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This week the Right Reverend Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool, joined protest groups Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action on the steps of Trafalgar Square. In his comments to those gathered, he said ‘as a Christian Bishop I repent of the times when Christians have plundered the earth. But I know that in my tradition there is a love for God’s creation.’ Bishop Bayes’ words felt like an apt summary of the challenge many of us currently face: what does it mean to live in an era where we are threatened by the collapse of ecosystems and climate breakdown? And do those of us in the Christian faith need to repent of destructive actions done in our name in the past and present? A similar tension between historical and contemporary failings and a spiritual tradition of love for our common home has also been evident this week in the Vatican, at the first ever territorial synod in the Roman Catholic Church, for the Bishops of the Amazon. For many Bishops and indigenous leaders present, this synod is an opportunity to reimagine the relationship between the Church in Rome and the indigenous Catholic communities of the Amazon, turning to the principle of ‘integral ecology’. Integral ecology looks to understand and honour the interconnected world we live in. In this framework, the ecological crisis is a social, economic, and political crisis. If you are a person of faith, it also represents a spiritual crisis. The spiritual and pastoral needs of those living in the Amazon are intimately connected to the needs of the place that they call home – a home now under existential threat. One cannot be considered without the other. Perhaps this is true for all of us, no matter where we live. One of the delegates present in the Vatican this week is Yesica Patiachi Tayori, an Harakmbut leader from Peru. She told the Guardian: ‘Eden is here in the Amazon and we are destroying it. We cannot worship God when we are destroying his creation’. For me, this is a reminder that if I believe in a God who is Creator, truths I find out about the world – in history, or science, or through experience – shape my relationship to the God who sustains it. Both the voices of indigenous peoples and the findings of environmental science have exposed our failures. This challenge is one for each of us to consider: our place in an integral ecology, and what would be required to pursue health and flourishing for everyone.