Interfaith gathering will celebrate Great Salt Lake

Friday, Oct. 31, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — An interfaith gathering of prayer, poetry and music focused on the Great Salt Lake will be presented at the Cathedral of the Madeleine on Nov. 11.

The “Our Sacred Lake” event will include readings from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ and Utah State Poet Laureate Lisa Bickmore. Various local musicians will perform, including Utah Symphony violist Julie Edwards and The Madeleine Choir School’s St. Dunstan Choir. Dr. Ben Abbott, associate professor of environmental science and sustainability at Brigham Young University, will make a call for action and lead a procession of wildlife dependent on the Salt Lake.

The event is jointly sponsored by the Interfaith Gathering, the Great Salt Lake Interfaith Action Coalition, Grow the Flow and Latter-day Saint Earth Stewardship. 

The Madeleine Choir School decided to contribute to this event because several classes there chose concerns about the Great Salt Lake as the focus of their service projects this year, “in response to the important teaching of Pope Francis found in Laudato Si’,” said Gregory Glenn, the school’s pastoral administrator and the cathedral’s director of liturgy and music.

The school’s fourth-grade classes have adopted the Great Salt Lake, and many fourth-grade students are members of the St. Dunstan’s Choir, Glenn said.

“The St. Dunstan’s Choir is comprised of third- and fourth-grade students which rehearses once a week after school,” Glenn said. “You do not have to be a student at MCS in order to join. They perform for various charitable activities in the area.”

At the event, the choir will sing several songs about the lake composed by local musicians, and lead the Canticle of Creatures from the Book of Daniel. 

“They will also participate in a procession with large puppets representing the wildlife that rely on the Great Salt Lake for their very lives, including brine shrimp, pelicans, migratory birds and more,” Glenn said.

Everyone should care about the earth and the lake, he added. “The Great Salt Lake is the eighth largest terminal lake on the planet. It is a perfect example of the biodiversity in need of protection throughout the world. For Utah, the destruction of the lake would have a devastating impact on the diverse wildlife who rely on its health, but also severe health and economic consequences for people along the Wasatch Front.” 

The lake is now close to its lowest level since the size of the lake has been measured, and “if we do not act immediately, scientists predict that it will pass the point of no return and move to extinction, like other terminal lakes in the West,” Glenn said.

Father Christopher Gray, the cathedral rector, said that the theme of the event  “reminds us that creation is not a backdrop to human life but a gift entrusted to our care. The Great Salt Lake, in particular, is both a symbol and a reality – its health reflects how well we honor that trust. Faith reminds us that environmental stewardship is not just an ecological issue; it is a moral and spiritual one. By coming together, we give witness to the sacred responsibility we share for our common home.”

The interfaith effort also reflects the message of the pope’s encyclical.

“The importance of gathering as people of faith is articulated by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, where the main spiritual problem identified in Laudato Si’ is a spiritual sickness or a rupture in humanity’s relationship with God and creation, driven by individualism, greed and an idolatry of progress,” Glenn said. “This ‘ecological sin’ stems from a failure to recognize the Earth and its creatures as a sacred gift, leading to a mentality of domination rather than stewardship. Consequently, this leads to environmental and social injustices because the root issue is a moral and spiritual one, not just an environmental or economic one.” 

Everyone is welcome to this event, said Fr. Gray, noting that the Cathedral of the Madeleine “stands not only as the mother church for Catholics in Utah but also as a sign of welcome for all people of faith. Opening our doors to the interfaith community allows us to recognize the presence of God’s Spirit working in many hearts and traditions. It is an act of hospitality and hope – an acknowledgment that while our ways of worship may differ, our reverence for God’s creation and our concern for one another unite us.”

 

WHAT: Our Sacred Lake, an interfaith gathering of prayer, poetry and music

WHEN: Tuesday, Nov. 11, 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: Cathedral of the Madeleine, 309 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City

Free and open to the public. For information, visit https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x2SPunP_eM6quMW0u5tUCX-Wvo6Xf3DL/view