WelCom April 2020:
Five years on from the publication of the landmark encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis has urged Catholic communities around the world to take bolder actions to care for creation.
In a video message he invites Catholics to participate in Laudato Si’ Week, in May. The week aims to celebrate what has been achieved and to accelerate our ambitions in caring for the environment.
‘What kind of world do we want to leave to those who will come after us, to children who are growing up?’ Pope Francis asks in the video message. ‘Motivated by this question’, he says, ‘I would like to invite you to participate in Laudato Si’ Week from 16‒24 May 2020. It is a global campaign on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On the care of our common home.’
The Pope also renews his urgent call to respond to the ecological crisis: ‘The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot continue’, he says. ‘Let’s take care of creation, a gift of our good Creator God. Let’s celebrate Laudato Si’ Week together.’
The Pope’s video message and suggestions for action can be found on the Laudato Si’ website: www.laudatosiweek.org
Laudato Si’ has been widely heralded as a document of abiding beauty and insight. Its vision of integral ecology, which sees connections between how we treat God, nature and each other, offers profound truths about the conversion that is needed to overcome ecological sin.
The fifth anniversary of Laudato Si’ coincides with other significant environmental events to take place later this year. In November, at the 26th United Nations climate-change conference (COP 26), countries will announce their plans to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The UN’s conference on biodiversity, in which humanity will have the opportunity to set meaningful targets to protect the places and species that sustain all life, will take place in October.