The fifth anniversary of the encyclical comes in the midst of another watershed moment – a global pandemic – 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” (LS, 137).

The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is happy to announce a Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year from 24^th May 2020 – 24^th May 2021. 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. The anniversary year will open with Laudato Si’ Week 2020, and will proceed with several initiatives, realized in partnership and with a clear emphasis on “ecological conversion” in “action”. We invite everyone to join us. The urgency of the situation calls for immediate, holistic and unified responses at all levels – local, regional, national and international. We 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 ulture, experience,culture, experience, involvements and talents.” (LS, 14)

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