Rome (Italy). Laudato Si’ Week 2023 will take place from 21 to 28 May 2023, a week of initiatives, round tables, and formation events wanted by Pope Francis as a way to explore and share the ecological progress that is being made in communities, families, Groups, and Institutions.
“Hope for the Earth. Hope for Humanity” is the theme of the 2023 edition, on the 8th anniversary of the publication of the Encyclical “Laudato Si’: on the care of our common home”, organized by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and promoted by the Laudato Si’ Movement together with other partners.
Started as an annual way to celebrate Pope Francis’ Encyclical, Laudato Si’ Week has become an appointment for Catholics to come together and celebrate the steps taken in an attempt to respond to “the cry of the Earth and of humanity” and to continue to carry forward the commitment to pray and act for our common home.
In particular, this year the Dicastery and the promoters are inviting you to organize a community screening of the film “The Letter”, so that the testimony of the protagonists Arouna, Ridhima, Chief Dadá, Greg, and Robin, personally touched by the climate crisis, and the dialogue with Pope Francis in their meeting in Rome, can be an example in the struggle towards a better world.
Several other global events will take place during the week, including an event dedicated to the film “The Letter”, on Saturday 27, and the conclusion of the Week on Sunday 28 with the feast of Pentecost.
The Educating Communities of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians Institute, with the Chapter Deliberation, are involved “in a concrete and continuous journey of conversion to integral ecology” and committed to listening to “the cry of the earth, of the poor, and of the young”.
The Deliberation of Chapter XXIV should also be read in the perspective of the Vademecum of the Global Education Path where, in the 7th commitment – Protecting the common home – Pope Francis clearly refers to the Encyclical Laudato si’, which highlights the global dimension of the current crisis. He says: “It is not just an ‘environmental’ crisis, or an economic, financial, political or social one. It is a crisis without adjectives, because it is an interior crisis, which is projected outwards in all human dimensions, in the relationship with others, with society, with things, with the environment. The stake then is of an existential order; it concerns the position that humans assign to themselves in reality, the way in which they perceive their life in the world.”
The indications of the Church and of the Institute show a path to follow in the Educational Mission which commits the FMA to accompany, motivate, and stimulate the young people together with the Educating Communities of the Provinces to continue networking in the process and in the concrete journey towards integral ecology, assuming the richness of the seven objectives of Laudato Si’ in the spirit of the Salesian Preventive System.
Laudato Si’ Week therefore calls for action in this direction, organizing moments of formation and reflection in local contexts, together with moments of action and awareness around the theme of the year.
On the website of the Laudato Si’ Week you can receive more information, find links to daily activities, and register to get the latest news.
The Youth Ministry Sector of the FMA Institute also encourages the Educating Communities of the whole world to share good practices on integral ecology by sending them to the email address: ambitopgfma@gmail.com,in the desire to continue walking in synodality and networking.
