Pope Francis walks in a procession at the start of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon at the Vatican in this Oct. 7, 2019, file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Plan for yearlong Laudato Si' celebration touts action platform toward carbon neutrality, fossil fuel divestment.
The Vatican's peace and justice office is inviting Catholic communities across the world to join a grassroots movement to gradually work toward "total sustainability" in the coming decade, a path that would include carbon neutrality, simpler lifestyles and divestment from fossil fuels.
The initiative was revealed May 16 by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development as part of a "special anniversary year" planned for Pope Francis' 2015 social encyclical, "
Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."
The news came on the first day of
Laudato Si' Week, a Vatican-sponsored event running through May 24, the encyclical anniversary date. Now the week will kick off a full calendar of events through May 24, 2021.
As part of those plans, the dicastery outlined a multi-year "Laudato Si' Action Platform" that 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 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.
The action platform is framed across seven "Laudato Si' Goals" grounded in the encyclical's concept of
integral ecology. The holistic goals reflect the gamut of Catholic social teaching, and each lists examples of various benchmarks to accomplish.
Among the roughly two dozen benchmarks are becoming carbon neutral, defending all forms of life, adopting simple lifestyles, promoting ecologically centered liturgical celebrations and educational curricula, and divesting from fossil fuels and other economic activity harmful to the planet or people.
The action platform would begin in early 2021 by inviting an unspecified number of initial participants. The official launch is scheduled for the following May. At this stage, the platform remains an invitation, and no participants have been announced.
Participants would represent seven categories (families, dioceses, schools, universities, hospitals, businesses, farms, religious orders) and would commit 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.
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In the
Laudato Si' year anniversary plans, the integral human development dicastery, led by Cardinal Peter Turkson, states that the multiple "cracks in the planet" -- melting Arctic ice caps, wildfires in the Amazon and Australia, extreme weather and biodiversity loss -- "are too evident and detrimental to be ignored any more."
It adds: "We hope that the anniversary year and the ensuing decade will indeed be a time of grace, a true Kairos experience and 'Jubilee' time for the Earth, and for humanity, and for all God's creatures."
In the Book of Leviticus, a jubilee year occurred every 50 years, or "at the end of seven weeks of years," and was a sacred period of restoration with prisoners freed, debts forgiven and the land left fallow, free from sowing or reaping. "The land will yield its fruit and you will eat your fill, and live there securely." (
Leviticus 25:19)
Front page of document released May 16 by Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (EarthBeat Screengrab)
The Laudato Si' Action Platform and its related goals resemble the United Nations' own
Sustainable Development Goals. The U.N. agenda lays out a blueprint for the global community by 2030 to achieve 17 goals addressing a range of issues, among them: poverty, inequality, peace, hunger, water access, gender equality, clean energy and climate action.
The seven
Laudato Si' goals address a range of areas related to sustainability and ecological conversion:
- Response to the cry of the Earth: work toward carbon neutrality through greater use of clean renewable energy and reduced fossil fuel use; support efforts to protect and promote biodiversity and guarantee water access for all.
- Response to the cry of the poor: defend human life from conception to death and all forms of life on Earth, while giving special attention to vulnerable groups such as indigenous communities, migrants and children at risk of trafficking and slavery.
- Ecological economics: sustainable production, fair trade, ethical consumption and investments, investments in renewable energy, divestment from fossil fuels and limiting any economic activity harmful to the planet or people.
- Adoption of simple lifestyles: reduce use of energy and resources, avoid single-use plastics, adopt a more plant-based diet, reduce meat consumption and increase use of public transportation over polluting alternatives.
- Ecological education: redesign curricula around integral ecology, create ecological awareness and action, promote ecological vocation with young people and teachers.
- Ecological spirituality: recover a religious vision of God's creation, promote creation-centered liturgical celebrations, develop ecological catechesis and prayers and encourage more time in nature.
- Emphasis on community involvement and participatory action around creation care at all levels of society by promoting advocacy and grassroots campaigns.
For months, the dicastery has explored ways to mark the five-year anniversary of what it called the pope's "watershed" encyclical on the environment and human ecology.
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The integral human development dicastery sketched out a full calendar of events for the
Laudato Si' special anniversary year.
In June, the dicastery plans to release operational guidelines for other Vatican offices to implement the encyclical. On June 18, the anniversary of the release of
Laudato Si', it will hold a webinar assessing the impact of the text and where it goes next.
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