Practicing the pope’s encyclical on environment

abc-seven’s complete coverage.. … of pope francis in america continues… welcome back to abc-seven at six, i’m estela casas. and i’m rick cabrera. here in el paso — the diocese is trying to practice what he preached. here’s abc-seven’s stephanie valle: the el paso diocese spokeswoman told abc-seven — leaders in the diocese have spent the last three months studying the encyclical. looking at how they can make changes to align themselves with his address. 4.14 as catholics, we have an obligation to make sure our environment is safe and healthy and will be here for the next generation. 4.24 spokeswoman elizabeth o’hara said the changes are beginning at the pastoral center, the diocese headquarters. they’re using the center as a guinea pig — to test the changes. some changes are big — like removing grass in exchange for xeriscaping. and irrigating the grass that’s left only once a summer. others are easy — like swapping out lightbulbs for energy efficient ones. and some are expensive — such as installing motion- detecting light sensors for switches — and replacing swamp coolers with refrigerated air. 6.10 we don’t want to lay that on the parishes yet. we don’t think they’re prepared for that. so we’ll do those changes on our own and we’ll take those best practices to them and say you can’t do it all at once. maybe if you tackle this part, then this part. it’s going to be a process. 6.30 80-percent of el pasoans identify themselves as catholic. with 57 parishes, a dozen schools and missions — the el paso diocese says it understands that it has a real opportunity to influence big change — if everyone is inspired to make small differences in their own homes. sv, abc-7. if you missed any of pope francis’s