Team and free to use for Catholic Community Allies)
Faith Community Resources
Sacred Salmon Campaign Research
Legislative Meeting Toolkit
Op-Ed or letter to the Editor
Sacred Salmon Promotional Images
REFLECTION
Other Critical Discernment Questions for your Pilgrimage:
• How are you being called to walk as a pilgrim with sacred salmon and how does our Catholic teaching inform that call?
• What ecological, historical, or spiritual debts need to be acknowledged and addressed in your community?
• How might your journey contribute to the healing of our common home, especially in relationship to the livelihood of salmon and honoring of treaty rights?
• Do you want to honor spawning grounds, walk along salmon migration routes, or grieve and create regional awareness about places where salmon struggle to survive and often die, e.g. juvenile salmon barges in areas of great environmental injustice such as the Lower Snake River?
• What water body and surrounding ecosystem (coastal, fluvial, forest, mountain) in connection with salmon populations and their survival could our community honor and connect during this pilgrimage?
SALMON POETRY from Singing the Salmon Home, edited by Rena Priest
A single thread in a tapestry weaving though the orca’s teeth, the heron’s beak, the eagle’s plunging talons, the bear’s dark gut, the tangled roots of cedar and spruce, and now the glittering moss of microbes frilling across the tired body tarnished green and red which has accomplished nothing less than the mending of the world.
Tegan Keyes’ “The Cycle”
We can change, become protectors, or we too are condemned to wait in the shallows where breath is weak and voices silent.…
Carla Shafer, “Every River”
They say back in the day you could walk across the river on the backs of Salmon. Like Jesus. They say Jesus walked on water. Maybe Jesus walked on the backs of Salmon. Maybe Salmon are the miracle.
Leslie Wharton’s “The Miracle”
Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth. Francis of Assisi
Other Poems
Bewildered Hummingbird – a poem – The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery
PRAYERS for CARE for CREATION
Prayer of Reconciliation
We gather with a hunger for reconciliation.
What is done cannot be undone. What is done next must now be done with care.
We gather because we are hopeful, Because we have visions and dreams of a brighter future.
That there may be more than vision in this room, These are the wounds we must heal together Grief and anger for all that has been lost, Guilt or fear in the reliving, Pain that has gone without sufficient comfort, Mistrust that was earned, that continues burning still,
Every injury we may have named, and yet still carry, Those we haven’t, can’t, or dare not speak aloud, Those we are not ready to make public, Those still not recognized, accepted, understood.
These are the wounds that seek replacement Not cancellation or denial, Wounds we will tend cautiously, Applying the salve of understanding, Forming scars that mark our history, Without disfiguring the future we might share.
This is not a time of quick solutions, fancy talking. This is a slow precision. This is a prayer for peace.
We are new at this endeavor. New at listening, new at hearing. New at taking enough time to honestly receive one another’s stories.
What is done cannot be undone. What is done next must now be done with care.
We gather because we are hopeful, Because we have visions and dreams of a brighter future.
May the strength of this time together help us to walk forward. May the wisdom of this experience help us to know our path. May we have the courage to return, as often as necessary, until our way is clear. May we have the perseverance, together, to see it through.
May we cause it to be so.
Anne Barker, from To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience (Skinner House Books)
Let us live in a way that Earth will be grateful for us. (Robin Kimmerer)
Dear mother earth, who day by day Unfolds rich blessing on our way, O praise God! Alleluia!
The fruits and flowers that verdant grow, Let them his praise abundant show.
O praise God, O praise God, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181 – 1226) - may be sung to “All Creatures of Our God and King” tune (Translated by William H. Draper © J. Curiven & Sons)
O Leafy Branch O leafy branch, standing in your nobility as the dawn breaks forth: now rejoice and be glad and deign to set us frail ones free from evil habits and stretch forth your hand and lift us up.
