The encyclical has the subtitle “on care for our common home”. In it, the pope critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take “swift and unified global action.”
The encyclical, dated 24 May 2015, was officially published at noon on 18 June 2015, accompanied by a news conference. The Vatican released the document in Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Arabic, alongside the original Latin. The encyclical is the second published by Francis, after Lumen fidei (The Light of Faith), which was released in 2013. Since Lumen fidei was largely the work of Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI, Laudato si’ is generally viewed as the first encyclical that is entirely the work of Francis.
The fifth anniversary of the encyclical comes in the midst of another watershed moment – a global pandemic in 2020 – and Laudato Si’s message is just as prophetic today as it was in 2015. The encyclical can indeed provide the moral and spiritual compass for the journey to create a more caring, fraternal, peaceful and sustainable world. We have, in fact, a unique opportunity to transform the present groaning and travail into the birth pangs of a new way of living together, bonded together in love, compassion and solidarity, and a more harmonious relationship with the natural world, our common home. Truly, COVID-19 has made clear how deeply we are all interconnected and interdependent. As we begin to envision a post-COVID world, we need above all an integral approach as
“everything is closely interrelated and today’s problems call for a vision capable of taking into account every aspect of the global crisis”.
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development was happy to announce a Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year from 24th May 2020 – 24th May 2021. They 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. The anniversary year opened with Laudato Si’ Week 2020, and will proceed with several initiatives, realized in partnership and with a clear emphasis on “ecological conversion” in “action”. The urgency of the situation calls for immediate, holistic and unified responses at all levels – local, regional, national and international. They need, above all, “a peoples’ movement” from below, an alliance of all people of good will. As Pope Francis reminds us:
“All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.”
Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’- On care for our common home was published on the 18th June 2015. This ground-breaking letter, written to every person on the planet, explores in detail the causes and effects of the environmental degradation that is being observed the world over including climate change and the effects it is having on the most vulnerable of communities. Pope Francis calls all of us to urgent action to combat the destruction that is being inflicted on earth, our common home and reminds Christians of our duty to be good stewards of creation.
EARTHDAY is honoured that the Biden Administration convened a global climate summit on Earth Day 2021. Many important environmental events have happened on Earth Day since 1970, including the signing of the Paris Agreement, as Earth Day continues to be a momentous and unifying day each and every year.
This historic climate summit on 22nd April 2021 is making active progress to Restore Our Earth.