Launch of the “Laudato Si’ Action Platform”

On 14 November 2021, the Church will launch the Laudato Si Platform for Action, promoted by Pope Francis himself and managed through the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development.

The Church invites us to join this initiative, as well as other projects and actions intended to increase our reflection and action on Integral Ecology. Let us join together for the sake of our common home and our suffering brothers and sisters.

Marists of Champagnat and Caring for our Common Home

Many of us Marists of Champagnat are already developing various projects, adapted to our particular reality. This new project proposes to unite us, to feel that we are Church, and to move forward together in the care of life. Let us remember how Brother Ernesto, Superior General, pointed out this same idea in the subtitle of his Circular: Caring for life and generating new life.

The challenges are varied, depending on the each one’s circumstances: challenges that are personal or collective, to be taken up in our families or workplaces; challenges that are grounded in our concrete realities and in the realm of what is possible. For some, these challenges may mean continuing on paths already taken; for others, it may be an opportunity to start with small actions.

This project presents us with seven objectives. We want to highlight the first two: “the cry of the earth” and “the cry of the poor”. We Marists of Champagnat want to continue to commit ourselves along these lines that reflect the calls of the XXII General Chapter.

The Laudato Si’ Action Platform

The Platform is organised in seven sectors, or areas of commitment. Here, we Marists can also find various fields of action (as a Religious Congregation, as schools and universities, as families, as hospitals, as NGOs and Foundations…). Thus, the invitation to join this project is for all of us. In this way, we will “unite as a family that is stronger than the sum of small individual members” (Fratelli Tutti, 78).

With this project we are joining other groups, other institutions, other people, in a network. In different parts of the Marist world there are already instances of collaboration. By way of example: at the level of the General Administration we are working together with the four branches of the Marist Family to help each other in reflection and action in favour of Integral Ecology. Recalling the words of Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti (117), we are called to do our bit; we are called to transcend ourselves and the group we belong to.

From the Solidarity Secretariat we want to embrace the motto “Think Global, Act Local”, which we are so often reminded of when we speak of Integral Ecology. Yes, this is what we Marists of Champagnat are called to: to think globally and act locally. And now, in the “Laudato Si Acton Platform”, we have a means to achieve this.

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Br. Ángel Diego García Otaola – Director of the Secretariaty of Solidarity