On the first Saturday of each month, Msgr. John Enzler celebrates Mass for the Missionaries of Charity and the residents at the Gift of Peace home in Northeast Washington, D.C. The home founded by Mother Teresa in 1986 to care for people with AIDS continues that saint’s legacy of caring for the poor to residents there who now include the elderly, homeless and some people with terminal illnesses.
Since early 2020, that property owned by Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has also been the site of another mission of faith and service, as the five-acre field adjoining the Gift of Peace home has been the site of more than 5,000 solar panels forming the largest solar array in the District of Columbia.
“Every time I go (there), I feel pride to see it (the solar array) is functioning and working well,” said Msgr. Enzler, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities in the archdiocese.
Catholic Charities’ solar array fulfills a two-fold purpose. It answers the call of Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home and the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II, that it is important for people to do what they can to preserve the environment for present and future generations, and that it is a matter of faith to care for God’s creation.
Plus, the value of the energy generated by the solar array – 2.35 million kilowatt hours in the past year – offsets nearly all of the energy costs for Catholic Charities’ 12 buildings in the District of Columbia, and also helps pay for the energy and maintenance costs for the Gift of Peace building.
That money that Catholic Charities saves from its annual energy costs can then go into its outreach programs, Msgr. Enzler said. This past year, Catholic Charities in the archdiocese served more than 235,000 people at its 52 programs in Washington, D.C., and the five surrounding Maryland counties.
“It the (energy costs saved) becomes programmatic money for people in need… It’s definitely a win-win,” the priest said, adding that those savings also help sustain the future work of Catholic Charities.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the veteran priest, known for his sunny personality, would be all-in for that form of energy.
“Solar is the right way to go. If you care deeply about our environment… This is a chance to step in the breach and do something different,” Msgr. Enzler said.
The priest said Catholic parishes, schools and agencies can likewise take similar steps to protect the environment and reduce or eliminate their energy costs, so that money saved can help them maintain their programs.
Catholic Charities’ solar array in Washington followed a template that has proven to be successful for it and other agencies, and Msgr. Enzler summarized that as “look for partners, and find a way to make this happen.”
The solar array’s partners included Catholic Charities, which is leasing the land; IGS Solar which financed the project; and Solar Energy Services, the general contractor that constructed the array. Catholic Energies – a program of the Catholic Climate Covenant based in Washington – was the project’s developer.
“We (Catholic institutions) have the land, and if you find a partner who will work with you, you can accomplish great things with very little outlay of your own funds,” Msgr. Enzler said.
Then-Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who was elevated to the College of Cardinals the next fall, blessed the solar array in October 2019 at a ceremony where the guests included D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Catholic who praised Catholic Charities for answering Pope Francis’s call to care for the environment. Mayor Bowser said the project demonstrated to other Catholic entities “what they can do” in that regard. Under Cardinal Gregory’s leadership, the Archdiocese of Washington launched a Laudato Si’ action plan in August 2021, as the Archdiocese of Atlanta had earlier done when he led that archdiocese.
In the spring of 2020, crews installed 6,500 landscape plugs and pollinator-friendly seed mixes for plants including black-eyed Susans, milkweed and wild indigo beneath the panels of Catholic Charities’ solar array, to create a pollinator meadow, and evergreen and deciduous trees have been planted around the array’s perimeter, with a goal of helping to control stormwater runoff there.
The sun shone on the day when the solar array was dedicated, and it continues to generate power there in the two years since the array has been operational.
Msgr. Enzler said Catholic Charities’ solar array “hits all the right buttons. It’s the right thing to do. It follows the lead of our pope and our cardinal,” and for that agency, the money saved in energy costs “supports those most in need.”