Hildegard von Bingen (c. 1098 – 1179)
Hildegard von Bingen: O Frondens Virga (O Leafy Branch)
Other Care for Creation Prayers
Prayer for the care of creation - Catholic Charities USA
Prayers on the Care of Creation | USCCB
MUSIC for the Care of Creation
Laudato Si Songs - Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 – 1226)
• St Francis of Assisi - Canticle of Creatures (Umbrian + English)
• Laudato Si - Joe Hammill & Joanna Grennan - Excellent for school choir
• Laudato Si' Song by Nini Torres - Lively solo
• Laudato Si Celebration song ( Official Trailer ) - Multilingual fun song
• Barna Szabó: LAUDATO SI',MI' SIGNORE - Solemn mass instrumental
Traditional Christian Healing
• Hildegard of Bingen: Caritas abundant in Omnia - Love Aboundeth In All Things
• Hildegard of Bingen: O Fire Of The Holy Spirit, Comforter | O ignis Spiritus paracliti
River Songs
• Shane & Shane: Come Thou Fount (Above All Else)
• Phil Wickham ~ Wild River (Lyrics)
• Jordan Feliz - The River (Lyric Video)
• Dear Mother Earth - Patricia Gabé
Catholic Resources for Sacred Salmon Pilgrimages
Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation Toolkit:
This other toolkit was developed to support the national movement of Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation across the United States. The goal for the campaign is for 800 faith communities across the United States to host a pilgrimage during the 2025.
Toolkit Link: Toolkit- Pilgrims of Hope for Creation.pdf - Google Drive Credit LSM or Jesuit?
Catholic Teaching Excerpts Connected to Sacred Salmon
These excerpts are critical passages drawn from both Pope Francis’ encyclicals on Care for Creation. Linked in the resources page below is the full text of both encyclicals as well as critical local Pacific Northwest Catholic church teaching. We hope these can be utilized as reflective tools or in communicating with the community about how the Catholic Social Teaching tradition guides Catholics to partner with indigenous communities to protect treaty rights, restore salmon populations, and work towards being in right relationship with all creation.
Excerpts
from
Laudato Si
The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change…Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home...Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded. – LS 13
But a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves. –LS 34 In assessing the environmental impact of any project, concern is usually shown for its effects on soil, water and air, yet few careful studies are made of its impact on biodiversity, as if the loss of species or animals and plant groups were of little importance. Highways, new plantations, the fencing-off of certain areas, the damming of water sources, and similar developments, crowd out natural habitats and, at times, break them up in such a way that animal populations can no longer migrate or roam freely. As a result, some species face extinction. – LS 35
In the protection of biodiversity, specialists insist on the need for particular attention to be shown to areas richer both in the number of species and in endemic, rare or less protected species. Certain places need greater protection because of their immense importance for the global ecosystem, or because they represent important water reserves and thus safeguard other forms of life. – LS 37
We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man “dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church…we must forcefully
reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical texts are to be read in their context…recognizing that they tell us to “till and keep” the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). “Tilling” refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. – LS 67
Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God. -LS 84
Many intensive forms of environmental exploitation and degradation not only exhaust the resources which provide local communities with their livelihood, but also undo the social structures which, for a long time, shaped cultural identity and their sense of the meaning of life and community. The disappearance of a culture can be just as serious, or even more serious, than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal. The imposition of a dominant lifestyle linked to a single form of production can be just as harmful as the altering of ecosystems. In this sense, it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions. They are not merely one minority among others, but should be the principal dialogue partners, especially when large projects affecting their land are proposed. For them, land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values. - LS 145 & 146
Unless citizens control political power – national, regional, and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment. - LS 179
Excerpts from Laudate Deum
For this reason, a healthy ecology is also the result of interaction between human beings and the environment, as occurs in the indigenous cultures and has occurred for centuries in different regions of the earth. Human groupings have often “created” an environment, [20] reshaping it in some way without destroying it or endangering it. The great present-day problem is that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious relationship. In any event, the indispensable need to move beyond that paradigm, so
damaging and destructive, will not be found in a denial of the human being, but include the interaction of natural systems “with social systems”. [21] – LD 27
We need to rethink among other things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits. For our power has frenetically increased in a few decades. We have made impressive and awesome technological advances, and we have not realized that at the same time we have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival. – LD 28
We must move beyond the mentality of appearing to be concerned but not having the courage needed to produce substantial changes. – LD 56
This is not a product of our own will; its origin lies elsewhere, in the depths of our being, since “God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement”. [43] Let us stop thinking, then, of human beings as autonomous, omnipotent and limitless, and begin to think of ourselves differently, in a humbler but more fruitful way. – LD 68
I ask everyone to accompany this pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world that is our home and to help make it more beautiful, because that commitment has to do with our personal dignity and highest values. At the same time, I cannot deny that it is necessary to be honest and recognize that the most effective solutions will not come from individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the national and international level. – LD 69
Our Catholic Tradition, Laudato Si, and the Sacred Salmon Campaign
The following themes and connected topics emerge in both of Pope Francis’ encyclicals on the environment. These among others connect to this campaign informing and shaping the connections between our faith and this issue.
