Providentially, the Laudato Si’ week has taken place in the midst of Covid-19 Pandemic. The Catholic News Service on March 3, 2020 communicated that Pope Francis asks the Catholics to join week of climate reflection, action in May. The Pontiff stated that he wanted to renew his “urgent call to respond to the ecological crisis” and invited Catholics around the globe to participate in the international observance of “Laudato Si‘ Week” May 16-24. Pope Francis said the week was meant to mark the fifth anniversary of his encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.” The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot continue to go unheeded, the pope said. “Let’s take care of creation, a gift of God, our good creator.”
The why of Laudato Si’ week
This week was meant to be an opportunity for Catholics to look at: 1) the steps they have taken to protect the environment, 2) to assist the world’s poor, 3) to offer proposals for a way ahead. This week was sponsored by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and facilitated by the Global Catholic Climate Movement and Renova. Just a click to the sponsoring groups website — laudatosiweek.org will take one by surprise: from lobbying elected official to reviewing one’s investment portfolio in favor of companies that protect the environment.
The what of Laudato Si’
Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist and activist his 1989 book, The End of Nature, is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change. Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ did speak to his heart: “Laudato Si‘, on Care for Our Common Home” emerged 25 years after scientists first made public the news that we were wrecking our planet by heating its atmosphere, and I can still remember the enormous relief that came with reading Pope Francis’ words. As I wrote that day, “I’ve been working on climate change for a quarter century, and for much of that time it felt like enduring one of those nightmarish dreams where no one can hear your warnings. In recent years a broad-based movement has arisen to take up the challenge, but this marks the first time that a person of great authority in our global culture has fully recognized the scale and depth of our crisis, and the consequent necessary rethinking of what it means to be human.”
For some, it is indeed the great land mark document of this millennium. There is an “urgent challenge to protect our common home … to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change” [13]. That feeling of “intellectual relief continues to this day.” Laudato Si’ is perhaps the great document so far of this millennium, a remarkably rich critique of modernity. It managed to integrate the two great abnormalities of our time: the spike in temperature and the spike in inequality.
The motivating force of Laudato Si’
As Pope Francis’s ecology document turns five, it is very significant in this period of the global COVID-19 pandemic, to reflect on the motivating force of Laudato Si’ on the human family, the urgency to care for our common home and to design a journey for the post covid-19 period. Youth for Ecology – Pune in collaboration with the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco hosted the First virtual conference on 23 May 2020 from 11.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m. Fr. Stanley Fernandes, responsible for Youth Group, Pune and a number of youngsters shared their views on Laudato Si’, what they are already doing to take care of mother earth and what we could do together. The webinar was guided by panelists: Sr. Santana Pereira (Eco Team Coordinator, Salesian Sisters, Bombay), Sr. Cecilia Crasta (Coordinator initial formation, Salesian Sisters, Bombay) and Sr. Teresa Joseph (Resource person, Salesian Sisters, Bombay).
The following questions were addressed to the youngsters and the panelists: the significance of Laudato Si’ for the Human Family?, the impact of the document on the whole world?, Do you think our young people have an important role to play in caring for our common home? Can we get connected with them and hear their voices? During this terrible Covid-19 Pandemic, what do you think will be the best approach that we can have towards mother earth? Towards the birds and animals?, What more can we as individuals, families and communities think of doing? How to proceed in the midst of the challenges faced in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and the post-Covid period?
Sr. Santana Pereira, laid emphasis on Laudato Si’, the responsibility of the human family to till the earth and care for it, the rights of birds and animals and how we need to make our voices heard especially when destructive efforts are promotted. Speaking of the terrible Covid -19 pandemic, and the best practices, Sr. Cecilia Crasta and her group of youngsters said that they have already initiated a journey into: complete no to plastic, use of cloth bags as an alternative, use of containers to get fish, meet etc. from the market, complete no to junk food, preparation of snacks at home, goodbye to aerated drinks, segregation of garbage, recycling of goods, making manure and bacteria at home etc. Sr. Cecilia Crasta described beautifully what the birds and animals are doing during covid-19 lock down: we humans are caught up in cages, the birds and animals are moving around freely for Mother Earth covid-19 seems to be a blessin. Sr. Sunita Shah said: In Bombay, these days we can hear the chirping of birds.
Proposals for way ahead
The post covid – 2019 challenges all of us to:
• Make space for the animals and birds
• Treasure all creatures with love and respect, “for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another” (# 42).
• Ensure that the way I am taking care of my own mom, I take care of mother earth.
• Work towards a global consensus for confronting the deeper problems(#164)
• Become aware that human beings need to change
• Be aware of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life.
• Respond courageously to the great cultural, spiritual and educational challenges in the spirit of synodality and renewal (#202).
An ongoing dialogue on our common home
The youngsters present at the webinar manifested great interest to undertake a conscious journey of growth, freedom and personal conversion. They expressed their desire to have webinars on various topics in an ongoing dialogue on our common home. Pope Francis has put it eloquently: “In this Encyclical, I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (#3). The goal of the dialogue: “I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation that includes everyone, since the environment challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (#14).