The Vatican has released the official program for Laudato Si’ Week 2021.
On May 16, 2020, Pope Francis and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development launched both Laudato Si’ Week and the subsequent Laudato Si’ Special Anniversary Year to celebrate the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the encyclical.
Building on the success of the 2020 edition of Laudato Si’ Week, this new edition will be a celebration of the closing of the LS Special Anniversary Year to show just how much things have changed for good. In the last six years, the Church and Catholics worldwide have made significant progress in their ecological conversion journey. We know that much remains to be done, but we rejoice and celebrate how much has happened so far.
Now, at this pivotal point to which the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us, it is time to offer a clear roadmap for the decade ahead – a message reinforced by the creation of the Vatican Covid-19 Commission At the end of the LS Special Anniversary Year, we will present to the whole Church the living testimony of the Laudato Si’ transformations so far, and we will offer a preview of the tool that will help everyone in the next steps of their journey: the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.
According to the Vatican’s program for the event, it is important for several reasons:
- To celebrate the sixth anniversary of the encyclical within the framework of the closing of the LS Special Anniversary At the same time, it will provide an opportunity to do a “soft launch” of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform (ahead of the major launch on October that will be accessed through the Vatican’s official Laudato Si’ website: www.laudatosi.va.
- To bring key ecclesial partners together through different actions, events, and to further spread the “Gospel of Creation” through a missionary-like sending.
- To invoke the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary’s intercession over Catholic efforts to care for creation and to involve contemplative orders to pray for it.
Similar to the successful 2020 edition of Laudato Si’ Week, it is proposed that the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development serve as the main sponsor of the celebration, with Global Catholic Climate Movement serving as the facilitator of a group of over 150 Catholic partners participating in the initiative. The Dicastery’s Ecology and Creation sector and GCCM will create the program and speakers list, and GCCM will take care of all logistical needs.
Laudato Si’ Week will be a week of celebration, action, and testimony. Replicating the successful format of the 2020 edition, the program will have two tracks: the official program and decentralized side events.
