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Fifth Anniversary of Laudato Si’ – Launch of Ambitious Program
Andrew Conradi, Victoria (Laudato Si' Animator; apconradi@telus.net)
Volume 34 Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 5, 2020
Building on Pope Francis’ 2015 social encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home”, now Catholic communities across the world are invited to join a grassroots movement to gradually work toward “total sustainability” in the coming decade; including carbon neutrality, simpler lifestyles and divestment from fossil fuels.
The initiative was revealed 16 May 2020 by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development as part of a fifth “special anniversary year” of Laudato Si’. The news came on the first day of Laudato Si’ Week, a Vatican-sponsored event running through 24 May, the encyclical anniversary date. The week kicked off a full calendar of events for not just the week but until 24 May 2021 (the year) and longer, until 2030 (the decade).
Building on Pope Francis’ 2015 social encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home”, now Catholic communities across the world are invited to join a grassroots movement to gradually work toward “total sustainability” in the coming decade; including carbon neutrality, simpler lifestyles and divestment from fossil fuels.
The initiative was revealed 16 May 2020 by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development as part of a fifth “special anniversary year” of Laudato Si’. The news came on the first day of Laudato Si’ Week, a Vatican-sponsored event running through 24 May, the encyclical anniversary date. The week kicked off a full calendar of events for not just the week but until 24 May 2021 (the year) and longer, until 2030 (the decade).
The Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, during Laudato Si’ Week, encouraged many thousands of people to learn and prepare for a better tomorrow. Sunday 24 May at noon local time, a wave of prayer enveloped the whole world from many in the global Catholic family. I did not see any publicity for it from the Canadian bishops. My parish priest had not heard of it until I told him; perhaps because of covid19. It is never too late to pray: we know that truly, “everything is connected.”
A multi-year “Laudato Si’ Action Platform” in gradual stages will invite Catholic dioceses, religious orders, schools and other institutions to publicly commit to a seven-year journey toward ecological conversion and “total sustainability.” The action platform is framed across seven “Laudato Si’ Goals” grounded in the encyclical’s concept of integral ecology and which reflect the gamut of Catholic social teaching. It will begin in early 2021 by inviting initial participants and be officially launched in May 2022.
The hope is by starting small, the movement will eventually reach a “critical mass” with more and more corners of the church taking part over time.
At this stage, the platform remains an invitation, to families, dioceses, schools, universities, hospitals, businesses, farms, and religious orders committing to complete the goals in seven years.
The Dicastery said it hopes the number of participants in each group would double with each successive year. The rollout would continue through 2030.
“In this way, we hope to arrive at a ‘critical mass’ needed for radical societal transformation invoked by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’,” the Dicastery document states.
The Laudato Si’ Action Platform and its related goals resemble the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
LETTER
As the Laudato Si’ 5th Anniversary Year gets underway and as part of it, Msgr. Bruno-Marie Duffé, Secretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, has just published a letter inviting Catholics around the world to participate in the annual Season of Creation (1 Sept – 4 Oct 2020), which will feature a series of webinars. The Economy of Francesco meeting of young economists, originally set for March, and re-scheduled for November has again had to be postponed. The Vatican also expects to hold its third roundtable at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.
It is also exploring a gathering of religious leaders in spring 2021 and World Water Day will be marked on 22 March. I suspect Catholics will be encouraged to celebrate Earth Day 22 April again. Towards the conclusion of the Anniversary Year, Father Joshtrom Kureethadam, the Coordinator of the Sector on Ecology and Creation of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said there will be an international conference, a musical event and conferring of “Laudato Si’” awards.
Another project is the Laudato Tree Initiative, an Africa-based project to plant 1 million trees supported by the Irish Government in the continent’s Sahel region. It is similar to the Birthday Tree Planting Campaign by the Franciscan Youth from Catholic University of East Africa.
Read more here: http://www.jpicfa.org/our-blogs/34-birthday-tree-planting-at-catholic-university-of-eastern-africa.html
Much of this info can be accessed in greater detail here:
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) did put out a useful guide to Laudato Si’ in 2017 which you can read here: https://www.cccb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Living_Out_Laudato_Si_En.pdf
Personally, I hope the Canadian bishops will strongly publicize the efforts by the Dicastery on Laudato Si’ Week (next year!); this Anniversary Year and the coming Decade and the annual Season of Creation. The Bishops must lead. Unfortunately the CCCB was remiss in doing so in a strong and timely fashion regarding the Season of Creation and Laudato Si’ Week during the last couple of years.
Their support was too little too late; barely more than a mention. It was been left to those such as Development and Peace, the Global Catholic Climate Movement (and its Canadian branch) and Franciscan Voice Canada and its monthly newsletter the Common Good, among others. Parishes need time to plan and get people involved.
Perhaps we should request the CCCB’s Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace to really take this matter seriously and act as strong, timely leaders! We can find the Commission’s members here to ask them ourselves: https://www.cccb.ca/about/commissions-committees/national-commissions/
My bishop is a member and he will be hearing from me! We could definitively encourage our families, dioceses, schools, etc. to volunteer to get involved and start putting bugs in our clergy’s ears; stir them up to ask their bishops! In Laudato Si’ (n 179) we are reminded to raise our voice and Pope Francis did encourage Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future protests.
Education and advocacy (talk, write, petition etc.) are the keys. Prep catechists can be made aware of such short Development & Peace videos as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIVuISZGdug
Youth and adults wondering how we got into this situation could watch natural historian Sir David Attenborough in the April 2019 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M.
For more on what to do (i.e. protect, restore and fund solutions) all would do well to watch environmental activists Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot in this Sept 2019 short film highlighting the need to protect, restore and use nature to tackle the climate crisis. Living ecosystems like forests, mangroves, swamps and seabeds can pull enormous quantities of carbon from the air and store them safely, but natural climate solutions currently receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Q0xUXo2zEY. (See related article "After COVID-12 — Co-creators of a Better World" under the 'Lead News' tab)
Andrew Conradi, Victoria (Laudato Si' Animator; apconradi@telus.net)