Cultural erasure due to environmental degradation – Indigenous communities are inextricably related to the physical places they inhabit, and as those places are destroyed so are their culture and existence.
“Many intensive forms of environmental exploitation and degradation not only exhaust the resources which provide local communities with their livelihood, but also undo the social structures which, for a long time, shaped cultural identity and their sense of the meaning of life and community. The disappearance of a culture can be just as serious, or even more serious, than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal.”- (Laudato Si’ 145)
Endangered species and biodiversity – The extinction of many species creates great urgency, as it ultimately weakens environments and risks our livelihood.
“In the protection of biodiversity, specialists insist on the need for particular attention to be shown to areas richer both in the number of species and in endemic, rare or less protected species. Certain places need greater protection because of their immense importance for the global ecosystem, or because they represent important water reserves and thus safeguard other forms of life.” (Laudato Si’ 37)
Technocratic Paradigm – There is an over-reliance on technical and market-based solutions which threatens the survival of our common home.
“If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.” (Laudato Si’ 11)
Catholic Identity and Values Realized Through the Sacred Salmon Campaign
Subsidiarity – the folks that are closest to the pain and harm hold the solutions for how to move forward, in this case we believe that those communities are the Salmon People of the Northwest.
Encounter – through spending time with the land, water, plants, animals, and people connected to it, each of us can restore our connection and heal broken relationships, creating new life and possibilities.
Reciprocity – in recognition that we are only able to move forward together for the common good it is through generative sharing of co-responsibility in the healing of creation with a focus on the health of the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers and the species that inhabit its nearby ecosystems on land, water, and air.
Why are we inviting you to honor the sacredness of Salmon now?
To deepen more just and right relations between your community and Creation.
"We must pray for the conversion of many people, inside and outside of the church, who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home," Pope Leo XIV said while celebrating a new formulary of the Mass "for the care of creation" on July 9, 2025 to the accompaniment of chirping birds in the gardens of the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo God requires that we assist the animals, when they need our help. Each being (human or creature) has the same right of protection. Francis of Assisi
“Pope Francis reminds us that through the greatness of creation we can become closer to God. Additionally, we are all called to be stewards of God’s creation and to come together to care for our common home. Collaboration on innovative, holistic, and sustainable solutions is a timely, moral imperative that Catholics around the world are addressing through the Laudato Si’Action Platform.
In the Lower Snake River region, we are also called to come together to care for our common home. A serious decline in salmon, a keystone species, is an indicator of environmental damage. Southern Resident orcas are also increasingly endangered as their food source diminishes. In response, we urge federal and state policymakers to care for creation, address the loss of biodiversity, and ensure the Lower Snake River ecosystem and its neighboring communities are able to thrive. “
Washington
Catholic Bishops Call for
Plan
to
Care
for Creation and the Common Good in the Lower Snake River Region, November 3, 2022. See full statement here
We are all called upon to lift up and engage our resilience and our empathy with the hope that comes from reconnecting and working together. This is the moment and we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We must be strong before the struggle, moving together with hope in our hearts and our minds, guided by Xa xalh Xechnging, “our sacred
obligation,” to the forces that bring us together, to Mother Earth and all her children, to the Ancestors, and to all those yet unborn.
— W’tot lhem (Jay Julius) is former Chairman of the Lummi Nation, a full-time fisher and father, and the Founder and President of Se’Si’Le. *Full Earth Day message here “We have a responsibility to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves” Julian Matthews, Nimiipuu|Protecting the Environment|Nez Perce
Full Protecting the Sacred Salmon and Rivers: A Nimiipuu Perspective audio here “Land, water, and food are not mere commodities but the very basis of life and the link between these[Indigenous] peoples and nature... the theme of this year’s gathering The Right of Indigenous Peoples to Self-Determination: A Path to Food Security and Food Sovereignty “calls us to recognize the value of Indigenous peoples as well as the ancestral heritage of knowledge and practices that positively enrich the great human family”...“Ancestral heritage and [Indigenous] traditions, Pope Francis added, open up “a horizon of hope” in a challenging time. “Defending these rights,” he continued, “is not only a matter of justice but also a guarantee of a sustainable future for all.”
Seventh Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum in Rome Feb. 10–11, 2025
Pope Francis: Defending Indigenous rights ‘a matter of justice’ | Catholic News Agency